Ecuador - September 2010 Quito - Galapagos - Cotopaxi - Otavalo - Mindo

This trip to Ecuador and Galpagos in September 2010 was the first trip outside North America. The opportunity came about because our niece Lee was living in Quito teaching ESL. She had enough Spanish to act as our translator and enough knowledge of the country to be our guide. Good thing. Quito and Ecuador in general was a huge culture shock and we would have been lost without help. The guides say English is relatively common in Ecuador but that wasn't our experience. Everything from hotels, to transportation and especially restaurant menus were all based on Spanish and English speakers in tourism were few and far between.

However, we carried on and with help from our resident interpreter we had a great time.

The trip started with a late night arrival in Quito and a wild cab ride to the Hotel Sebastian in what is regarded as the 'tourist' part of Quito. The Hotel was authentic Ecuadorian and turned out to be really nice. It was a really good base of operations. Staff were great and the retaurant made a great breakfast. Still tough without Spanish but it was doable.

View of Quito south from Sebastian Hotel

Fifth floor - Sebastian Hotel

The noise from car alarms all night was irritating. It sounded as though a car was broken into every few minutes along the streets below the hotel but there didn't look like there were any people out there after dark to do all the break-ins. Eventually I figured out that the alarms were set off by drivers bumping their way out of tiny parking spaces. There were guys along each block who directed drivers into parking spots for a buck or two. The more cars they could cram along the sidewalk the more money they made. Eventually the parking guys went home and when the bars emptied the drivers were left to bump their way out of the tiny parking spots.

They don't like toilet paper in the sewers, which must be really something to see given how ancient they are (How it is that 500 year old buildings built on narrow lanes have any sewers at all is a mystery to me.) so they put a small garbage can beside the toilet and that's where the paper goes. Nice.

I think the Hotel Sebastian cost something like $65.00 US per night which I think was really cheap. When I first booked through an agency before we left the rate actually included a full breakfast in the hotel restaurant. they had wi-fi and free access to a computer in the business area. Some things in Ecuador (like the toilet paper garbage can) were primitive and kind of third world but then they also had this computer infrastructure. Lots of contrasts.

Dogs are a something that came as a surprise. So many strays and so many starving dogs huddled in alleys and doorways. Everyone just walks past them but to those of us from North America it can be really heartbreaking. Our dogs are part of the family but in much of Ecuador they are simply abused and ignored. Terrible. If human compassion for other life is a measure of civilization then places like Ecuador (and Chile) have a long way to go on the civilization scale.

During our first few days in Quito we toured the old city, climbed part way up Pichincha Volcano, took a day trip to Papallacta, visited the tourist sites around the middle of the world and made arrangements to travel to Galapagos. It was all a really great adventure.

Old City

The old city is everything as advertised. Cities in North America are more or less cookie cutter productions from the mid-20th century. Quito is a UNESCO city several hundred years old with a complex history mixed up with native Inca and Spanish culture. Old dank alleyways, narrow sidewalks, rickety infrastructure. Old grand churches and government buildings. Not particualrly 'touristy' when we were there, in fact, the place seemed to be humming along with residents occupied in the business of getting on with things.

Climbing Pichincha

Pichincha is a semi-dormant volcano that forms the western perimeter of Quito. The trip up from the city is popular among locals. They have a terefirico which is a gondola system that leaves on a regular run from a large, modern parking area and runs part way up the mountain. We hiked the trail from the terminal of the teleferico to a final elevation of roughly 4000 metres. (Quito is roughly 3000m ASL). Afterwards I did some research and found that the real thrill of the hike would be to complete the climb and stand at the edge of the volcano looking west to Mindo and the Andes cloud forest.

Papallacta

Papallacta is a popular little spa town something like 70 km east of Quito. They have a series of hot springs as well as a trout farm (ate the trout - it was good). We took a bus to Papallacta and a cab up the mountain road. We walked back down. It doesn't seem too exotic now but at the time walking down this road in Ecuador was quite a thrill. Long way from home. It's the little things that stick. I lost my map in the cab but we found the guy again and sure enough it was between the seat and the door.

Middle of the World!

The centre of the world is another spot popular among locals. For people who seem to be struggling to makes end meet (to put it mildly) they really enjoy their city and country and get out to places, just like in North America, with all the kids and whatnot for a day out. The centre of the world is a tourist place. apparently the monument that marks the equator isn't really on the equator but they don't play that up too much. Close enough. Once again we took local buses to get there and we ended up in a pickup (me in the box at the back) roaring back into Quito.

Back in Quito we spent some time planning a trip to Galapagos which came as a surprise to me. I hadn't anticipated a trip to Galapagos was on the agenda.

Brown Pelican with Catamaran in the distance 

The trip to Ecuador wasn't particularly planned, mainly because it was our first and we had no idea how to go about doing the research and planning. We put ourselves in the hands of our niece/interpreter and just made it up as we went along which is how we ended up flying to Baltra Island in the Galapagos on 12 September 2010. We made arrangements in Quito at a travel agent near the Sebastian Hotel. We were very lucky. We booked a suite (king bed and double pullout - private bath and balcony) on board the Millennium catamaran. Small ship, excellent accommodations. My only regret was that we only had four days and three nights, something I hope to correct in the future. I have some idea of taking a longer tour five years from now in my 65th year.

(Photos)

At the Darwin Centre on Santiago Island 

The tour took us from the airport across Baltra Island  to Puerto Ayora where we boarded the Millennium. For people from the woods of Northwestern Ontario the experience was nothing less than awesome. The colour of the water, the brown pelicans and frigate birds, the fishing fleet in the harbour, and the little town itself was all amazing. I remember how amazing it was to fly in low over the island before we touched down. Never saw anything like it before. Barren, dry, flat lava beds.

Puerto Ayora

Sometime afterward I found out more about Galapagos and the threats the islands face from over population and all the problems that go with that - garbage, sewage, roads, invasive species etc etc. Puerto Ayora was exactly all that. Nice little town but it hid the problems this kind of tourism development creates. It's the paradox. On the one hand tourism benefits so many people in a place like this but then tourism contributes to the degradation of the very experience they are selling.




From Puerto Ayora on Isla Santiago we toured through north and south Plaza islands, North Seymour, Las Baches (on Santiago Island) and ended up at Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristobal. We saw a lot of the tourism highlights but for first timers it was all great. I tallied up something like 40 birds, we saw numerous iguana species and sea lions. The vegetation, largely tall tree-like cacti of the oputina family was fascinating. Never saw anything like it!

I think all I can say about Galapagos that hasn't already been said is that I want to back, I want to spend more time watching marine iguana (there are numerous other species but the marine iguana is the real unique one) and I want to see tortoises in their native habitat.

Iconic View of Isla Bartoleme

We returned to Quito on 16 September 2010 and back to the Hotel Sebastian. The next day back was a second tour of parts of Quito like the more or less abandoned Basilica with great views over the old city where we found a neat little restaurant high up one of the towers in the Basilica looking down on the city.

Interesting gargoyles carved in the shape of
Boobies, Frigates and Pelicans on the Basilica

Back at the Hotel we booked a trip to Volcano Cotopaxi which is southeast of Quito more or less on the edge of the Andes Mountains. The trip required and early start (0700 we were standing on a corner waiting for a random van which then ran around picking up other travellers on other random corners). I think the full day trip that included the ride, a hike up to the mountain hut (with lunch) and then a bike ride down the volcano cost something like $100 USD for the three of us. Very reasonable for what we got.

The trip took an hour or two along the highway and then a rough trail through the desert. Along the way we stopped at a small village and load bikes on the roof of the van and visited a grocery store where the guide picked up supplies to carry to the hut. We bounced along for a while until we reached the park entrance where we toured a small museum.






Then the fun began. We started from 3000m (9800ft) from Quito and climbed to the parking lot halfway up Cotopaxi at 4500m (14760ft). Out of the van with everything we had on into the face of a gale. Stones were flying around and the wind practically knocked us over. Again, it was surprising how many Ecuadorian locals were out and about also climbing to the hut. Whole families on a day outing. I must admit I didn't do well on the hike and really just crawled up the trail to the hut hiding behind rocks for shelter from the blast. (Our guide marched up carrying a couple of dozen eggs for the kitchen). Anyway, spectacular views of the lava and ash fields around the mountain from the hut at 4310m (14140ft) with a nice lunch in the hut (cold and dizzy) but we couldn't go higher (guides said stones flying around were too big to continue - really, a climb to the crater is an overnighter with full climbing gear - not tourists in hikers). All told we travelled something like 4500ft in elevation from Quito to the hut.

No doubt about it, Cotopaxi was one of the highlights of the trip.


After the Cotopaxi adventure we were back in Quito and off on a bus to Otavalo to tour the indigenous market. Great place (again). I bought a neat wool felt hat, kind of a fedora style. Amazing markets divided into merchandise sections and food sections. Markets covered whole blocks and business was humming even in the off-season.

Lunch was trout again but this time it was a little muddy. Too bad.

Back in Quito we toured some more looking for some neighbourhood (called Quapalo or something) that we didn't find but we had a nice walk anyway. We walked an incredibly busy and narrow road winding down into a river valley where the smell of raw sewage was overwhelming. I guess a relecion of the state of water treatment in Quito.

Our final expedition was an overnighter on September 21 to Mindo in the Andean cloud forest. This is on the western slopes of the Andes about 200km by road from Quito. Four of us took a wild cab ride to Mindo and a bus home the next day.

Interesting to note that the 'blast' zone of the Pichincha volcano on the western outskirts of Quito actually points directly toward Mindo. Much of the underlying soil in the Mindo area is likely ash blown into the area from the volcano. So one time we are climbing Pichincha and later we are touring in forest growing on ash from the same volcano.

Dragonfly Inn - Mindo

Downtown Mindo

Zipliners

An Explorer

Rainy day in Mindo

Mindo is famed for birds, especially hummingbirds of which I saw several species (too hard to name). I did see Blue Tanager and a species of hornbill. We stayed at the Dragon Fly Inn which had full facilities including a restaurant/bar at an incredibly reasonable price.

Jungle stream in Mindo cludforest

School opening exercises

That's it. First overseas trip - successful. New trips will be on the horizon now that we have some confidence in travel and dealing with new and unusual situations. Next time - New Zealand in 2012.