Hi friends, and thanks for stopping by to read Three Nights in Quito: Chocolate, Ice Cream, and the Equator. When my Galapagos visit ended, my next flight to San Jose, Costa Rica left from Quito, Ecuador. Seeing as how I had to go to Quito anyway, I decided to make it a quick stopover of three nights.
Hotel Plaza del Teatro
I stayed at the Hotel Plaza del Teatro in the historic district. I arranged with the hotel ahead of time for a driver to pick me up at the airport and that cost $30.
Safety first, ladies. I’ve never been to Quito before and my flight arrived around 5pm, which meant getting dark outside.
The hotel was just fine, I didn’t feel unsafe there. We have to walk up about two flights of stairs to get to the lobby/reception area. Good thing I’m wearing a backpack – right? I wouldn’t want to haul a suitcase up there. And it’s safe to say this hotel is not for people with mobility issues. One time I was walking down and I could hear a woman ahead of me on the stairs loudly moaning and complaining. I rounded a corner and saw her hanging on to a younger woman, slowly making their way down.
Oddly enough, there is an elevator at the reception area that will take us to the upper floors. I was on the top floor. Yup, for some reason hoteliers in Latin America shove the gringos up to the top. There was a terrace and a small tea station set up on my floor.
Beats me why the elevator didn’t go down to the ground level. There were other businesses or maybe parking on the levels below the hotel lobby. I was given a lanyard with a swipe card on it to use in the elevator going up and down to my floor, but my preference was to take the stairs.
The only thing I didn’t like was during evening hours, or very early morning, the exterior door from the lobby for the stairs to street level is locked. A staff member has to buzz us through. A bell does ring from a motion sensor but one time I stood there for quite awhile before someone opened the door. This could give a stalker following me up from the street time to potentially do something bad to me.
But nothing bad happened, and I enjoyed my stay there. The hotel is close to restaurants and within walking distance to the main plaza and the subway station.
Three nights cost US $58.50 and I booked Hotel Plaza del Teatro through Expedia (affiliate link).
Breakfast?
What about breakfast at the Hotel Plaza del Teatro? Because I usually choose hotels where breakfast is included.
Nope, unfortunately breakfast was not included.
The good news is there are several nearby cafes selling breakfast for $1.75 to $2.50, so that’s pretty cheap!
And what’s included? Pretty good stuff. Fruit juice, fruit, eggs, a bun with a slice of cheese in it, and either coffee or tea. It sucks to be me because after I ate breakfast my first morning with tea to drink, I spotted the cafe serving hot chocolate or tea or coffee. You bet I went there the next morning for my $1.80 breakfast.
Walking tour
I signed up with GuruWalk for a walking tour in the historic area of Quito.
The tour was called Free Quito Walking Tour, candies/chocolate/ ice cream tasting & Spanish Lesson and you know how much I love sweet stuff so this tour seemed like a great fit for me!
I met our guide Tefa outside the Basilica church, about a 10 minute walk from my hotel.
The tour was more than eating. I learned a lot about the history of Quito, saw historic buildings, and learned about gargoyles and why crosses are placed outside churches.
We stopped to talk to an elderly lady on the sidewalk selling taxo fruit for about 15¢ each and I bought a few to eat later in my hotel.
We stopped at a restaurant for a liquor tasting but I don’t drink and passed.
I didn’t pass when it came to the chocolate tasting though – that’s for sure!
And, yes, we got to sample one chocolate from each jar.
I also made a few purchases of candies. Here’s the haul.
I hadn’t had one of those coconut sugar candies since my time on Mayreau Island.
My teeth hurt later!
Mitad del Mundo
Now one of the reasons I decided to spend a couple of days in Quito was to see Mitad del Mundo – that’s the monument at the equator.
Well, what else is there to say? Equator ✔. Monument ✔.
Yes, I have one foot in the Northern Hemisphere and one foot in the Southern Hemisphere.
One of the reasons I wanted to go there to have a foot in each hemisphere is because I’ve also been to the Prime Meridian Line in Greenwich, London, England which separates the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
A shout out to my little buddy Zach where I was housesitting because he was talented enough to have paws in each hemisphere!
Check out my video on YouTube from the center of the world.
Three Nights in Quito: Chocolate, Ice Cream, and the Equator
That sums up my quick trip to Quito. I did what I set out to do – see the equator. Or at least the monument that they stuck up to mark it. Because literally, the equator runs through many places in the world besides Ecuador. But Ecuador is the only country whose name means equator, so that’s why the monument is there.
By the time I arrived in Quito, Ecuador I’d already been in Peru where it was late spring and then summer. Then I went to the Galapagos Islands for three weeks, also pretty much on the equator.
Pretty much shorts and t-shirts weather everywhere I’d been.
Quito is a high altitude city, about 2800 meters in the Andes, so it was kind of cool up there. I was wearing jeans and sometimes a light hoodie.
On the day I did the walking tour, I continued walking around the historic area, and was lucky enough to get back to the hotel just before it started raining. I’ll leave you with a short video I took from the covered terrace.
Published by Cheryl @ The Lifestyle Digs on July 4, 2026.
