The Murals of Quito – No wall is white in Ecuador!

Quito – 

Galo Plaza – Mariscal Sucre

Since Verena wants to comfortably sleep late today and I have already admired the great murals and graffitis on the second day in Quito, I get up a little earlier to do a little bus tour through the streets of Quito. At the stop Galo Plaza I look for a bus (E1) that goes to Terminal El Recreo – this is where I already saw a lot of graffiti at the beginning of our trip on our way to Terminal Quitumbe. At least one of the graffiti looked like to be by the artist “Steep”…

Sometimes construction sites and detours are great. Since it seems that the road is being renewed on the original route, the bus is doing a detour – and I’m in luck: I knew that there used to be a kind of festival called “Detonarte ” here, but unfortunately not exactly where the apartment blocks with the murals were located – and by chance we just pass by them.

Terminal El Recreo

That’s it: After getting off at the stop Terminal El Recreo I will walk to the street “Moraspungo” and then hurry to the blocks of flats… The painted wall at the corner to Moraspungo has some impressive works. The side trip is definitely worth it: Even a work by “Apitatán” is lined up right next to one by “Steep” .

Although I have to return to the other side of the main road, there is not much traffic so early in the morning. So I leave “Rafael Arteta” in direction to “Alamor”. Wow. the saying “No wall is white in Ecuador” is really accurate here – there are 6 different artworks to admire – all immortalized on the big side walls of the apartment blocks. Among other works I recognize again “Apitatán”, “Steep” and “Stinkfish”…

At some point I manage to get up and take the first bus (C4) to Terminal Quitumbe.

Terminal Quitumbe

Again, it doesn’t stop with the graffiti which I saw at the beginning while driving with the bus – I discover a painting by Tenaz at a little house near the green area – as usual with indigenous motif, but this time socio-critical.

Mariscal Sucre

With the bus line E1 I return to Mariscal Sucre. I get off at a station close to a McDonald’s. On a wall, there are advertisements of McFlurry flavours. “+ Dulce de Leche”… That’ right, you can get the delicious caramel syrup everywhere.

With two large iced coffees in my hands, which in combination with the additional flavours consist to 1/10 of Dulce de Leche, I hurry to get to our hostel.

Ena opens the door with a “I need some compassion, I have a stomach ache :.( “, but that’s quickly forgotten when she sees the coffees. Well, Dulce de Leche > Belly ache .

This coffee could actually count as a whole meal, but we decide this time to have a cosy breakfast. We pack our things and order a portion of Tigrillo in a nearby cafe – delicious.

Strengthened we take the C5 bus from the bus station “La Mariscal” to Terminal Terrestre de Carcelén. “Cool”, says Ena, “there is a new station at Carcelén! So you don’t have to change busses at “la Y” anymore.”

Arriving at the bus station there is noise coming from every corner – we follow the “Otavalo! Otavalo! Otavalo!”-shouts and buy ourselves a ticket (2.5 USD) to the city with the well-known market…

Otavalo – 

About 2 hours later we are already in the room of our hostel “Hostal Valle del Amanecer”, drop our things on the floor and fall down on the bed.

Siesta Time.

After a little nap we decide to crawl out of our room and take a look at the surroundings. We stroll over the central market place where the sellers are slowly packing their goods. In fact, there is a market here every day – but on weekends the whole thing expands to several side streets.

In the restaurant Imbabureña we decide to have dinner before going to bed.