On becoming a Coffee Person in Quito
Navigating the great caffeinated unknown; trigger warning: butterflies
I was going to start this week’s newsletter by talking about how excited I always feel to arrive in a capital city. That despite feeling at home by the sea – and I love the little flat that Dave and I have in Margate – there’s something about existing as a tiny pea in a big, buzzing metropolis like Quito that makes me feel my most alive.
I was planning to wax lyrical about how it’s a good thing to have learned (or at least confirmed) about myself and my life choices during this trip. And Quito is great, but also London is great, and yada yada yada.
And all of the above is true, but actually what I really want to talk about is this new thing I’ve discovered called coffee. It’s fantastic – I drink it hot or lukewarm in a mug with some kind of milk and foam and suddenly I’m a happier, busier and more energetic version of myself. I’m functioning at 1.5x speed (come to think of it, this is what it must feel like to be Dave, every day?) and loving life.
It’s true: at the age of 34, I am in danger of becoming a Coffee Person. I can’t believe that other people have had this secret weapon up their sleeves for so many more years than me – that I endured decades of early morning work shifts; getting up for trains, flights, meetings and interviews; completing dissertations and big deadlines ffs – all without coffee. Surely I deserved some kind of extra credit?
It all started back in Lima, on the first day of our city tour with Zlata and Greg. Being grown-ups, with grown-up holiday budgets and aspirational lifestyles, Z&G are definitively Coffee People and organised as part of the tour a coffee-tasting experience at Ciclos café. Neither Dave nor I were expecting to enjoy drinking it necessarily, being lifelong Tea Folk, but we obviously went along for the ride with gratitude, and out-cringed ourselves by asking far too many questions and nodding enthusiastically at the nice but ultimately unbearable man who talked us through his coffee-making processes.
I sipped an espresso and some very fancy form of coffee (that was ultimately filter coffee) poured at varying but precise temperatures with precise amounts of water with specific timing, as described by Coffee Guy without irony. And then I had a “stumpy” – something Coffee Guy claimed was the most commonly drunk type of coffee in the UK but that none of us had heard of – which I think was an espresso with creamy oat milk (my choice), possibly exactly the same or similar or maybe very different to a flat white or a macchiato or what I have since learned is a “cortado". Anyway, it was unexpectedly tasty, probably partly on account of the creamy oat milk and light roast delicate flavour, and I finished the whole thing.
That was a month ago. And ok, there’s evidence of me drinking my first ever proper coffee that day and my face is hardly getting with the programme. But I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
I’ve always enjoyed the smell of coffee. My parents are big drinkers and it reminds me of Sunday mornings with the radio on. But I’ve never been able to tolerate drinking the stuff – too bitter, too gross, and surely pointless when instead you could enjoy a nice cup of tea. As an aside, it’s also notably much cheaper to be a tea drinker. To sit in any decent cafe in the UK and order a specialty coffee with regularity requires a second mortgage, whereas there’s a general acceptance even among the most pretentious establishments that tea is not much more than boiling water and leaves.
I had one hot week back in 2017 when I tried to get on board with coffee. I was new to working the online shifts at the Independent newspaper and utterly miserable about it, constantly exhausted from the 7am starts and (sexist) psycho-bullying work culture. And so I consulted my irritatingly cheerful (male) desk neighbour, who prescribed a sickly-sweet vanilla latte as a gateway drug into the hard stuff.
For three days in a row I bought large take-away cups from Pret A Manger to get me through the afternoons. Each of those days, I enjoyed a manic hour of mental activity, followed by anxiety and nausea, followed by a terrible crash, physically and emotionally. On the third day, I lay on the floor of the women’s toilets and had a big cry followed by a fitful nap. (Not entirely the fault of the coffee… I resigned shortly afterwards.)
But I digress. The point is: I have long had reasons to feel sceptical about coffee. But maybe the sugary syrup disguise – from what I am now reliably informed is a fairly low-quality high street chain – was where I was going wrong. Which brings me back to the fancy oat milk coffee I finished in Lima: this was clearly no ordinary coffee, and certainly no high street chain with migraine-inducing ingredients. But if you start a habit on the best of the best, it’s a difficult road to climb.
When we arrived in Cuenca last week (exciting metropolis, bright lights big city, yada yada) I was a bit lethargic. So when we stopped for a rather fancy hipster breakfast at at Café Ñucallacta, I decided to live a little and order another oat milk coffee. And it was like Alice in Wonderland’s magic potion… the rest of the afternoon was a dream. I was energised, ready to absorb the necessary facts about the token ancient pots or whatever the hell else we saw that day. I was Awake.
And so again in Quito (capital city, so much to see, yada yada). One afternoon I ordered a cappuccino. And then the next day I ordered another. I ordered one every day for the next four days, until Friday when we made it to Mindo valley, and after a pleasant lunchtime sandwich and coffee sitting in the main square, I decided to live a little more and order a second cup.
Heading back to our hotel, Dave and I recognised the family checking into the rooms next to ours: we’d met them before on the brutal hike up to Laguna Churup way back in Huaraz, central Peru. I went over to say hi, and they remembered us too. We had what I thought was a pleasant and mutual conversation, until suddenly I became aware that I was standing way too close and talking for 90 per cent of the conversation, all while emulating the physical twitches of a crack addict.
That afternoon, while Dave and Ann took naps, I sat wide awake, staring into the distance, one eye blinking, thinking about all the awkward conversations I’d ever had in my adult life. The following day, I didn’t drink any coffee.
Please tell me: do you remember the first time you enjoyed coffee? Did the habit sneak up on you, or was it a conscious effort? Is Pret really the worst? I need to know.
We’ve seen and done lots of lovely things this week following the arrival of Ann (Dave’s mum!) last Tuesday. The three of us enjoyed pottering about Quito’s historical centre and visiting some of the many ludicrously decorated churches, including la Iglesia de la Compañia de Jesus, which has a façade entirely carved out of volcanic stone and an interior covered entirely in 24-carat gold leaf ($5 entry: that gold doesn’t polish itself). If churches and/or the hypocrisy of religious wealth are your thing, you’re really spoilt for choice in Quito.
We also had a tour around the cathedral, where Dave and I half climbed, half squeezed our way up the ancient stone steps out to the coppola dome roof. It’s only a couple of dollars’ entry, but to climb the dome visitors have to be chaperoned by a guide – presumably for safety. Ours encouraged us to scramble up on to the actual dome itself and tried to get us to jump around for pictures. He then told us a very confusing story about how the rooster on top of the dome is said to have played a trick on a drunk man, and (separately) that god shows himself through animals and we should all seek to be like ants.
Back down on the ground, the three of us made our own pilgrimage to discover a very fun bar called Sinners in one of Quito’s many beautiful courtyards, and then headed out for dinner at La Caponata Italian bistro in yet another beautiful old courtyard. On separate evenings, we enjoyed two delicious dinners at La Negra Mala (once with Ann and once before her arrival). On both occasions we were the only customers asides from a lone French man; on both occasions the chef hugged us goodbye.
The Casa del Alabado was a real gem of a museum, featuring lots (over 5,000 pieces) of pre-Columbian art, but in a way that was neatly curated and not overwhelming but just pleasant to potter around.
Our hotel was an historic point of interest in itself: a 17th-century colonial mansion and the fifth oldest house in Quito, it had a beautiful courtyard, a precarious roof terrace, and even some historic tunnels used by prisoners of the inquisition. The only negative was the other guests staying there: a huge group of Americans (we think some kind of Christian group) who arrived in the middle of the night and started shouting about meeting points and timetables (I went to go and shout back at them). God give me the self-confidence of an American missionary shouting into a hotel courtyard surrounded by sleeping fellow tourists.
Bible bashers aside, we haven’t seen many tourists in Quito, considering it’s a capital city – which I’m sure is partly to do with the current security situation. As we found with Cuenca last week, there is a heavy presence of armed police officers patrolling around the historic centre, but they mostly seem to be handing out maps to people like us. Three times in the last week, a group of quite serious looking officers have approached us, only to ask where we were from and if we were having a good time in Ecuador (positive PR, maybe?). It certainly feels very safe wandering around the daytime.
The only strange thing was on Wednesday last week, when the central square was blocked off for a public demonstration – something about the government threatening to remove subsidies for fuel and other things, a condition set out by the World Bank if the country is to borrow more money. If a democratic protest takes place in the capital but nobody is allowed to see it, does it make a sound?
Thursday was a day of mixed weather, but the three of us ventured up the mountain in the Teleférico cable car regardless because we are optimists. The clouds cleared after a time, and we enjoyed views of the city (if not so much the surrounding volcanoes) from 3,945m high. We also made friends with these lovely llamas (the hats were obligatory, naturally).
The weekend was spent in Mindo, a charming little town in the cloud forest just a couple of hours north of Quito. Being in the rainforest, it did rain (oh, did it rain) but luckily we were spoiled for choice with bars and cafés – and Dave got his wish granted of finding a place to watch England v Serbia on Sunday afternoon.
Our hotel was also lovely, if slightly eccentric with a 10pm curfew for no apparent reason other than the fact the two sisters who ran it couldn’t comprehend why anyone would want to be in bed later than that (they were quite confused when I asked them what would happen if we wanted to stay out later). The setting was beautiful, surrounded by lush jungle and bordered by a river, with a pool and gardens that were home to plenty of butterflies, hummingbirds and other brightly-coloured beasts. I even got a close-up of a yellow breasted toucan upon arrival as it flew into my face.
Two more highlights from the weekend: a visit to Mariposario del Mindo, a butterfly sanctuary which claims to host more than 1,000 species (we counted around 10), and a chocolate tasting at Yumbos artisanal chocolatiers. Dave and I spent a couple of hours following enormous Andean blue morphos and and feeding Owl Eyes with bananas (so named for the big “eyes” on the backs of their wings). Ann gave it a good go, but discovered with rather unfortunate timing that she had a deep-seated fear of butterflies, and eventually retreated outside to escape the terror of fluttering wings.
The afternoon’s chocolate tasting was much less menacing. We learned that the cacao fruit tastes a lot like lychees and that a square of high-grade chocolate a day is good for you (ok, chocolate retailer guy). In a move that was probably aesthetically unadvisable for a local Labour councillor, we also allowed our faces to be smeared with chocolate under the guise that it makes for a good skin care mask – and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I did not wake up with a face full of acne the following day.
From Mindo it was back to Quito for two nights to scan the botanical gardens and recuperate before one of the most exciting parts of our trip so far: the Galapagos Islands. We fly early tomorrow morning, so it’s off to bed for me. But I’ll leave you with this beautiful image of our chocolate-smeared faces.
Travel bits and tips from this week
Quito is bursting at the seams with history and fancy gold churches. We visited the Cathedral de Quito, la Iglesia de la Compañia de Jesus, the Monastery of San Francisco, Iglesia de Santo Domingo, I think we went inside El Sagrario? and the garish but oddly more low-key church of San Agustin. There’s a good guide to Quito’s churches here.
The Teleférico cable car is one of the highest in the world! It was good fun, decent cafe at the top with top views, even with the cloud. Also: llamas!
We had a night out in a cooler (/dodgier?) side of town called Mariscal Sucre, starting at Cherusker Cervecería – a Germanesque bar where women drank Steins and men drank martinis – and followed by a pleasant middle-eastern style dinner at El Arabe.
We also ate and drank at the following places in Quito: Sinners (cool bar, beautiful courtyard); La Caponata (Italian bistro in yet another beautiful old courtyard); La Negra Mala (the chef’s a hugger); ooh and last night we went to Cosa Nostra pizzeria.
We took a bus to Mindo (2.5 hours down into the valley) and stayed at Mindo Real Lodge which was ideal: good value, not far from the centre of things but quiet enough to be a haven for birds and other creatures. Great breakfast, slightly eccentric staff.
Our chocolate tasting tour was at Yumbos, which is run by (and in support of) women in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
And finally, Ann’s butterfly trauma took place at the Mariposaria del Mindo.
Pret coffee is awful but coffee more generally is amazing. I can’t remember my first cup but I guarantee there would have been five sugars in it (now down to zero. So brave).
Just drank some reading this lovely dispatch. Side note: confused by the Ann/llama size ratio. Is Ann a pocket venus, despite Dave’s length?
Finally, (is this like a letter from a mad aunt? Sorry if so, let’s blame the coffee) I felt your on-the-floor-of-the-ladies horrible work meltdown. Brrrrr