Metropolitan Cathedral and the rooster on the dome

Look up at the domes of the Cathedral, on the south side of the Plaza Grande. On one of them you'll see a metal rooster showing the direction of the wind. It has been up there a long time, and it stars in Quito's most popular legend.

1Not even the Cathedral rooster!

Tradition says that Don Ramón Ayala y Sandoval, a rich and bohemian gentleman, spent his nights drinking mistelas, a sweet liqueur, in the shop of a woman named Mariana. On his way home, by then very drunk, he would stop in front of the Cathedral and challenge the rooster: no rooster was a match for him, not even the one on the Cathedral.

One night, the rooster came down from the dome and wounded his leg with its spur. It only left him alone when Don Ramón swore never to drink or insult it again.

The versions disagree about the ending: in some Don Ramón mends his ways; in others he relapses and disappears. Some even say it was all a prank by his friends and the sacristan.

2A real crime

The Cathedral also holds a documented mystery. On Good Friday 1877, 30 March, Archbishop José Ignacio Checa y Barba drank from the chalice during mass and died shortly afterwards in convulsions. The autopsy found strychnine. The archbishop had clashed with the government of Ignacio de Veintemilla, and suspicion fell on several clergymen, but the crime was never fully solved.

Two years earlier, in 1875, President García Moreno had died inside after the attack on his life.

3What to look for

• The rooster weather vane on the dome.
• The columned temple on the staircase, dating from 1807.
• The plaques on the wall, with the names of the city's founders.