Sometimes you know when you are ready for a rest day. Today was one of those days. It wasn’t particularly long at only 36km and not an enormous amount of climbing with only 980m (3200ft). There were some steep bits and somehow my body was saying, time to take a rest. So tomorrow will be nice chance to rest here in Quito.

Our route started with 3.7km of mostly descent to the river. From here, a good highway climbed 695m (2280ft) in the next 11.6km (7.2 miles). Do the math and it is only an overall average of 6%. However, there were some steep bits, particularly at start, where my odometer recorded 9-12% climbs. By time I reached the not as steep parts, I was dragging a bit more.

Here you could see as we approached Quito. The city itself was up on the hill and a bit more to climb. We took a bit of a roundabout route.

Nice to see the Quito sign at last!

After this point it was urban cycling. Here was a Texas Chicken place.

I saw a variety of cycle facilities. This one mostly indicated an on-street bike route and nothing special.

There was a little park with a bike path.

That brought us into our destination near Foch Plaza. This area seems to be a “backpacker” destination with many hostals, bars, restaurants. We had some more difficulty finding a bread shop or reasonable market shop. I was able to renew my phone for another week ($3).

Definitely a tourist photo. The guy wearing a sombrero was advertising his “Mexican Food” restaurant to backpackers that were walking past.

Overall, happy to get here into Quito and looking forward to a day without cycling tomorrow before heading further south after that.