San Francisco Catholic Church, Quito, Ecuador

Today we begin the blogging of the journey that E and I just returned from: following in the footsteps of Charles Darwin and visiting the Galapagos Islands. As you will see, many wonders were found (and photographed). Our adventure began with a long day getting to Quito, Ecuador by way of Houston. Counting the 4 hour layover in Houston, it took about 12 hours.

We arrived in Quito a day early so we could explore the city just a bit. It was raining off and on and generally cloudy misty day at nearly 10,000 feet so we explored a few of the churches. Today, we see forbidden images from the San Francisco Catholic Church. I say forbidden since I was not allowed to take them. We had to pay to enter the church and, presumably, buy their photos if wanted any. However, I managed to sneak in a few images and you can see on this blog as long as the church officials don't track me down and make me remove them. As you can see, the gold extracted from Ecuador and other countries in South America was no all sent to Spain...much as used here to the glory of God.

This was a truly stunningly opulent building.

While I am sure there is a story that goes with the odd arm seen below, I don't know it. However, this wooden structure has a hole in the side with an arm sticking out of it. Having never seen such a thing in a church before, I had to squeeze off a photo.