Last Day in Quito - Caffeine Power Tour

Yesterday I gave away my umbrella to John at the end of the tour. Never really needed it this year and didn't want to carry it around anymore. He called me some slang that meant I was a cheap bugger, because I was giving him something I had bought it in a Chinese import store and not a quality store. 

Should have kept it I guess and saved hime the insult for someone else. Bad news too. It is 8 am and beginning a downpour. Natural street cleaning. 

For those of you with a sense of humour I just had to put this picture in. It's an Ecuadorean wheel chair.  The rest of you can scroll down. 

 

After the rain quit we packed, paid our bill and went out for a last walk around Quito. We stopped and had a coffee and chocolate cake at one of the Republica del Cacao locations in the old city. 

 

It's a decent cup of coffee with an amazing slab of desert made with some amazing flavours of chocolate. The one we were at is literally hidden on a boring street but has a wonderful sitting area surrounded by shelves of various chocolates. 

Then we walked for a bit more, shot some video in the Independance Square of some musicians, and stopped for a light lunch of chicken at Caravana.

OK time to wear off the calories by walking some more. This time we ended at another coffee shop called San Mateo's Cafe. This time we sat outside and had another coffee to top up our caffeine levels. 

Back to the Hotel San Francisco one more time to grab our suitcases and hop into our taxi. 

The next stop will be Quito Airport Suites in Tababela.  4.6 km walking today

Saturday at the Torremar then off to Big Ralph's

It rained most of the morning in Salinas. But don't let that fool you when at a beach. The people just show up anyway and the rain stops and the day is great by noon. It's the weekend and thousands showed up.

I found the building manager and asked him if there were any units for sale in the Torremar. He showed me two. One on the sixth floor above us on the side apartments needed about 15k in renovation according to him. Another larger one on the whole front of the building was in need of very little work but was only on Piso 2. It had an awesome front view but it would have been much better on the sixth. At 130 k and 150 k nobody is going to even venture a nibble. Far too much when you compare others available on this street that have pools or hot tubs.

Our Torremar building. We were around the side and not right on the front facing the street.

 

I walked down the beach and came across a music group shooting for a music video. Lots of playing and shooting different angles by the camera guy. It took them more than half an hour to get all the shots I saw and they might have enough for the one song. Nice job.

Here is a video on Youtube of the group pretending they are playing while the camera guy takes cutaways of each of them.

At about seven in the evening we walked over to Big Ralph's Fish and Chips.

We began with the appetizer of deep fried shrimp in the same batter as the fish is fried.

Then we ordered beef oso with mashed potatoes and vegetables, curried beef with deep fried onion rings and rice and beef steak with rosemary sauce, fries and salad.

All of these were great dishes. Ralph is originally from England and does not use the Ecuadorian method of salt as the only spice. He has several recipes and the ones we tried were all great with his homemade sauces.

And finally for dessert was a chocolate brownie with strawberry sauce and ice cream.

2.2 km walking

Concert at the Farallon Dillon

It was another typical lazy morning of sleeping in and coffee at a local hangout. The place is called Common Grounds.

In the afternoon we took a taxi to Farallon Dillon in Ballenita. We walked down the 3 million steps to the beach and I ran up because it made for a smoother video.

We also toured the museum with a guide that spoke great English so it helped us understand the origin of a lot of what we were looking at.

We had a meal of BBQ chicken and BBQ ribs. The meal was served with Texas beans, a couple of small baked potatoes smothered in butter, and some mixed vegetables. One of the chicken quarters was too raw to eat so it had to be sent back for rectification. 

The evening entertainment was a live music group called Trio Sandoval. Of course they were in spanish And they were obviously a cover band as the patrons seemed to be able to sing along. And there were some that made use of the dance floor.

 

It seems the trio brought some more family members to perform with them this night. I'm guessing the extra harmony singer and the percussionist.

Trio Sandoval playing El Perdon at the Farallon Dillon. It is dark but the ocean is in the background. 

It opens in a new window on Ecuadorsun.com

4.1 km walking