17/06/2019 –mum and dads last day, Quito, Ecuador

We had set a no alarm rule for this morning as we all felt like we needed to catch up on sleep. In true form mum and dad woke up early and Josh had forgotten to turn his alarm off so I think we all ended up lying quietly in bed awake for a while! We had coffee in mum and dads bed and then had our croissants downstairs. Mum and dad brought marmite to Ecuador for me so I enjoyed some marmite on toast! We got up slowly, mum and dad sorting a bit of packing, and then left the apartment. We walked through the old town to a church and monastry, the ‘iglesia y convent de San Francisco’ that dad wanted to visit. It has a large plaza in the middle with palm trees and some clipped parrots live there. We walked through the monastery and saw a lot of old paintings, and then into the church, which was heavily adorned in gold. Mum pointed out the ceiling that had something like over 4000 wooden pieces put together without any glue, like a puzzle!

Church full of gold.

We left and found a little café on Plaza Grande, the central public square of Quito. There were buskers with a huge crowd of locals listening and watching, interspersed with fellow tourists alike. We had some snacks and coffees and then visited the tourist information over the road, Josh and I got some information for our journey tomorrow.

The Sudell's out in quito.

There was a Pacari chocolate shop in the tourist information, which is an Ecuadorian chocolate brand recommended by our guide at Sacha lodge. We ate a load of samples and then realised they didn’t have any of the salted chocolate bars left, so they directed us to their other shop, literally just across the street. We went over the road and pretended we hadn’t tasted any samples, so tried it all again, still delicious! Then we stocked up and wandered down the road to the other recommended Ecuadorian chocolate brand ‘Republic of Cacao’ where we were given even more tasters! Dad bought some bars of chocolate that had cacao from the Sacha region, and we were invited into the museum area of the shop for a guided tour. We didn’t realise at first but it turns out it was actually the guides’ day off and he had come to just take his friend (who was studying tourism) around the tour. So we kind of gate crashed their date! We got told how the cacao was grown farmed and turned into chocolate and then we had even more tasters. We sat round the table and had to guess the flavours in the chocolate. I was rubbish at it! Some of the others had some good guesses and won even more free chocolate. It was fun but we were pretty chocolated out by this point! We left feeling a little bit sicky, and started walking back to the apartment. We walked past a sportswear shop and went in for a browse, I found a nice black bum bag that could come in handy and Josh got a nose clip for swimming. We went to the local market and bought some tomatoes and avocados and then went back to our apartment. Mum and dad packed their things, and Josh and I stuffed some things in their bags too for them to take back for us. We had a snack and then went down to the courtyard where Dirk made us all a farewell coffee. Then there was a knock on the door from mum and dads driver so we loaded their bags and said our goodbyes/happy Christmas/Happy new year/Happy Birthdays! They left for Quito airport and Josh and I went into the apartment to make the most of our last night of luxury before going back to hostel life. We ordered a takeaway pizza on Uber eats and watched some t.v., enjoyed nice long hot showers and got ourselves into the comfortable bed for the last time.