Quito: The Best & Worst of Quito, Ecuador

hey there fellow travelers mark here with walters world today we're in quito ecuador for the five things you're gonna love and hate about visiting quito ecuador and you know i like to get the bad news out of the way first so the first thing you're not gonna like when you come to quito is actually the altitude and then going along with the altitude are the hills okay because when you come here what you have to realize is quito is at over 9000 feet okay the airport's like 8 000 feet and you go up into the city and the thing is is you might notice the first few days or even at the first week here it's a little tough to breathe because you're in such high elevation and you can get altitude sickness which is like nausea headaches difficulty breathing things like that you got to be careful with it so make sure you're taking it easy the first couple days you are here so your body can acclimatize to the altitude otherwise you could end up in the hospital so do be careful with that and if not the hospital maybe doubling over a toilet who knows it does happen um but the thing that goes along with that hey the altitude is also the hills that are here look there's all kinds of hills you're going to be walking up and down when you are here in quito and you know it's most time hills okay it's a little bit of exercise but the thing is when you're 9 000 feet it can be really tough and it can wear you out really quickly so don't be don't be ashamed to like take a little break since it's time looking at some of the great churches that are here there's a ton of them to check out when you walk up to the the basilica of the big huge gothic one neo-gothic one you're going to take a break when you're there walking up the the steps into that man it's gonna it's gonna take a lot outing so do be careful with that but that's the thing you're really not gonna like is the altitude sickness the altitude the difficulty to breathe to go along with those hills now the second thing you might not like which is some people get what about ecuador for this is the weather might get you when you're here and when i talk about the weather once about two things one the sun and two the unpredictable nature of quito weather okay first things first man the uv rays here the sun here is super intense we are on the equator so you got to be really careful i mean you're going to get burned very easily i've been putting 50 on every two hours i've been wearing my panama hat and my other hats i brought with me i got a pat on my hat when i was here um hey don't if you didn't know panama hats are actually from ecuador okay um but i've been wearing my hat you know the kids have been having long sleeves caleb's here kicking the soccer ball he's got jeans on but you might be going wait why has he got jeans on it's ecuador it's the equator it's supposed to be hot well here's another thing you're not gonna like about the weather it's not hot here okay quito is like san diego in terms of it's like the same weather every single day so imagine if you're going to come here highs around 65 lows you got to like 45 so let's say it's 60 to 70 during the day all year round and 40 to 50 for the lows all year round and so the thing is you really need to realize is you got to bring layers when you come here now are you going to go to the coast are you going to go to the amazon or galapagos yes it's warm all year round but here in quito oh no no no so you need to make sure you bring a jacket or a coat or something and what's crazy is no matter what the weather channel tells you they could say there's no rain coming oh there'll be rain it always comes and all the guys we talk to all the people we talk to they always have a jacket with them just in case so throw a jacket at the back for yourself okay now the third thing you're not gonna like when you come here and this is one of the things actually one of the biggest dangers here is anything to do with cars and driving here um look one don't leave anything in your car if you are driving around here i would avoid driving if you can um if you're going to be on any tours and things like that don't leave anything in the car behind but actually probably the biggest dome with don't deal with cars when you're here is don't think that they're going to stop for you when you cross the street you really need to pay attention when you cross the street here because cars will just go and you might think well i've got the light man i know you have to pay attention we're by the the basilica we saw a guy get hit by a car with his bike i mean boom and you know you might wait a while to cross the street sometime so be ready for that it gets a little frustrating but believe me it's a lot safer than the alternatives okay now the fourth thing you're gonna hate when you come to quito and this is the one that really irked me because there are so many amazing churches here going to san francisco church going to the cathedral going to you know compania church there's so many beautiful churches here you'll see the architecture style inside you can see the spanish influence the moorish influence all kinds of stuff inside the gold inside of san francisco and companion there's so many amazing churches inside but guess what you can't do you can't take pictures inside of them and they're so gorgeous and you want to show them but you can't and that sucks and that's one thing that really kind of irks me about that is i can't do that so just have a heads up for that now the fifth thing you might not like when you come here is actually about the infrastructure that's here now the infrastructure here is getting much better you know but the thing is the infrastructure for tourism and the interest for the people sometimes tourists i get people right me to get upset about these things and one thing is you know you can't drink the water like a lot of places in the world you got to drink the bottled water when you are here another thing is is the toilets you got to put the toilet paper in the basket okay and some people don't like that part about the infrastructure wait why am i throwing my poopy things into the basket not in the bowl look you don't do that here and the thing is that can't upset some people but some other infrastructure things that will probably get you is you know the amount of time it might take you to get to the airport now we had a early morning flight at 7 30 in the morning flight to cuenca last week and so when we got there our driver picked us up and it was early morning like like they picked us up at five o'clock in the morning and it took us about 45 minutes from the old town to get to the airport with absolutely no traffic and the thing is if you have an afternoon flight or something that's going to deal with uh deal with some of the you know rush hour traffic that lack of infrastructure to get out there and easy ways to get there in a fast with the airport it's going to be a real pain in the butt and to go along with that infrastructure thing one of them is the atms here look i know when you read in the guidebooks it sounds like there's atms everywhere there's not okay so make sure you're asking where the atm's at and get your cash when you can and they use us dollars here by the way so you do have that so just a heads up for that but anyway let's get to the things you're going to love and i'm going to leave here you know in quita we're going to go to one of the really great day trips you can go to the bay vista uh cloud forest do things but you can go to otavalo market there's all kinds of stuff but that's going to be one of the loves so i won't grow on that one so we'll go there have a great time here in keto bye for this part [Music] so now we've left the heart of quito and now we're at a vista cloud forest it's a reserve you can go to outside of quito i'll tell you why i'm here later on my fifth love okay because i gotta start with my first love of going to quito and that is going to the historic old town the center historical oh my god you can understand why the downtown the old town of quito is a unesco world heritage site the buildings that are there the churches that are there oh my god it takes you back in time the the coyotes crucified of seven crosses when you go there you see the church after church there's amazing buildings and stuff like that the the plaza grande and all these things you're like man this is just awesome and you're really gonna love that so when you go to the san francisco church in the plaza san francisco and you go inside there remember i told you how you're upset because you can't take pictures inside once you go on and you see the gold and the geometric you can see that the moorish influence in the spanish architecture that was then placed here in quito oh my god it is just gorgeous the company church with the artwork that's there and how it's done the facades it's just amazing going and seeing you know and when you're outside the old town you can see the the volta united uh the basilio church there's so many great things to see there and the thing is it's not just you know churches in a magnificent architecture there's also cool areas to go you can walk on loranda which is like these two little streets that kind of break off and you can see where you know where they make chocolate they have all these little cute restaurants and cute little shops and stuff like that there's just so many great things to do and you'll love staying in downtown and what's cool about the downtown and it's also cool about quito in general and my second love of quito is that it's cheap you can get hotels downtown the historic center for like 40 bucks a night there's tons of hostels there too now you're not getting the high-end hotels in the historic district you got to stay in la mariscal which is the new part if you want like to stay in the hilton or the nh or suites or whatever you got to be up there but in the downtown man or the historic part of town you can find cheap apartments cheap hotels all kinds of stuff and in general quito is super cheap 25 cents to take the bus uh you want to go out and eat you can get on wedos like food in these little corner stores and stuff like that for two three four bucks you can eat drink make merry all really really cheap when you are here in quito well when you are there in quito and that's the second thing you're gonna love the third thing you're gonna love is when you go up to the virgin now when you the virgin you'll you'll see you'll go oh there's an angel on top of the hill up there no that's not an angel okay that's a virgin and you're gonna see uh representations of that version around town if you go to san francisco you see the one it's kind of based off of you'll see it in the altar but when you go up there you get this great view of the city okay now i'm gonna tell you take a taxi up there don't walk up there you go through some shady parts of town and it's a long way to go and with the altitude like we talked about before you don't deal with that but when you get up there you get a really good feel of the city you see the volcano on your left yes there's an active volcano by quito just so you know you see the other side of the city you see how it goes down you just have these magnificent views of the city and i really like it up there and you can take a taxi up there and say hey just wait for me they'll wait for you you can stay up there for a while climb up in it do stuff take the taxi back we did that it was like seven bucks from the center okay so that was really really kind of cool now the fourth thing you're going to love about coming to quito is actually for a huge city for a capital city it's not like a huge city the people are super friendly i know i keep talking about south america and ecuador it was so nice so nice but i mean think about it you've got a few you know a couple million people living in the city and the people are still super nice how often does that happen and that's one of the greatest parts about being here is the people are so friendly and also what's really cool is when you're in the city it's clean i know people like what south america is dirty and all this stuff but no no quito is a clean city as well because the people are so kind so helpful and care about their city they do a really nice job and so you know whether you're in the historic center and the la marisa which is like gringo landia where all the bigger like hotels restaurants and shopping more traditional stuff are you have that and that's why it has a very different feel for a big city and that's what i love about it because it gives this kind of laid back awesome kind of feel with these people and the fifth thing you're gonna love when you do come here to quito the reason why i'm here at bayvista uh cloud forest is there are tons and tons of great day trips you can take from quito i know you go mark why don't you tell us to leave the city well you don't have to leave the city but there's things you can do to really enjoy more so if you want to stay longer in quito and do day trips use that as your hub that's really cool or you can stay at places outside too there there's options but the day trips are awesome probably the most pop there's two really popular ones the one most visited site i think in the country is the mitad del mundo okay remember ecuador is on the equator hence its name okay and if you go to matado mundo there's two things you want to see one is the metadata mundo which is like the official place where their big statue and you'll take your picture holding things up and stuff like that and that's where they originally said this is the equator that's where it was and they have like information centers and a museum there and restaurants and you can see people making guinea pig cui there they'll be rotating around and stuff like that you will have that and then literally about 200 meters around the corner from there when you leave there's another smaller museum okay it's like or area and when you go there that's actually on the gps zero zero zero zero line okay and they've got some cheese bali things there but what's cool is they kind of have like bigger than dioramas but they have kind of like displays for different parts of the country and so you'll see you know a shrunken head and you'll learn about the animals the different parts of the countries and things different parts of the country and things like that which is really cool but also then you can do the like uber touristy but actually kind of cheesy fun things like balancing an egg on a nail you know because oh here at the equator that you know it works differently and will either pour the water in to show you oh go straight down here then it's on the sides over there and stuff like that and how it twirls down that the corialis effect they'll have all kinds of really cool things that you can do when you are there and they do have a nice time a nice fun time with you when you are there which is cool for tourists you know especially with kids our kids loved it we loved it maybe you want to do some hiking go to cotopaxi you can go to the volcano and go hike up around there that's really cool you come to the cloud forest like bayavista and go hike around here and go see hummingbirds i mean we had hummingbirds eating out of our hands it was amazing and so that's what's cool is you can do so many things when you are by keto and of course i even mentioned the otavalo market the famous market go there on a saturday so it has the textiles it has the art it has the food it has the spices it has a really amazing experience when you are there do pay attention when you are there with your bags though i'll tell you that one and don't be afraid to negotiate when you are there but it is a really cool thing to do so if you do come here to quito make sure you get out for those day trips as well anyway i hope this video gave you a better idea of some things to look forward to and watch out for when you do come to quito we've had a great time here we can't wait to come back and i hope you enjoy it too if you want to learn more about quito the don'ts of quito or maybe the don'ts of ecuador things that will shock you about coming to ecuador check us out on our website at waltersworld.com we're also on twitter facebook instagram youtube and we really appreciate your likes and subscriptions and if you like travel videos like this videos that really try to give you an idea of the culture and the place and honest travel advice click that subscribe button and we do put out new travel videos every wednesday and saturday to help all kinds of travelers from backpackers to luxury to middle-aged fat guys we try to help everybody out to have a better time traveling anyway i'll say bye from ecuador and have a great time if you're going to quito cuenca the galapagos or wherever in south america too it's a great place bye from ecuador oh liam wants to say bye come here buddy i'm going to say bye bye bye from ecuador

Channel: Wolters World

Views: 41,941

Keywords: travel, europe, wolters world, travel advice, tourist attractions, travel vlogger, honest travel, Walters World

Id: gYflXRomjBY

Length: 14min 8sec (848 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 10 2022