La Carolina Park

Parque La Carolina[1] is a 165.5-acre (670,000 m2) park in the centre of the Quito central business district, bordered by the avenues Río Amazonas, de los Shyris, Naciones Unidas, Eloy Alfaro, and de la República.

[citation needed] The design of the park was made by the Dirección Metropolitana de Planificación Territorial (DMPT).

Pope John Paul II headed a great Catholic mass in the park during his visit to Ecuador in 1985, and a giant Christian cross has been built in this place.

Quiteños gather at La Carolina mostly on weekends to play soccer, basketball, and ecua-volley, which is an Ecuadorian variation of volleyball with less emphasis on spiking, allowing more of a throw.

The southern part of the park has a small pond where paddle boats can be rented and a skatepark for bicyclists and skateboarders.