Sketches of Quito

Airplane window shade. Continental shift. Dark evening. Pacific Ocean. Unltramarine. Night sky. Sailing beneath the Southern cross. Orange clusters of light between black mountain ranges. Fireflies in the cupped hands of the Andes. Single airstrip in a sea of valley lights. Old rickety bus coughing black fumes. Brilliant Andean sun. Virgin of Quito, wings outstretched over city below. Broken sidewalk. Verdent green mountains surround. White volcano peak in each direction. Shacks and cinder block houses stacked as high as the thin air allows. Vendors touting their wares from truck megaphone. Kids playing soccer on a gravel field. Buses climbing narrow cobble stone streets stitched up the steep mountainside. Popsicles for sale inside. Pastel colonial buildings, Banana cream, azul and papaya. Shuttered and terra cotta tile roof.