[RexBuck]

Got back downtown with my camera this time. For my penance, I'll inundate you with pictures of churches, buildings and a few people.

Basílica del Voto Nacional - On the way to the historic town square spotted this huge old church and told the cabbie to let us out. Turns out this is the primary Church in Quito started in 1883 and took over 100 years to complete. It is apparently the largest Neo-gothic church in the world and is modeled after Norte-Dame in Paris. Side view - note the spire on the left and clock towers on the right - I'll talk about them in a bit.



To give a little idea of the size of this thing



and notice the statue of the dude at the front door . . .



. . . that'll be El Papa or better known in our world as the Pope who visited here in 1985

Instead of sticking the usual Gargoyles around the building, they used images of local animals





The high point (no pun intended) for us was climbing the gazillion stairs to the upper part of the church - yes it was wheezin Geezer time again, the city is over 9000 feet. First get a birds eye view of the main church



notice the roof structure

Check out the stained glass



and then head up some more stairs. Walk across the top of the main church on this ramp



then up a set of steep stairs to get back outside by the Spire




Once outside, climb up a couple of steep flights to the platform in the Spire




Great views including the clock towers and the religious statue on the far hill



and a nice view of part of the city



Then back down, across the ramp and up more stairs to one of the clock towers. Then up these funky spiral stairs to the top.



Great views again




The differential connecting the clock mechanism to each of the three clock faces



the cool old clock mechanism



This is getting long so I'll do the rest shortly