La Mariscal - Adventures in Gringolandia

La Mariscal area of Quito, just north of Parque El Ejido, is an unusual mix of bijou colonial-era buildings, towering modern hotel blocks, and downright weird constructions that wouldn't look out of place in Las Vegas.

Unusual architecture in La Mariscal

The whole district is saturated with hotels, hostels, restaurants, cafés, and bars - the latter being concentrated in Plaza Foch, which doles out the dubious honour of "Foch Yeah" stickers to venues considered to deliver an excellent customer experience. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that La Mariscal is largely populated by tourists, which earns it the name "Gringolandia".

Gringolandia - Foch yeah!

We took a walk through La Mariscal today, enjoying the eclectic architecture and sussing out the local handicrafts at the artisanal market.

Craft market

Plaza Borja Yerovi is a colourful square, in which all of the building fronts are painted with scenes, often involving hummingbirds.

Colourful house fronts

We pulled up a chair on the square outside El Manantial for lunch and enjoyed the set menu of quinoa soup (can't seem to escape it) and chaulafán - Ecuadorian fried rice with, in this case, black beans, mote corn, vegetables, and soya meat.

Chaulafán

A trip to Museo Milanae gave us an overview of indigenous art in Ecuador, from textiles to ceramics, wood, and more.

Faces

Many of the artifacts depict or are used in Shamanic rituals, or depict mythological entities that must be appeased or appealed to. Among a selection of effigies of spirits (supai) on the darkened fourth floor of the building there is a statue of Kundur Supai, head of the birds of prey, who carries a bag of magic rocks that allow him to find food.

From magic rocks, we went in search of magic beans. Good coffee has been largely - and bafflingly - elusive in Quito so far, and I was beginning to think that we would need some sort of enchantment to discover a decent cup. However, at the aptly named Magic Bean café, we were tempted in by the roast coffee smell and not only had an acceptable cappuccino, but a serviceable brownie (disappointingly not magic) with ice cream. The cost for such bounty was literally the price, which turned out to be over twice that of our whole lunch. That's what we get for entering the spell of Gringolandia.

Muggle brownie

Our walk home revealed the true beauty of the Quito skyline, as Cayambe volcano and two other snowy peaks - Antisana, Cotopaxi - were visible on the horizon as cloud lying low on the mountains had all but cleared up.

Cayambe