How Ecuador can take your breath away

BY AMANDA J. MILLER
Cox News Service

QUITO, Ecuador -- High above the city, 72 feet to be exact, I'm inching around the 2-foot-wide ledge of the 17th-century bell tower of the Iglesia de la Compania, trying without much success to tamp down vertigo. Oddly, I feel both terrified and exhilarated.
The tower is the perfect vantage point to view the city's crazy quilt of centuries-old buildings and modern construction.

Ecuador is noted for its outdoor travel opportunities, especially for seeing exotic animals and swimming with sea lions and giant tortoises in the Galapagos Islands. In this small country of 13 million people, you can also trek in the Amazon jungle or get close to whales cavorting off the coast. Who knew there would be nearly as many thrills in its capital city of 1.4 million people and the volcanic region around it?

A visit to Quito, designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1978, blends history and adventure in unexpected ways.

THE ELEVATION
The city is at a breathtaking 9,300 feet, almost twice that of ''mile high'' Denver and so high some people might suffer minor altitude sickness -- fatigue or mental confusion from thin air.
Susan Carter of Gardendale, Ala., had a mild bout when she first arrived for a visit last year with her daughter Julie, a graduate student at Auburn University who was in Quito working for the summer.

''It's just a weird feeling,'' she said, trying to describe the sensation of lightheadedness. Even climbing stairs takes an effort and your mind goes goofy, is how I'd describe it, though the symptoms dissipated within a few hours.