After a long day of traveling and a brief stop to Miami Beach we made it to Quito. Our day started with a nice breakfast and a tour of the beautiful San Francisco Cathedral. After, we had some time around the plaza where I decided I wanted to try every kind of food I could as each item was only $1. I had a fried munchkin, fried sausage and potato, a large cup of watermelon and mango, all followed by an authentic Ecuadorian lunch including rib stew and a cheese empanada. I found it was very difficult to order food and decide what I wanted when I couldn’t read the menu so I ended up getting a few things I didn’t order but it is a learning process.

After lunch we started the second journey of the day which we decided was to hike up to the Virgin Mary statue. It does look very high but the closer we got the more we realized it was a super steep cliff and involved a 1,000 stair journey. The mix of the altitude and constantly ascending up each step made it a grueling task but the view of Quito payed off. We then decided to take a taxi to the Quito Basillica which was a roller coaster ride of its own with our driver cutting off cops and nearly crashing into several oncoming cars but it seemed like he knew what he was doing.

We then continued our day on the stairmaster as we climbed to the top of the Bisillica for even more views and by that point we were starting to wonder why Ecuador hates elevators so much, but we got our exercise in for the day. Before wrapping up the day with dinner we were pulled into a local cacao shop with the nicest family. They gave us a free taste test and sample of all their chocolates and were beyond kind. I ended up purchasing four flavors being coconut, rose, passion fruit, and some sort of wheat flavor which we all had in the samples. We then wrapped up the day with dinner in the hotel and a quick stop to a little Ecuadorian music venue/restaurant where we got our dance on with some very nice locals.