Religion, Brought to you by the City of Quito

There's nothing like a Spanish-conquered country to prompt an observant, thoughtful little girl to pose the questions that have puzzled intellects and caused countless wars and acts of violence through the centuries.

Earlier this week, Maya, Jonah and I were in Parque Alameda, which borders the old and new towns. There is a low promontory in the park that provides a nice view on the surrounding area (and a not-so-nice view of the surrounding rooftops). Here is a view of the park from the promontory.


And a few shots of Maya, Jonah, Opa and I having a pedal boat ride around the park.





From the promontory you can see a gi-normous church to the near southwest that sits roughly on the border of the old and new towns. Maya, of course, saw the church and asked what it was. We had some binoculars with us and could see people standing on the towers of the church. That looked cool, so we decided to go there.

It turns out the Basilica del Voto Nacional is the tallest church in Ecuador (115 meters to the top of the tallest tower - 115 meters is about 120 yards). The church was built around the turn of the 20th century and is in the typical neo-gothic style - flying buttresses, spires, arches, and statutes of saints and gargoyles. Inside it's cavernous and dark, with only candlelight and the natural light from the stained glass windows shedding any light on the situation. The windows have scenes from Jesus' life and Maya and I talked about that. It was cute that as soon as we entered, the kids started talking in whispers without any prompting from me. The size and solemnity of the place just evoked that reaction. Here is a photo of it from Parque Alameda.

To get into the towers you take an elevator to the attic of the church and then have to climb a few ladders that are about as perpendicular to the ground as you can get without tipping backwards. So, the kids chickened out. I was glad they did. I realized as we approached the first ladder that 1) this was no place for kids, especially a two-and-a-half year old, 2) the thought of them climbing the ladder was too much for me to take, so the reality would have been out of the question, and 3) I'm a little bit afraid of heights. Not curl up in a ball and die afraid, but definitely timid around ledges and drops. And I don't want the kids anywhere near ledges and drops.

We did manage to climb up into the clock towers on a long winding spiral staircase. Maya managed it by herself and I carried Jonah. I could see the staircase going up and up from where I decided was as high as we were going and finally disappearing through the ceiling into this glowing white light. Even if someone told me heaven was into the light, I would have decided we'd had enough. My heart and nerves couldn't take anymore climbing. I kept imagining Maya missing a step and plunging through the very narrow opening that there was no way she could have actually fit through. But even realizing that, I was still nervous. When we got back down to solid ground, Maya told me that she had wanted to go higher.

(Column Intermission I - The clocks in the clock towers of the Basilica actually were working and kept the correct time. We spent a few minutes of our lives there just watching the gears working and the minute hand moving. I have noticed that other clock towers in Quito, be it on churches, banks, other random steeples or wherever, all work and keep the correct time. Fairly impressive for a city that has bigger problems to worry about than making sure its public clocks keep the correct time.)

As it turns out the white light is not heaven. The spiral staircase just goes to the very top of the spiral tower that we first noticed from the park.

There were some balconies at the ceiling level where the elevator stops that we got some nice views from. I didn't have the camera with me that day, so no pictures. One of the things we could clearly see from one of the balconies is the statue of the Virgin de Quito on El Panecillo.

Here is the Virgin in all her glory.

El Panecillo is a hill on the south end of the old town. The Virgin de Quito is a thirty meter high statute of the winged virgin of Quito standing on an orb with a serpent curled around her feet and chained to her arm. Yesterday (Thursday) we took a taxi to the summit of Panecillo with Opa and PoPo, and then Maya, Jonah and I climbed the few flights of stairs to the platform at the base of the statute. That was fun for them - not so much for me as the platform is surrounded by this rusting, broken iron fence that has gaps large enough for an enterprising young one to squeeze him or herself through and plunge to his or her death.

The statute isn't really the attraction of El Panecillo, though. Though, Maya did want to ask a few questions about who the statute was (I told her it was Jesus' mother) and why it was there (a present to God).

The views of the city from the top of the hill and the platform are spectacular. Old town in the foreground is all low, fairly symmetrical white buildings, with a church spire poking up here and there. Then, not too far to the North where the new town begins, the low buildings give way to high rises of all shapes and sizes. It's pretty striking. I took pictures, but I am sure that they won't convey the emotions one feels when viewing the real thing. But, at least you can see where the old town and new town meet.



So, anyway, with the Basilica and the Virgin, Maya is getting a view of the willingness of a government to splurge on religious excesses and idols. And hopefully, she is getting non-biased answers to her questions that related to religion. I think her next religious experience will be art. There are some interesting sounding museums in Quito that house paintings from an era called the Quito School of Art.

Basically, after the Spaniards conquered the Incas, they used Catholicism to colonize the natives. To do this, they wanted to saturate the country with religious architecture and works of art. As part of the process, they made the natives start painting pictures of religious objects. Eventually, the Quitano natives developed their own style which involved lots of gold overlays and other decorative coloring - the Quito School of Art.

I'm not really into art (though, I do appreciate Jack Black movies) but these paintings sound interesting enough to at least get a look at some of them. And, I'm curious to see what Maya's reaction to it will be.

I already know what Jonah's reaction will be, "Poppy, I have to go poo-poo."