What to Do in Quito in 5 Days: Old Town, the Equator, and the Cable Car Above the Clouds

Mariscal Sucre airport is about 45 minutes from the historic center, and the road winds up so steeply your ears pop twice. Watch out the window as the valley opens: terracotta rooftops climbing toward volcanoes, laundry strung between houses, roadside stalls selling grilled corn.

You're arriving at 2,850 meters, which is high enough that you'll feel it in your first flight of stairs. Take it slow the first evening. Drink water, skip the heavy dinner, and let your lungs catch up.

Book a fixed-rate airport transfer ahead of time so you're not haggling on the curb while dizzy from the altitude. Your driver drops you at the door, and you can collapse into a courtyard hotel in the old town before the light fades.

This is the beating square of the old town, ringed by the Presidential Palace with its blue-painted balconies, the Archbishop's arcades, and the pale grey Cathedral of Quito. Grab a bench, get a coffee from a cart, and just watch the city do its morning business.

The Cathedral is worth stepping inside (entry is a few dollars). It's older and plainer than Quito's showstopper churches, but that's the point: this is where the city's story literally begins, on the ground where the Spanish laid out the first grid in 1534.

Quito's historic center was one of the very first UNESCO World Heritage sites, listed back in 1978, and you feel the weight of it walking these narrow streets. Everything from here is within an easy stroll, so wear shoes that grip cobblestones.

This is the segment you'll be telling people about. For a few dollars you can climb the Basilica's towers, and it is not a polite museum climb. You cross a wooden plank walkway high above the nave, then scramble up steep metal ladders and a spiral staircase into the open air.

The reward: the whole of Quito laid out below, the Virgin of El Panecillo watching from her hill, the volcanoes ringing the horizon. Hold the railing. The wind up there is real.

Back at ground level, sit for a moment in the nave and look up. The stained glass throws colored light across the stone, and it's quiet in a way the busy streets outside are not. The building is technically still unfinished, and local legend says the world will end when it's completed, so nobody's in a hurry.

Head upstairs to the food stalls and pick a counter. The move here is hornado, slow-roasted pork served with hominy, potato cakes, and pickled onions, all for a few dollars. If you're feeling brave, try the locro de papa, a thick potato-and-cheese soup topped with avocado.

Don't leave without a canelazo, a hot cinnamon drink (sometimes spiked with sugarcane liquor) that warms you right up in the mountain cool. The vendors are friendly and used to visitors pointing at whatever looks good on the next plate over.

Across the street you'll find the Museo del Carmen Alto, a still-active Carmelite convent where cloistered nuns once passed sweets and herbal remedies to the public through a wooden turntable. It's a strange, beautiful little detour after a big lunch.

The TelefériQo is one of the highest cable cars in the world, hauling you up the flank of Pichincha volcano to nearly 4,000 meters. The ride takes about 20 minutes and the temperature drops fast, so bring a jacket even if it was warm in town.

At the top there's a viewing platform where, on a clear day, you can see the snowcapped cone of Cotopaxi floating in the distance. If you've got energy and good lungs, a trail leads further up toward Rucu Pichincha, but even the short walk near the station leaves you breathless at this altitude.

Go in the morning before the clouds roll in. Quito's afternoons often turn misty, and you want that view while it lasts.

Mitad del Mundo, in San Antonio de Pichincha, is about a 45-minute drive north of the old town. The centerpiece is a 30-meter monument built where an 18th-century expedition measured the shape of the Earth and helped define the metric system. It's touristy, and gloriously so.

The real fun is next door at the Intiñan Solar Museum, which sits closer to the true GPS equator. Guides here run the classic equator party tricks: balancing an egg on a nail, watching water swirl differently on either side of the line. Take it with a grain of salt and enjoy the show.

Stop for lunch at one of the local restaurants near the monument. Order fritada or a bowl of ceviche and let the driver wait; you've earned the slow meal after a morning at altitude.

The Casa del Alabado, tucked in a whitewashed colonial house in the old town, is Quito's finest small museum. Its collection of pre-Columbian art is arranged around themes of shamans, ancestors, and the spirit world rather than dry dates, and it's genuinely moving to see the craftsmanship in a clay figure from 2000 BC.

If you've got the appetite for more, the Museo Nacional del Ecuador (MuNa) up in the newer part of town holds the country's big national collection, including the famous gold sun mask. Between the two you'll leave with a real sense of the civilizations that came long before the plazas outside.

Save a little morning time for the Mercado Artesanal La Mariscal, a covered warren of stalls selling alpaca sweaters, Panama hats (which are actually Ecuadorian), and woven textiles. Haggle gently and cheerfully.

End your trip on this one small street. La Ronda is the oldest lane in Quito, a curving cobbled alley of restored colonial houses now filled with tiny bars, artisan workshops, and canelazo joints. In the evening it comes alive.

Duck into a hole-in-the-wall for an empanada de viento (a puffy fried pastry dusted with sugar) and another hot canelazo. Musicians play traditional Andean tunes, and courtyards open up behind the facades if you go looking.

It's the kind of place where a quick drink turns into a long, happy evening. A good last night before the morning transfer back to the airport, and the flight home from a city that sits closer to the sun than almost anywhere you'll go.