Dancing in the streets

Finally it is time to head out to the streets of Quito and actually explore the city. The missing luggage means it is not gonna be only a full day of exploration – there need to be some emergency shopping to replace some of the stuff which has gone missing. Hopefully the bag will arrive later this afternoon – and the replacement shopping should be limited.

It doesn’t take long before there are some distractions to the explorations of the city. There is a huge parade going through the streets of Quito with a lot of colourful people dancing in the streets of town. The parade is fun to watch and it just seems to go on forever. Hence the exploration is a lot less extensive than expected. The parade seems to be an annual event being held by the church to mark the winter solstice which apparently is on the 20^th of June down here south of the line. So why is it held on the 19^th? Well it seems like they want a crowd to come out and watch the parade which is much more likely to happen if it is held on a Sunday than a Monday – hence they moved the parade up a day.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

After watching the parade for ages we finally makes it down to the main square of the city which is very pretty with lots of historic buildings – actually all of the old town of Quito is generally a nice colonial area which is great for a couple of days explorations.

From the square we head through some of the colonial streets of the city getting to see a couple of old churches before heading into an old monastery to see the old building. By this time it is already getting late – despite the limited area we have explored. I guess this is what happens when you spend a few hours watching people walk by you in a parade.