QUITO AFFORDABLE FOR TRAVELERS.

Byline: Jay Clarke Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Behold! A place where the U.S. dollar is still high and mighty.

Although the American greenback has been taking a shellacking in many other parts of the world, it's alive and well in Ecuador.

My wife bought a vest for $3.60, a couple of leather belts for $5 each, a Panama hat for $4 and several ceramic necklaces for $5 each. I priced a handwoven wool sweater for $16. Taxi fares are usually a dollar or two. The most we ever paid was $3, for a trip that took at least 20 minutes.

Four of us went out to dinner one night at a fine Italian restaurant with a panoramic view of Quito and paid a total of $40, including a bottle of Chilean wine.

With prices like these - and a climate and scenery that are just as splendid - it's surprising that more Americans haven't "discovered" Quito. Like other South American metropolises, the Ecuadorean capital has its problems, but it is still one of the most pleasant on the continent.

Because Quito lies just a few miles from the equator, many people expect it to have a tropical climate. But its high elevation - almost 9,200 feet - gives it spring-like temperatures the year around.

Quito lies between two Andes mountain ranges in a high valley known as the Avenue of the Volcanoes. The city itself sits in the shadow of the volcano Pinchincha, and on good days Quitenos can see the snow-capped cone of Cotopaxi, at 19,347 feet the highest active volcano in the world.

Several other snow-topped volcanoes become visible when you drive on the Pan-American Highway, which bisects the valley. Chimborazo, the country's highest mountain at 20,697 feet, rises to the south, 19,300-foot Cayame to the north. The latter sits astride the equator itself, providing a rare sight: snow on the equator.

Quito's glory, however, lies in its colonial heritage - it has so many well-preserved structures from its years under Spanish rule that UNESCO declared it a "patrimony of the world" in 1979.

The old city is filled with colonial buildings. On streets such as La Ronda, wrought-iron balconies overhang the narrow, cobblestoned passage, and high wooden doors offer entry through thick, whitewashed walls. Extraordinary beauty awaits inside the massive walls of Quito's magnificent colonial churches - 58 of them in the old sector.

Walk into La Compania church and you may feel as if you entered a golden tomb. Gold covers everything you see - the altars, the columns, the ceiling - a total of 1-1/2 tons of the precious metal. The 10 side altars are gold-plated; the main altar is solid gold. Carvings and paintings from the famed Quiteno school decorate its walls.

Gathered around the Plaza Independencia are some of Quito's most important buildings. The Presidential Palace - equivalent to our White House - occupies one side of the square. Its wrought-iron balustrades were brought here from the Tuileries in Paris, home of the French kings, after it was sacked during the French Revolution.

Also around the square are the 16th-century Cathedral of Quito, whose dome is topped with a rooster; the Archbishop's Palace, whose adobe walls are more than six feet thick; the residence of the mayor of Quito; and the new city hall, a nondescript 1970s structure that sticks out like an architectural sore thumb amid the older structures.

In the modern sector of Quito, the center of tourist action is in and around Amazonas Street, home of sidewalk cafes, boutiques, good restaurants and several major hotels.

Here also, within the Banco Central building, are the Archeological, Colonial and Religious museums. All three have interesting displays of Quito and Ecuador, but the most remarkable are in the Gold Room, which contains a stunning collection of pre-Columbian gold artifacts.

At the head of Amazonas lies Alameda Park, which becomes a huge flea market on weekends. Even if you don't buy a thing, it's a wonderful place to stroll, browsing at the paintings, jewelry, crafts and clothing displayed in stalls, on tables and grassy plots.

Many shoppers take a day trip to Otavalo, about 60 miles north of Quito. This is the home of the Otavalo Indians, noted for their crafts and for their marketing prowess, which they combine to make a good living. (Some Otavalos journey as far as Paris and London to market their goods.)

In addition to Otavalo, a number of other interesting day trips can be made from Quito.

Nearly every visitor takes the 15-mile trip to the impressive Equatorial Monument, a stone pyramid topped by a large metal globe. A tourist village has developed around the monument, which houses a museum of Ecuadorean peoples on its seven levels.

We also took a longer side trip, driving south one day to Cotopaxi and the national park that lies on its slopes. Llamas and alpacas grazed in the pine forest, and when we rose above the tree line, a dozen wild horses came into view. Descended from the ones the Spanish conquistadors imported into the Americas, they roam free on the windswept highlands.

We drove on to Lake Limpiopungo, actually a shallow pond, at an elevation of more than 12,500 feet to see Andean gulls, which eons ago adapted to life far from the seashore. Longer side trips from Quito take visitors to such exotic locales as the Galapagos Islands, a remarkable archipelago with unique wildlife about 600 miles off the coast, and to the Amazon valley, where they are taken in riverboats and canoes into the tropical jungle.

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Photo The Equatorial Museum, which houses seven floors of artifacts, stands astride the equator. Jay Clarke/Knight-Ridder Tribune Photo Service