Visit from Steve's parents

Last night my parents left after spending over a week in Ecuador.  Their trip was for business and pleasure. The 50th anniversary of the Guayaquil seminary was on August 29 and they were involved with that seminary during their missionary service in Guayaquil.  Since they were coming for that, and since we live in Ecuador, they decided to come down a few days before the anniversary celebration, and stay a few days after the celebration.

We had a really good time.  We had guests in the house during their visit so they were able to see us "in action", and we also had time to do some fun stuff.  Since we've been here, we have wanted to do 2 of the fun touristy things but hadn't gotten around to it.  First, going up the mountain on a cable car - the Teleferiqo - and second, taking the Quito city bus tour.

Here are some pictures, first the Teleferiqo.

Cable car

Waiting to get on the cable car - on the weekends we've been told the wait can be really long, but there weren't many people while we were there.

Not busy at all.

In the cable car, ready to go up.

This cable car is approaching the end of the ride, it's about 20 minutes up and 20 minutes down.

Pictures from the top of the mountain:

Behind us is "Ruku"- one of the peaks on the Pichincha Mountain - there is a trail all the way to Ruku but we did not hike it this time, but we plan to at some point.

The city of Quito is long (estimated 22 miles from North to South) and narrow (estimated 2-3 miles from East to West).  From the top of the mountain it is quite impressive to see how the city stretches from South to North.  Unfortunately, it was a fairly cloudy day so we weren't able to see any of the volcano peaks.

Second, the Quito City Bus Tour.  The starting point of the tour is not too far from the guesthouse.  The bus is a double decker and the upper level has a retractable roof. 

Hannah in front of the tour bus

The tour has 11 stops.  At each stop, you can either stay on the bus (making it a very short stop), or get off to look around and wait for the next tour bus which comes by about 1 hour later.  So the tour can be about 3 hours, if you do not take any extra time at the stops, or potentially many hours depending on how many places you want to look at.  

The bus takes you by the old city, the historical district, many churches, the presidential palace, the Virgin of Quito statue, and others.  It was a good tour and a great way to see a lot of the city.  The bus drivers have to be exceptional because the bus is large and the old city streets are quite narrow - some of the turns are extremely tight.  

A few pictures from the tour:

Ready to start the tour

The Virgin of Quito statue in the background

The sign says "Bolivar danced here" - as in Simon Bolivar - apparently that is worth documenting

At one of the restaurants we went to, we ordered 2 Cokes, and in Ecuador they are putting the names on the bottles again, and we were given the names "Andy" (Hannah's brother) and "Steve".  Pretty cool.

Also, my mom had a birthday while she was here.  It was a lot of fun to be with her on her special day.