97AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2019 – DESTINASIAN.COMT’S HOLY FRIDAY in Quito, and tens of thou-
sands of worshipers have gathered in the city’s
16th-century Centro Histórico for the annual
procession of Jesús del Gran Poder. The conical
purple hats of the cucuruchos—costumed peni-
tents with chains fastened to their ankles or
crosses of prickly cactus on their bare backs—
bob up and down above the shoulders of the
crowd like a rolling violet wave. Navigating the
narrow, hilly streets through the flow of devo-
tees is made even more challenging by the rar-
efied Andean air. At 2,850 meters above sea level, Quito is the world’s
second-highest capital city, and I quickly find myself doubled over in
an attempt to catch my breath. A passing trumpeter in a straw hat
casts me a sympathetic gaze, uttering a single word of understand-
ing: “Alto.” High, indeed.
Capturing a final shot of the parading cucuruchos, I make my
way downhill to the cobblestoned Plaza de San Francisco. Concierge
Alfonso Díaz is there with a smile and a handshake to usher me
into Casa Gangotena, a century-old former mansion that, after three
years of painstaking restoration, reopened in 2013 as a 31-room hotel
with its original art nouveau and neoclassical architecture intact. Ex-
hausted, I sink into a chair in the plant-filled atrium before heading
upstairs to the rooftop terrace to watch the tail-end of the procession
as it pours out of the Church and Convent of San Francisco.
At last the float carrying the Jesús del Gran Poder—a 17th-century
wooden statue of Christ on the path to Calvary—emerges, flanked
by priests and a shoulder-to-shoulder cordon of riot police. Suppli-
cants press in, calling out invocations and dashing their foreheads
in the sign of the cross. Díaz passes me a basket of rose petals and
I join the dozens of other guests gathered on the roof in showering
the parade below with floral offerings.QUITO, AND INDEED all of mainland Ecuador, has long been over-
looked by travelers on their way to the country’s most famous des-
tination, the Galápagos Islands, which lie 1,000 kilometers off the
South American coast. The pull of those islands is understandable; I
felt it myself three years ago, when I gave Quito barely a thought on
my way to the archipelago that inspired Charles Darwin’s ground-
breaking research on natural selection and evolution. I’m back now
to correct that mistake.
Crouched high in the Andes along a narrow, volcano-flanked val-
ley, Quito has an undeniably dramatic setting. Its city limits stretch
to within one kilometer of the equator and are fringed by lush cloud
forests and the Guayllabamba River Basin, while its historic center
bristles with churches, chapels, convents, and pretty plazas, making
it Latin America’s best-preserved colonial city—and one of the earli-
est entries onto the UNESCO World Heritage list.