In one of my early posts I shared the story about the Sunday street market in Old Town and I told you about the cathedral, Iglesia de la Compańia de Jesus. This was the cathedral that took 160 years to build and was under construction from 1605 – 1765. It’s the one that looks like a golden palace or temple on the inside and we could not take pictures. We still could not take photos, however, we happened to get there at the beginning of a service, so were able to attend mass in this awesome and breathtaking cathedral! It was amazing, and even though the mass was in Spanish and we could only understand parts of it, it was still absolutely spectacular! What an unexpected treat. Different Cathedral below, but, I just love these doors.

The streets of Old Town like most of the “Old Towns” in Ecuador are narrow and really not designed with cars in mind. This street is empty only because it is Sunday so the roads are closed to most traffic because of the market.

There were street musicians, mimes, super heroes and of course all the normal vendors.

We were walking along looking for a comic book store we had seen the last time we were here and that is when we saw him. I think we both saw him at the same time. He was in the showcase window of a small little shop, and we said, “That’s it, that’s the one!” We had been searching all over for the perfect purchase and here he was, right in front of us! My first reaction was, “He’s perfect, but, how will we ever get him home without breaking him in a million pieces?” Tod, always the positive can-do attitude said simply, “Oh, I’ll get him home.” So it was settled, we went inside, I told the shopkeeper which of his creations we wanted and asked to have it padded for travel (I didn’t know how to ask for bubble wrap). Anyway after about 15 minutes of wrapping our Gremlin in old newspaper and rags we completed our purchase and were on our way. (We both hoped Jeremie would like it as much as we did because soon it would be his.) He is bigger than he looks in the photo.

October 26 is the trip to the proclaimed “real” middle earth!