Our guide was Fabian. Fabian seemed knowledgable, although post facto many of the things he told us seem a bit suspect. And he tended to wander off topic, particularly about his family. While his upbringing was interesting and provided some context for the man himself (Fabian's father having been a rabid communist who was friends with Fidel Castro), it probably wasn't worth the mutliple hours of being talked at about it. Fabian, however, wasn't really very good at reading the room. That was particularly obvious when he started talking about the core of Ecuador's problems being "the elites" (really, that exact word, but here, refreshingly, it didn't mean "college educated" it meant "people with money" ... like us). And when he turned to politics, a lot of it was dominated with how the US had ruined South America with dirty politics. This is called "not playing to your audience."
None the less, we saw a lot of Quito, particularly the historical city center, which we criss-crossed many times over the three day period. That was fine, and we had a chance to see some incredible things, more than I wanted to put on a single page. So here is Quito by subject area, along with "Street Art" which is actually from all three cities we visited.
 Gauyasamin house and museum |
 Small Things |
 Other Museums |
 Cathedrals and Churches |
Street art of Ecuador