How This South American Capital Became a Fast

The first thing I noticed when I woke up on my first morning in Quito was a physical sensation: a slight dizziness, a shortness of breath, a sense of fatigue after returning from a long (and very jet-lagged) morning walk around the city’s La Carolina park. And no, this isn’t because I was overcome by the sheer beauty of the place—although Quito is indeed very beautiful—but mostly because the Ecuadorian capital is one of the highest altitude major cities in the world. (It’s second only to Bolivia’s La Paz, in fact, which pips it to the top post by some 790 meters.) But back to the beauty: The second thing I noticed while wandering the streets of Quito was the overwhelming presence of nature. With the peaks of volcanoes on every horizon and the abundant foliage of the parks patchworked acros