Cafe Cultura Quito Ecuador

Old Town Quito in the central square

I have just returned from a trip of a life time to Ecuador, it all started by arriving at Cafe Cultura in Quito after midnight early Tuesday morning after a mammoth trip starting at 4:00 on Monday Morning. We arrived at this amazing lobby with wood fires burning and walls covered in murals.

My husband (who had proceeded me by a couple of weeks) had waited up and led me to our room. Each room at Cafe Cultura is very different, several of them being around the back which are accessed by a covered walk way.

Our room this time was at the end of this walkway, and looked for all the world like a lean to added as an after thought.

But in fact it was my favourite of the three rooms that we stayed here on the different legs of our trip.  Though the shower was open to the bedroom and the access to the bathroom was through swinging saloon doors!

Later when we came back from the Amazon we got another room on the covered walkway with a sunken bathtub which was a treat after nothing but showers for 2 weeks. Every morning we were given a buffet breakfast which consisted of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, onion and tomato.

Accompanied with fresh fruit salad and freshly made fruit juice.

We had dinner one night here, the star of that meal was the bananas flambe, lighted at the table and served with vanilla ice cream. The bananas were full of flavour as only the bananas in Ecuador seemed to be.

Cafe Cultura is by a long shot not one of the cheapest places to stay in Quito and it certainly has it's quirks, like hot water is not always guaranteed. But it made a good staging post for our group of 32. They bent over backwards to provide a full breakfast at 5:00 in the morning for our early starts and coffee is free and available 24 hours in the lobby and adjoining sitting room, which is a wonderful meeting place in the evenings with free wi fi and roaring fires.  We stayed here 6 nights in all 2 at the beginning, 2 in the middle and 2 at the end of the trip.  If felt like coming home each time in between our many adventures.

Gathering to leave for the Amazon

Here are a couple more views of Quito