My last full day in Ecuador and it was time to do all the things I didn’t get around to earlier in my visit. First up was the Teleférico, or cable car, that runs up the mountains next to Quito. Having fond memories of riding the world’s longest Teleférico in Merida, Venezuela back in the 1970’s, I was always keen to check it out – but the weather never looked very optimal so I kept procrastinating on it. This being my last day, I knew it had to be now or never. I hopped into my first Quito taxi and headed up the hills to the base station.
There were a number of mountain bikers at the station all dressed up for a ride. I noticed that it was possible to get all day passes for bikes if you wanted. Some of the gondolas had racks for bikes. Not sure exactly where they were planning to ride, but it sure looked fun!
Unfortunately for me, the view at the top was pretty hazy. I hung around for a little while hoping for things to clear, but it never really happened. I also bumped into one of my fellow horse riders from yesterday and just chatted with him for a little while. He was originally from Philadelphia but was living in New Hampshire and working as a journalist.
I decided to head back down the slope and hop on the Quito Tourist Bus for the rest of the day. The bus is a double-decker with open top, so that’s where everybody sits. It does a big loop around the city over 3 hours and you can hope off it wherever you want. The only downside is that you need to wait another hour for the next bus, so you don’t have time to stop at all 12 stops.
One of the things about it that appealed to me was being able to shoot pictures off the top in areas that you would normally not want to be waiving a camera or mobile phone around. Snapping away on the moving bus with my iPhone, I wasn’t expecting many of the pictures to turn out due to the constant motion. Fortunately, I was quite happy to see the results when I got back to my guesthouse.
