Quito

Back to the city, this time to Quito, Ecuador's capital. The Ecuadorians claim it as the highest capital city in the world, but it is pretty debatable as La Paz, Bolivia is higher and is the political (but not judicial) capital. We were keen to get up north to Colombia, so we really only spent one day up here, wandering the streets.

The city is fantastically picturesque. Here are a few of the things we found...

The observatory, with its slightly tacky corrugated iron extensions:

Pastel coloured colonial-style buildings line the streets of the city's heritage district:

We climbed the many stairs and ladders of La Catedral, situated in the heart of the old town:

Cat looking way too amazing in front of the stained glass windows:

The view from the top of the cathedral is awesome, with multiple towers to climb and have a squiz over the city and up at the surrounding hills:

Heading up the ladders:

From one of the towers:

We stopped for lunch and sampled some tamales and other Ecuadorian snacks. Better than the snacks were the local coffees which were pretty top notch. Cat about to dig in:

Cat was just everywhere and always ready for a photo:

More picturesque streets in the old town:

In one of the main plazas we found a band playing some classical Ecuadorian music. Even more entertaining than the band, though, were the elderly locals cutting some shapes in front. The guy in the suit jacket and the woman in the turquoise dress were easily in their 90s or beyond:

We wandered up into the main (new) part of the city too to try and track down some buses into Colombia. In addition to heaps of bars and restaurants we found only really expensive and sparsely timed (not for another three days) buses so we opted out of the direct buses and figured we'd make our way using various modes of local transport.