We got a map, roughly figured out where we were, and set out for Old Town Quito. Apparently the last pre-colonial rulers burned the city down on their way out in 1534, so old town dates to slightly after that, after it was set up as a colonial capital. If we're reading the signs correctly, some of the buildings--churches actually--date to the 1500s. Wow. We wandered through some squares, past statues and crosses, lots of old churches, and lots and lots of small shops. The architecture of the old buildings is very cool, and some of the carvings on the churches is incredibly intricate.
The hostel does breakfast and dinner, but we were walking around the city at lunchtime. We decided to embark on the list of things the state department tells you not to eat by randomly choosing a local place with a mostly-indecipherable menu and attempting to order lunch in halting half-Spanish. The waiter was patient with us and we got our 4-item lunch for $1.65/each: juice, fruit or soup, a chicken & rice dish, and a "purple mousse". There was a shrimp option instead of chicken, but we got the sense that the waiter was trying to dissuade us from ordering it. We're still not sure what it is and Google isn't helping. Anybody know what cameron murado is (maybe fermented shrimp)? The food was great, and after we left we looked up the menu items in the dictionary. Apparently the opaque white juice we liked best was "oat juice", whatever that is, and the chicken was in a mushroom sauce, which we guessed while we ate it. The fruit is "sliced" and the soup was a bean soup. Yum Ecuador! So far we're feeling fine.
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