Lots of little towns and beautiful natural preserves only couple hours away by car from Quito. Spent my bar trip in Ecuador; but was part time in Quito, then baños, cuenca, Guayaquil, and montañita. Sadly no Galapagos.
I’ll see what the gf says for Quito but we stayed with her family there so didn’t do a lot of touristy stuff. If you take tram up the mountain where the angel/Mary whatever it is is at, be sure to drink the canelazo. Tip well and they’ll heavy hand it with the aguardiente. 5 days is a lot if you just stay in the city. Old city is nice to walk through though.
Like any other large Latino city, there are good and bad areas, just be aware and don’t flash wealth around. Lotta cool graffiti too if that’s your thing. The big park in the middle of the city might be nice to meander through if you go during the day.
Be sure to stop in and eat some pig. Fucking amazing the way they fry, serve fritada and churrazco. Best place we went just had a large real cooking pig on a spit outside the door, in the middle of the burbs regular old strip mall. They also love chaulafan but that’s just fried rice so never really saw the appeal. If you get hungover or as they call it “chuchaki”, many locals love encebollado, which to my understanding is seafood soup. Not my bag but whatevs. Think it’s better on the coast so you might have more luck on the islands. They also have “hot sauce” but they call it aji. Not spicy at all. Flavorful as hell but not the least bit spicy. I added it to all my meals but again, not spicy.