One of the things I find fascinating about South America is the way that the indigenous pre-Columbian cultures have survived and absorbed elements of Western culture, Catholicism in particular. Unlike the British who seemed to have a generally laissez-faire attitude towards the cultures of the countries they conquered, preferring to concentrate on their economic exploitation, the Spanish sought to impose Catholicism on the people of South America and destroy what had been there previously.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the great churches that the conquerors starting building almost immediately after their arrival in the early sixteenth century. Quito is no exception and one church in particular demonstrates this. The Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus, the Church of the Jesuits, is a monument to power and excess. The exterior is grand and imposing but it the interior that takes the breath away. It is an extravaganza of Baroque excess, ornate to the point of overkill and entirely painted in gold. Even now the effect is overpowering but what must it have been like in the sixteenth century when it was built? (The photograph doesn't really show the true effect as it was taken at night).

Ironically, perhaps, not as great as the Jesuits might have intended. It is rumoured that the church is built on the site of a palace of the Inca ruler, Atahualpa. (This would itself have been a deliberate decision as part of the imposition of Spanish and Catholic rule.) And, of course, one of the things that the Spanish were desperate to lay their hands on was Incan gold, But the Incas didn't use gold paint. Their palaces were decorated with real gold which the Spanish proceeded to loot, melt down and ship back to Spain, destroying many priceless works of art in the process. So maybe the indigenous population wouldn't have been so impressed and would have regarded the new church as a rather pale imitation of a more glorious symbol of power and authority.

Whatever their attitude indigenous populations sought to both infiltrate their beliefs into the Western culture and adopt elements of Catholic beliefs into their own. So in amongst the ornate decoration of the church are incorporated native faces and plants - put their, surely, by the local craftsmen, who by necessity, the Spanish would have employed to build their new palace, as a statement of resistance. And in the Museum of Ethnography, that we visited today, a display on shamanism showed some of the artefacts that shamen still use to summon the spirits which included rosary beads and statuettes of the Virgin Mary. Throughout the Andes there are many such examples of traditional beliefs being incorporated into the way indigenous peoples both continued to practice their own beliefs and also in their adoption of the new religions, a process known as syncretism.

The reason for being in the church was to attend a concert given by the National Orchestra of Ecuador. In something of a throwback to the days of Spanish rule this was to mark Spain's national day. The programme was comprised entirely of Spanish music with works by Albeniz (the 'Suite Espanola), Rodrigo and la Falla with no Ecuadorian composers getting a look-in and the conductor and soloists were also Spanish. The concert was free, the whole thing funded by the Spanish Government, no doubt as a philanthropic gesture but still conveying tones of colonialism.

And as if to prove that the process of cultural assimilation continues, on the way back to our hostel we dropped in to a craft beer bar that has recently opened just down the street. Now whilst it is nice to be able to drink locally brewed IPA whilst we are here, I can't help feeling that maybe something is being lost in the way that new elements of Western culture are adopted across the world spread, in no small part, of course, by travellers like us. But at least there appear to be no Starbucks in central Quito. Yet.