A walk in the park – take 2

This afternoon, I decided to walk to Carolina Park. We passed by this park last Saturday when we took the bus to Otavalo and at the time I was very surprised by the size of the park and by the number of people in it, not to mention all the runners. The park was about ten minutes north of our hostel straight down Rio Amazonas.

La Carolina is a 165.5-acre park in the centre of the Quito main business area, bordered by the avenues Río Amazonas, de los Shyris, Naciones Unidas, Eloy Alfaro, and de la República. This park started from the expropriation of the farm La Carolina in 1939. The design of the park was made by the Dirección Metropolitana de Planificación Territorial (DMPT). Pope John Paul II headed a great mass in the park during his visit to Ecuador in 1985. A giant cross has been built in this place.

I began my walk around 2:30 in the afternoon. The traffic was so heavy you would have thought it was rush hour.  Just crossing an intersection can be tricky business.  Often there is no pedestrian signal.  So you must guess when it is safe to go.  If you’re in someone’s way, they will be sure to honk you.

We have a view of these mountains from our hostel room.

Within a block of our humble hostel sits this grand J.W. Marriott Hotel.  Quito is a city of contrasts.  As I continued, the area became more and more upscale.  Beautiful condominiums lined the street. The shops were a little classier, and of course, more expensive.

Even in this posh neighbourhood, condo prices were downright cheap by Canadian standards.

Graffiti is everywhere in Quito.

But notice the bike path – cycling and jogging are very popular here. Every Sunday, Rio Amazonas, a major thoroughfare that runs North – South, is closed to traffic and open to cyclists and runners.  Reminds me of Ottawa.

A sculpture of a bull in front of a large office tower.

Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon a large, modern shopping mall that would have rivalled any in Canada.  Once inside this three-story shopping Mecca, I could have been anywhere.  It reminded me of both the Eaton Centre in Toronto and Bayshore in Ottawa.  There were many familiar stores in the mall and the prices were equally familiar – no deals in this place.  It made me wonder: who besides tourists could afford such luxuries? And yet, I was the only tourist in sight!  Clearly not all Ecuadorians are earning $300 per month.

My first impression of the park:  it’s huge and empty.

Football (soccer) is very popular here.  There was a game on yesterday afternoon and many restaurants in our neighbourhood were advertising the game.  Even our school organized a “field trip” to watch the game somewhere.

The Botanical Gardens are within the park.  Our school has planned an excursion here tomorrow afternoon.  Chris and I have signed up to go.  These excursions cost a few dollars each and students are accompanied by a teacher.

This beats work any day!

A large skate board park, covered in graffiti.

All school children where uniforms.  We have observed so many different colours of uniforms that we are wondering if every school has its own.  Notice the uniforms the girls are wearing in this photo.

A school bus.

Notice how the people are dressed. This is the typical attire I see everywhere – dark jackets, jeans and the young girls wear slouch boots.

This area seems to be thriving, with new construction all around.  This building caught my attention as these construction workers were manually hauling rods of metal to the top floor.

In case you were wondering, gas costs $1.40 per gallon.

The vendor in the foreground is very typical – street vendors are everywhere.  But they are not aggressive.

And that’s it for my walk in the park.  Hope you were able to get a sense of the area from the pictures and descriptions.  And I hope I haven’t crashed any computers with all these images on one page.