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We no longer live in Ecuador, but during our brief stay, Parque El Ejido was hands down our favorite place to spend time outdoors.
🥐 First, The Panaderia 🍩
We didn't arrive in Ecuador for tourism last year, so we immediately began looking for long-term accommodation from day 1. We wound up in Larrea at the cheapest per-month place we could find in all of Quito.
I had previously seen so much info on the internet about Canadians and Americans retiring and residing in Ecuador that I thought it would be hard to avoid them.
I didn't realize that all of these folks avoided Larrea and Parque El Ejido like the plague, mostly due to the poverty, crime and bad reputation of the Larrea neighborhood.
Our neighborhood had two lovely bakeries with 200 meters of our building. Hitting the panaderia before heading over to Parque El Ejido was always a must.
🌳 Green Spaces In Urban Places 🏗️
Parque El Ejido was the most accessible and nearest park or free public space for us to spend time away from our prison cell-sized room. The whole park is full of old-growth trees, so shady places are in abundance.
Green, green, green is the theme at El Ejido. There is so much grass, trees, flowers and free things to do that we usually spent half of every day here during the nearly three months we lived in Quito.
Exercise equipment is not in short supply, and it was the exercise equipment which garnered the most interest from the @KidSisters on our first trip to the park.
We learned the hard way human poop 💩 is also in abundance in El Ejido. I guess this is just one of the reasons non-Venezuelan foreigners stay away from this part of Quito.
A few turds never stopped us, and there are work crews which go through the park every few days to deal with public poo-poo problem.
The slide above was once out of commission for an afternoon due to a fecal cleanup, but don't let that deter you from El Ejido. Just watch where you walk and inspect all equipment before use, problem solved.
Just look at these ecstatic sisters enjoying this amazing public space. There is nothing comparable to El Ejido in Cambodia, our former home, so it's good knowing our daughters are now aware of the value these public spaces can bring to the quality of life in a crowded city.
👮 First Horse Encounters 🐴
On a few occasions, we encountered police on horseback, and I managed to snap a shot of Monkey-B seeing her first ever real-life horse. Horses aren't an integral part of Cambodian culture in case you were wondering.
Horsewatching is just another example of the free fun to be had in El Ejido.
🚶♀️ Nearly A Museum 🎨
El Ejido is well-known for its art and craft vendors, as they are scattered all around the interior of the park and the perimeter.
For whatever reason, likely because Monkey-B had never seen so many paintings before, she requested many selfies with the various pieces for sale just about every time we went to the park.
The vendors got quite a kick out of Monkey-B's selfie routine.
In conclusion, if you ever find yourself in Quito, Ecuador, do pay a visit to Parque El Ejido to see how ordinary Ecuadorians spend their freetime together.
It's a beautiful space with plenty of snacks to buy and things to do to keep youngsters entertained.