Last Day in Quito

We were lucky enough to get good weather for our last day in Quito, which was perfect, because the plan for the morning was to ride the TelefériQo to get the best possible view of Quito.  Even just driving up to the base station was quite a climb.

Mom is afraid of heights, so she was on the fence about going up in the cable car, but in the end we convinced her.

We stood on our yellow circles and waited for our cable car to arrive.

Then it was up, up, and away.

By the time we got to the top, we had gone from 3,117 m (10,226 ft) at the base to 3,945 m (12,943 ft) at the top.  They had all kinds of oxygen for sale, some of it flavored, but we didn't feel the need for it.

You might need it if you continued climbing up the surrounding mountains, but we were fine where we were and just enjoyed the view.

Eventually, we made our way back down the mountain and to the old town.  Now that the weather was nice, we could stroll through the Plaza Grande and head to another restaurant my dad wanted to try at the Hotel Plaza Grande.

The setting was quite fancy, but once again we encountered incredibly slow service.  The girls got their pasta right away, and it was actually quite good, but it was an hour before any of the adults got food, and we had to practically tackle a waiter any time we needed something. Jeff finally got tired of waiting for a spoon for Elena, so that she could eat her pasta and went up to the bar to get one.  Overall, we would not recommend the dining in Quito.

Luckily, the house was just a couple blocks away, so we had some time to enjoy the sunny courtyard before packing up and heading back to the airport.

The four of us had a flight back to Bogotá at 5:45, but my parents' flight didn't leave until midnight, so we said goodbye to them at the house and headed to the airport.  When we got there, we discovered that our flight had been delayed for an hour, which I suppose is better than when it was cancelled coming back from Costa Rica, but it's a disturbing trend.  Luckily, there's an Outback at the airport, and it was all decked out for Halloween, so we camped out there to wait for our flight.

The girls and I walked around a bit and found a nice painting.

The hour delay turned into an hour and a half, but eventually, we were on the plane and headed home.  Even though we are all missing the Galapagos, it is nice to be sleeping in our own beds.