City of Legends

Quito, Ecuador

We ran hard today on very little sleep, so please set your expectations very low.

There are churches, basilicas, cathedrals, monasteries, convents, and shrines throughout the city of Quito Equador. Our guide was determined to show us every one of them today.

I find religious architecture spellbinding, and the history surrounding it is facinating. The art is amazing, (although religious iconography gets a bit tedious), but what really inspired me today were the fables.

Quito is so full of them it is known as The City of Legends.

Take for example, Gallito De Quito, a rooster on a weathervane on the Cathedral de Quito, who came alive one night and attacked a drunken, prideful man who showed no respect for the church.

Or a priest in a crypt in Iglesia La Compañía de Jesús, who died at the age of 23. The story goes that when the priest was just five years old, he performed miracles. The prodigy was ordained as a teenager, and sainted when he was 21. When a volcano erupted near Quito, the priest offered his life to Christ in exchange for sparing the citizens. The volcano promptly stopped erupting and the priest died several months later.

As a skeptic, I am skeptical, but the sainted priest’s tomb occupies an exalted place in Iglesia La Compañía de Jesús.

Not all priests were as pious. Take for example, Father Almeida, a young Franciscan monk who regularly escaped the monastery to drink, dance and cavort with local women. To get out of the cloistered monastery, Father Almeida would climb up a wall-mounted icon of the crucified Christ, to reach a window.

This went on for months, but as he climbed the crucifix one night, the wooden figure of Christ awoke and asked; “Until When, Father Almeida?”. To which the young monk replied, ‘Hasta la Vuelta, Señor” (”Until I Come Back, Lord”).

The Lord was displeased with this answer and arranged for Father Almeida to witness a vision of his own funeral while he was out one night. On his return to the monastery that night, as Father Almeida climbed down the crucifix, the Lord asked him the same question; “Until When, Father Almeida?”. This time the monk did not reply.

Father Almeida went on to become a pious and obedient monk, and never again succumbed to temptation.

This evening, we dined at Hasta la Vuelta, Señor – Cantina.

But my favourite legend of the day is one about this market building. The two-story structure is not a church or holy site, and the figures above each window have no religious significance.

There are frescoes of naked boys above each second-floor window. None of the boys is noteworthy in any way except the last one, who has a giant protruding penis.

According to our guide, the site has become a place of pilgrimage for infertile couples. Legend has it that if a baron couple shows up at the site and prays, the fresco will grant them fertility.

Gabriel swears that a friend and his wife were unable to have children until they came to this place. They now have three boys after praying to penis boy.

Iguana gargoyles having their claws cleaned, on La Basilica Del Voto Nacional, in…

… The City of Legends.

We have a full day of exploring Inca ruins tomorrow. I may not have time to write. If you don’t hear from me, don’t worry, Gallito the rooster didn’t get me.