sweet French horn hermano

Quito has been actively "lived in" since before the first century.
Modern Quito history began when the Incas conquered the region in the 15th century and made it the Empire's Southern capital. The Spanish rolled in shortly after, built a beautiful set of churches and colonial homes and it pretty much stayed that way until the 40s post war banana boom... yep today we have tech booms, back in the day, bananas boomed.

The town is split into Old Town and New Town (I will let you work out the details behind those names). Heather found a little pension in the heart of Old Town, in a refurbished colonial... it buildings could talk, this one would have stories...

Heather was jacked with city map to get to it...

Day Ones are a wonderful mixture of nervousness and anticipation... we never plan anything specific, instead, we just head out into the city and let life cascade over us. 

Here are a sample of some life waves from the day...

Plaza Grande de la Independencia, with a column celebrating the awesome-ness of the Ecuadoran people (and the Presidential Palace in the background)...

And what column would be complete without the obligatory lion at the bottom?!?!

So when a city just sort of organically grows, you end up with some strange bedfellows... like for instance a full bed room set being sold right next to a 

shop with wacky face masks... and literally just face masks, not face masks and costumes, or face masks and hats, or face masks and whatever one would find logically with face masks... nope, just face masks and only face masks thank you very much.

Which was next to a product market selling ridiculously large greens... giant heads of lettuce and bananas that sort of made me uncomfortable about my manhood.

And of course, when your city was first designed in 1534, either pedestrian walk ways were not a consideration or people were a lot thinner...

We also met some great locals... 

I have seen plenty of buskers (people playing music for money), but I have honestly never seen a dude with a French horn and he was so good...

I have also seen plenty of stunts while cars are stopped at a red to ply money from drivers (washing windows, selling flowers, etc)... but again, never seen a juggling show... they had 24 seconds while the green walking guy appeared to juggle, dodge pedestrians and collect money... so good.

Lion clown was dancing and singing and have a great time... we figured he was of course busking as well... nope, just dressed as a lion clown, singing and dancing, please keep your money and enjoy the show.