Here is a quiz that will be answered later in this post. Two weeks ago I didn’t know the surprising answer. What is the official currency of Ecuador?
We went back to Quito old town today. It is a UNESCO world heritage sight. We started at the basilica where there were holding a mass to bless the police.
Then we walked down hill to visit Quito’s cathedral on the Plaza Grande.
Then we took a tour of the Numismatic Museum in the Central Bank of Ecuador. It was fascinaing to learn how Ecuador’s currency has developed with the history of the country. In the late 1990s Ecuador faced hyper inflation. Towards the end of the tour there was a plexiglass box about 1ft by 4ft by 5ft. It was full of coins in the old currency, the Sucre. When Duke was here about 35 years ago he thinks 1 sucre was about 20 cents. The box contained about 5,625,000 sucres. Today they are all worth $15.
In any case when the value of the sucre went almost to zero Ecuador changed their official currency to the U.S. Dollar!! So we are using our $ here just like at home.
Our last stop in the old town was the Church and Monestary of San Francisco. It is Quito’s oldest Church.
We had a late lunch in the old Archbishop’s Palace which now has shops and restaurants.
Tomorrow we head by bus to Latacunga about 40 miles (98 km) south of Quito.
If you would like to see our itinerary with links to previous posts it is available by clicking on the link below. .
Marion's Blog 