Plants! A Basilica! The Poor Devil! Fruit! La Ronda! Part 1

NOTE: This entry is broken into two parts, the first detailing Thursday (also Karla's birthday) and the second detailing Friday.  That should help make what was originally one looooooonnnnnggg entry more palatable for those of you with short attention spans :)

While experiencing Ecuador, it's hard to find time to actually write about it!  It's raining right now, though, and we just returned from an all-day trip to Otovalo (more on that in a different post).  As we relax, avoid the rain, and collect our thoughts from today, I'll try to recap Thursday and Friday.

Part 1: Thursday (April 8, 2010) - our visit to the botanical gardens, our ascent of the towers of the basilica in the Old Town, and our dinner for Karla's birthday at a restaurant-cum-Jazz bar.

El Jardín Botánico

THURSDAY MORNING: The botanical gardens, located in the park La Carolina, is a nice excursion for a couple of hours in Quito.  It's a small botanical garden, as botanical gardens go, from my experiences anyway.  I've visited the one in Montreal and also the one in Vancouver, both of which are much grander in scale and ambition.  As long as you don't expect it to be on the level of these Canadian masterpieces, though, it is a great experience.

We saw a diverse cross section of the flora of Ecuador, from the high elevation Páramo to the lowland tropics, including a rather nice collection of orchids in two greenhouses.  Toward the end of our walk through the garden, we relaxed at a small cafe near a beautiful little pond full of koi.  A nice, relaxing way to spend the morning.

View photos from el Jardín Botánico on our flickr photostream.

La Basílica del Voto Nacional

THURSDAY AFTERNOON: This Gothic-style cathedral, built in the 1920s, stands on the northern end of the Old Town.  It's an interesting structure, as far as cathedrals go, and sports gargoyles in the form of lizards and birds and other national wildlife, which is one of its cool features.  We climbed the stairs up to the second floor, crossed a wooden bridge in what one could only call the attic above the nave, then up a rickety cast-iron ladder (this would not be legal in the United States on account of safety hazards), which led us to an outdoor overlook that gave a panoramic view around the basilica.  More rickety stairs led up into the open tower, which provided an even more astounding view around the Old Town.  After this, we recrossed the wooden bridge structure and climbed further up into the clock tower, where we could see the inner workings, which, unfortunately, were non-functional when we were there.

Despite all of these interesting features, though, the whole place was run down.  The clock tower was broken.  There were shattered sections in the stained glass.  Trash littered areas of the church.  Construction or repairs appeared to be ongoing (as in, going on forever).  Graffiti decorate the walls.  From seeing the grand cathedrals of France many years ago, including Notre Dame, this early 20th century replication is a bit of a disappointment, if placed within that context.  The more time I'm here, though, the more I'm learning that it doesn't do you any good to compare South America to Europe.  You need a different context entirely.

View photos from la Basílica del Voto Nacional on our flickr photostream.

El Pobre Diablo

THURSDAY EVENING: We had originally intended to head back to the Old City to visit la Calle de la Ronda for dinner for Karla's birthday, but Karla was feeling a bit under the weather so we decided to stay in La Floresta instead.  We had been reading about this restaurant that was also a Jazz club, called el Pobre Diablo, and had even tried to go to it one of the first days we were in town, but it had been closed at that time.  We thought we would have dinner and also catch a show, and walked down to the restaurant with that intention.

Dinner was decent, but nothing too exciting - we ordered humitas con queso as an appetizer (which is essentially corn mush steamed inside of a corn husk - think tamale without any filling), and Karla had pasta primavera for her main course, while I ended up breaking down on my vegetarianism (there is only so much fried fish, corn, and beans that a man can eat) and ordered the pollo al diablo, which was a interesting twist on chicken cordon bleu (it failed to live up to its potential, sadly, but it was a valient attempt - ham, capers, and cheese wrapped inside a chicken breast and covered in some kind of white sauce - the chicken and ham were overcooked and chewy).  To go with dinner, we also ordered a bottle of Argentinian wine, which was quite tasty.  That, and the free appetizer of those toasted corn nuts and white beans that appeared at our table, were the best parts of the meal.

The place does get some bonus points for general ambiance.  It featured a spacious dining area in the shape of an L that wrapped on one side a bar, with an additional upstairs dining balcony.  The stage nestled into the corner of the L, and was a decent set up for viewing by all tables.  The set up of the place reminded us a little of the Woodberry Kitchen back in Baltimore.

Alas, we didn't manage to stick around long enough to catch the show.  We were feeling drowsy from the wine and Karla wasn't in general feeling up to sticking it out for a long night.  We headed back to the Folklore Hotel and retired early.