Quito
Parks
Parque La Carolina - Parque La Carolina, the prettiest park in town, has a nice size artificial lake, natural science museum, soccer fields, playground with swings and climbing structures, rollerblading and doing tricks with bikes. The artificial lake has pedal boats for rent.
Natural History Museum (Museo Ecuatoriano de Ciencias Naturales) - The museum is small, but the collection encompasses the incredible variety of animals, insects, and reptiles from Ecuador. The entrance to the museum is adorned with a big stuffed condor, wings outspread. Exhibits in the museum have on display butterflies, tarantulas and scorpions from the Amazon, crabs, shells, lava rocks, stuffed iguanas, penguins and birds from the Galapagos, and skeletons of anaconda and boa constrictors. Parque El Ejido -
Museo Arqueologico, Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana - This archaeological museum is a gem, with artifacts dating back thousands of years, including human figurines from 4,000 years ago, masks, necklaces, and earrings of gold and silver, imaginative ceramics painted in vivid green, red, yellow and white.Parque El Ejido has slides and climbing for little kids and painting exhibitions on the weekends.Parque La Alameda - In the park, you can rent pedal or row boats on a small artificial lake. Check out the statue of Simon Bolivar in a heroic pose on his horse. Don't miss the outdoor relief map of Ecuador which looks like a big flounder with the Andean mountains running down the middle. There is also the 19th century Quito astronomical observatory, El Observatorio Astronomico, the oldest observatory in South America, with old telescopes and instruments.
