Quito is 2850m above sea level. It is the second highest capital city in the world after La Paz.
I arrived in on October 16th. I hadn't been looking forward to the 18 hour flight from Heathrow, London via a 4 hours stop in Bogota to Quito. But I really shouldn't have complained. It took Jean Godin's party a year to arrive with a 4 months stop over in Panama.
I've been higher than this before....... reaching the top of Mt Kilimanjaro took me to 5890m.
It is located on the site of the old northern capital of the Incas. The Incas completely and intentionally obliterated it in order to prevent it falling into the hands of the conqistadores and later had to be rebuilt from scratch by the Spanish.
The Old Town is registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is beautiful with its elaborate colonial Spanish architecture. The rest of Quito - not so beautiful, with its colourful buildings made all the more so by the abundant graffiti tags.
We would stay one night here before catching a mini bus to Cajabamba - the birth place of Isabela Godin and the place where both her story and ours are to begin.
Isabela Godin is not widely known in Ecuador. Oddly enough however, our hotel in Quito was run by a woman, Suzie, who came from Riobamba - very close to Cajabamba - Isabela's birth place. Many years ago Suzie's father wrote a song about Isabela Godin.
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