Day 5

After breakfast we started a walk to the Mindalae museum, but were side tracked by a quest for a camera store. The quest was unsuccessful, but we walked a large section of the Mariscal district, which is adjacent to “our” area of La Floresta.  The museum is not very big, but quite interesting. It is an ethno-historical craft museum and it holds lots of artifacts from the indigenous history of Ecuador. Its organization is a bit unusual as each of the 5 floors focuses on a different craft, e.g. the 5^th floor – on pottery, 4^th on weaving/textiles, 3^rd on basket weaving; 2^nd on wood carving and 1^st on jewelry. Since we were still on the camera quest, a woman in the museum told us that we may find a camera store in a shopping mall nearby, and we went there. After we got to the mall and asked several people, we didn’t find any store.  Back to the hotel, and the concierge told us where the big camera stores are.  We decided to have the famous Quiteno potato soup called locro de papas for lunch. It was delicious – a thick soup with pieces of potatoes + chunks of avocado and cheese  and corn. They grow tons of avocadoes in the area so they serve them pretty much with everything, and they are really delicious. After lunch, we took a taxi to a large shopping mall in the city center called Quicentro, but were unsuccessful in finding an inexpensive camera.  The cheapest was over $1000.  The Sony model Bo wants is on order and they told us if you order it now maybe in a month it will arrive. We have given up on a quest for an inexpensive camera and went for another walk in a different part of Mariscal. Bo wanted to see Plaza Foch, which is supposed to be the most hip place for young people’s evening entertainment. It was very disappointing. Lots of very loud bars, cheap looking restaurants and not much of anything else. On the plaza we were approached by a group of tourist police, who were there in force, and gave us a brochure about safety. They really have a big problem with theft in this city and the police are trying their hardest to prevent it, but so far to no avail. We asked them if we could have a picture with them since we regretted not taking a picture with the helpful police group in la Ronda.  Then, we went back to the hotel for a drink. When we checked in they gave us 7 coupons for drink at the bar.  Since there were 2 of us they said they would give us 7 more later.  They actually gave us 10 more. When we used our first coupon, the nice bar girl told us the coupon was good for 3 drinks. We never have to pay for a drink in this hotel.

Two days ago we had pizza and asked for tiramisu, the owner/chef apologized and said they had none but come back tomorrow. We went back yesterday and he apologized again saying that he didn’t make it, but come back tomorrow and for sure he’ll have some. Today we went to a great seafood restaurant for dinner, and then stopped at the pizza place.  They welcomed us; the whole family was there including the Italian grandfather.  They set a place for us and brought us bruschetta. After we ate it, they came and apologized that the tiramisu was not ready because he made late and we had to take it home and put in the fridge for a few hours. They said they wouldn’t do it for anybody else. Since they did not have takeaway containers, they gave it to us on china and asked that we return the dish tomorrow.

Back to dinner … The restaurant we went to was recommended to us as the best place for seafood in Quito. Luckily it’s a 7-minute walk from the hotel. The name of this restaurant is Segundo Muelle and its seafood is fantastic. They have a lot of unusual dishes, including several kinds of ceviches and octopus dishes. Both dishes we had were amazing and we are planning on going back there at least one more time. They say that all their fish was caught on the same day it is served and you can taste it.