Quito Day 2: 4000m high & The Chapel of Man

The next day of my trip we were due to climb to even higher heights, then take in some culture from Ecuador’s most renowned artist. We hopped in the car and took a ride up to El Panecillo – a volcanic hill so named by the Spanish because it resembles a little bread roll. This site was chosen to build a statue of the virgin madonna, who watches down on the city from her perch and can be seen from all over the old town. She is clad in 7000 aluminium tiles and was completed in 1975.

You can climb up inside and get an amazing view of the sprawling city. Quito has seen an explosion in growth in the last 10-15 years and the infrastructure has not really caught up yet – but a new subway and road tunnels are under construction now to better connect the north and south of the city.

Next we headed up even higher – via the Teleferico cable car that hoists you up along the slopes of the Pichincha Volcano to over 4000m above the city, to a lookout point called Cruz Loma. Luckily I’m not afraid of heights…

Once at the top, the bustle of Quito seemed to melt away. It was so quiet and peaceful, surrounded by alpine plants and delicate flowers with just a hint of fresh breeze.

You can walk a trail around the mountain top, and also take a horseback ride or bring bikes up to explore further.

A rather cool looking modernist church was built up here about ten years ago, and people make the journey up here for mass in order to feel closer to God.

You can see why, as from here you are literally amongst the clouds. It was clear when we made the ascent, but a thick white wall of cloud rolled in from the south as we were at the top. To be standing at over 4000 metres high watching clouds amble past in front of your eyes is quite something.

Reluctantly coming back down to a relatively normal height, we went to a different kind of wonder next: The Chapel of Man (La Capilla del Hombre). This place is really interesting – it’s kind of a secular artistic monument to the struggles that mankind faces all over the world, founded by Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo Guayasamín (1918-1999), whose artworks fill the cavernous space. I was given a guided tour to help explain the purpose of his work to me.

Guayasamín’s aim in his art was to highlight the pain and suffering that humans face as a result of war, slavery and dictatorships. His works are incredibly striking and moving, especially up close where you can appreciate the colours and textures. You can see influences from Picasso in the distorted angular shapes of human bodies, and from Goya in the grotesque depictions of evil forces and pain.

Some canvases are kinetic – the panels can be moved into millions of configurations to represent shared connections even amongst fragmented souls.

This interesting work is a pastiche of an iconic 15th century religious painting which hangs in the Louvre. Instead of Jesus and Mary, the agnostic Guayasamín removed the religious imagery, making his piece show the universal human pain of any mother who has lost her son.

“I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a child with no feet.”

I hadn’t heard of Guayasamín before visiting the museum, but came away very moved and interested to learn more. My guide said that while he is the most famed Ecuadorian painter, his work is not especially well known outside of South America. I recovered from quite an intense day with a caipirinha in the hotel bar before turning in ready for an early start in the morning.

My trip was sponsored by KLM and Branding Latin America / Quito Turismo UK; views as ever are my own