10 Amazing Things to Do in... Quito

13 May 2016

The best things to do in Quito | Ecuador

Having a spiritual awakening with shamans, spending a night in prison, drinking pisco sours with the best views of the city at sunset... There's plenty to write home about from Ecuador's exuberant capital

A shaman presides over an ayahuasca ceremonyAlamy

1. Take mind-expanding drugs with shamans

Forget phony ceremonies in a Notting Hill basement, ayahuasca ceremonies in Ecuador are the real deal. Practiced by indigenous shamans who have passed the rites down through generations, the potent substance is drunk to expand the mind, and many report a life-changing experience. Ayahuasca is legal in Ecuador (unlike in Britain or the USA), which means that there are regulated organisations where you can buy it (steer clear of anything else). You can sniff out ceremonies easily enough in registered centres around Quito; or head outside the city in the safe hands of the authentic Feather Crown people for your spiritual awakening in the rolling Andes or Amazon rainforest. Be warned: the tea doesn't just open your mind; purging is all part of the experience.

Contact details: www.feathercrown.com

2. Spend the night in prison in the dark

Traipsing around churches not your thing? Quito Post Mortem is another-worldly type of tour. Once a month, well after sun-down, the team takes a small group around the Old Town's spookiest sites, including an abandoned military swimming pool, the city's oldest graveyard and the Garcia Moreno prison. Only deserted in 2014 - eerily recently - notebooks, TVs and drug paraphernalia still stand where the old inmates left them. The tour is part immersive theatre, with actors locking terrified tourists into pitch-black cells while they're told about the prison's hideous history. If you can make it all the way through, you're rewarded with a stiff drink in the Old Town at the end.

Contact details: www.facebook.com/QuitoPostMortem

Dancers at Salsateca Lavoe© Salsoteca Lavoe

3. Learn to salsa at speed

Ecuadorians might not be known as the greatest dancers in Latin America, but they can still get down. Quiteños duck into Salsoteca Lavoe to let off steam, following the somewhat sexist salsa rules of women waiting at the sidelines to be asked to dance by a man. But no one has to wait for long, as wiry salsa-experts change partners at an alarming speed, whirring them around the room to the sweaty live music.

Contact details: www.salsotecalavoe.com

4. Rifle through Guayasamín's wardrobe

Viewing the prodigious artworks by Ecuador's most famous painter, indigenous Oswaldo Guayasamín, is a must-do experience - but trawling through his house is even better. In the fabulous hilltop mansion you can play his piano, browse through his collection of erotic pottery and hang out in his bathroom, complete with sunken bath and wall-to-ceiling windows. You can even go into his dressing room and rifle through his wardrobe, where his bohemian clothes hang still. On the same site is his life's work, Capilla del Hombre ('Chapel of Mankind'), a futuristic structure with enormous paintings of Latin American suffering.

Contact details: www.capilladelhombre.com

Music sessions in the park, QuitoFacebook.com/SesionesAlParque

5. Dance under the stars to new bands

Once a month, Sesiones al Parque takes over one of Quito's many lovely outdoor spaces to throw guerrilla-style gigs with the city's most up-and-coming bands. You might end up swing-dancing in the courtyard of a 16th-century church, twisting to salsa by a hidden lake, or pogoing to ska on a hilltop overlooking the Old Town.

Contact details: www.facebook.com/SesionesAlParque

Alamy

6. Drink pisco sours with the best views

Many would say that the very point of Quito is its many romantic views over the hills. It's impossible to limit yourself to just one lookout point. The one at Guapulo is marvellous for blinking at the lights stretching miles below you, feeling terribly small. Best in the daytime is Parque Itchimbia, with its long, curving vistas over the colonial centre. Afterwards, head down the hill to Café Mosaico for a pisco sour on the terrace as the sun drops behind the mountainside.

Contact details: www.cafemosaicoecuador.com

7. Eat experimental Ecuadorian food

Quito seems to have carved itself out a niche in traditional Andean cuisine. But at Laboratorio, you're in for something very different. Set in an old factory, the restaurant changes its theme every couple months, swinging from to-die-for Vietnamese sandwiches, to classic Ecuadorian with an almighty twist. Expect deconstructed ceviches and melting pork on sticks, washed down with tomate de arbol (tree tomato) Bloody Marys. Staff members are young, tattooed, and extremely easy on the eye. Fellow diners, likewise.

Contact details: www.laboratorio-uio.com

8. Join the bearded bicyclists on a car-free route

Traffic in Quito can be a bit of drag, but every Sunday, the city shuts down 15km of roads to be taken over as a giant cycle-lane. Joining the world-wide hipster revolution, bearded Quiteños rent bikes from the pop-up cycle stores that open up along the route, following the path from the modern north all the way down to the well-preserved colonial centre, offering a very different perspective of the city, as well as a spot of exercise.

Contact details: www.cicloviasecuador.gob.ec

Casa Gangotena hotel, Quito

9. Sleep in the cutest colonial mansion

Once considered to be among a handful of the top hotels in the world, the grand colonial Casa Gangotena has still got something very special. The conservatory with its striped and wicker seats and palm trees is movie-set-ready; bag the window seat in the bar for the view into the garden. Rooms 102 and 212 have gorgeous 360-degree frescoes - a heavenly maritime scene and the legend of Zorro - to induce sweet dreams.

Contact details: www.casagangotena.com

10. Hear the president sing

Once you've seen the blue eyes of Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, you'll never forget them. And you can get a glimpse of the smiley fellow every Monday with the changing of the guard on Plaza Grande, when he stands metres away on a balcony, waving to his fans and critics alike. If you catch him at a pro-government demonstration, you'll probably hear him sing: each of his husky speeches is followed by several renditions in varying degrees of tunefulness.