Saturday was a long day of travel. We departed from the heart of Pitt’s campus around 7am and after a bus ride, flight, layover, another flight, customs, and a final bus ride, we finally arrived at our first hotel of the two week trip around 10pm. Hotel San Francisco de Quito!
Waking up in Quito was quite a different experience than the empty streets we saw the night before upon arrival. We arose bright and early yet the streets were already filled with people! The night before I could already tell that we were in quite a walkable city, yet I was really shocked to see that most people were indeed walking. There were cars, but definitely not as many as I am used to seeing in the car-centric United States. And what even shocked me was how long the people were out and about! Sunday definitely seemed to be the day to walk around the streets of Quito. Lots of street vendors, markets, performers, outside all day.
The first place we checked out was the Iglesia de San Francisco (San Francisco Church). Mass was nearing its end and once we could go inside, the inside of the church was absolutely beautiful. Outside the church was the Plaza de San Francisco. Later on in the day, we visited the Basílica del Voto Nacional, another large Catholic church in the city of Quito. The views from the cathedral were absolutely stunning. It’s quite obvious that Catholicism has a strong influence in the country of Ecuador, which is why I’m sure that Sunday was the day for the streets to be busy. It was busy until nighttime, and there was a strong sense of community that I loved witnessing.
Learning about the Iglesia de San Francisco from the guia de museo (museum tour guide) felt very connecting to me. My family heritage is from the Philippines which is also a country with a strong Catholic influence. I did not grow up strongly with Catholic traditions in the United States but I recognized many parallels from the history of the churches and many of the traditions and norms I know that my family practices. I know that this comes from the shared colonization of the Spanish, and it was really interesting to see how the concept of globalization existed even before the technologies that allow rapid globalization today.