Ecuador

Originally the plan was to go to Guayaquil, rather than Quito. But as soon as I got on the bus (which was going through Quito anyway), I looked at the two cities and it seemed there was so much more to do in and around Quito. I took a trip with my family to Ecuador years ago and it was going to be fun to do some comparisons. So Quito it was! We found a quaint little hotel in the Old Town section run by Jaime and his seven-year old son Mikey. It was a wonderful place with hardwood floors, our own bathroom with hot water (sometimes we don´t have one or the other) for $16 USD a night! The first thing on our agenda was a hot, hot shower to get rid of all the powder, paint and foam spray from that crazy fiesta in Colombia! We felt like new afterwards and celebrated by having our one and only fancy dinner on our vacation yet.

We will always remember Quito as the city of colonial churches, monasteries and convents and views. Every time you turn a corner, you look down the street to see an amazing building or park. We were blessed with good weather so our walking tours were full and exciting. Sometimes we left our hotel room at 7 in the morning and got back at 9 pm. (Then we´d shower, get ready and go out dancing!) There was actually a sidebar in our Lonely Planet Guide that listed the best views in Quito. That´s what we decided to do, see the views. Quito is about 8500 feet high, so there is a little bit of breathing challenge if you walk straight up or walk too fast, until you get acclimated to the height. One experience that stands out was the climb up the 315 steps of the Basilica, a gothic church built in the last century. It wasn´t the 315 steps that worried us, after all, we are troopers. It was the ¨type¨ of steps. They started out OK, but after the first 100, they turned into ladders. Each ladder got smaller and flimsier, until they were just made out of metal rods. Sometimes the distance between each rod was too small, sometimes too much. And we had our flip-flops on!!! Not a way to climb slippery metal ladders! The very last ladder to the top of the highest spire was made of rods about a half inch thick. And that´s not all. When you climbed up, you were on a wire platform, not a real floor and some of the wires were broken. If you didn´t pay attention, your leg could actually fall through and would be torn apart by the jagged wire. But that´s still not all. One guy disappeared outside a little window, so Stacy gets it in her head to do the same. She goes out on this tiny platform OUTSIDE the steeple so I can take a picture of her. Then she says, ¨It doesn´t feel so great out here. I think it´s dangerous.¨ Well I had to go out and check. Wow! On that platform with no ropes, ledges, nothing to hold you on there, if there were an earthquake (Quito has lots) or a rogue wind, that would be the end of you. I stayed out 5 seconds, long enough for a picture too. But that was a CRAZY thing to do. Food was interesting in Quito. It was generally good, and sometimes fanstastic, but I also had the worst meal I´ve had in my life when we accidentally wandered into a Chinese restaurant. I like Chinese food, so I don’t know what happened there, but I think I had two sips of my soup and said no. I went to sleep hungry that night. But another day we had an interesting soup made of tripe, potatoes, and avocados in a peanut sauce! It sounds awful, but it was great! Another night we ate at an upscale Ecuadorian restaurant and had a local soup dish, a meat dish, and four glasses of wine for $14.00. The food in Ecuador is really cheap.

One day we took the new cable car up the side of active volcano Pichincha – all the way to over 13,000 feet!!! That´s pretty high and it was VERY cold. During the days each of us had stopped at a store here or there to get warmer clothes, especially me since I only had my clothes from Nicaragua and Nicaragua never gets cold!

On Saturday we went to Otovalo, supposedly one of the largest markets in Latin America. It was beautiful! We went to the Artesania section, where the natives make beautiful woven wall hangings, purses, hand-made sweaters, everything very brightly colored. We stayed at the market the whole day and I did some great negotiating on wool sweaters, hats, gloves and other things to keep us warm in our upcoming countries. Great day! We went dancing that night and had a great time. Finally the club wasn´t filled with only couples, the problem we had in Colombia.

The next day we went to Baños. I had been there before, but I thought Stacy should see it, even if for only a day. I usually don´t like the more touristy places and this place is mobbed with tourists, particularly North Americans. But it´s a cute town, reminded me a bit of San Juan del Sur, only bigger and more upscale. Baños is a hub for extreme sports from ATV riding, hang gliding, white water river rafting, etc. Etc. Years ago when we were there and my daughters were about 8 and 9 years old, the town was so tiny that we let them wander around alone (there were only two streets). Now it has grown to a little mega town with Asian food, American food, and tons of hostals. Baños sits on the side of a volcano that is very active. In 2006, it exploded and wiped out a section of the town right below it. Luckily no one got hurt because each citizen has a backpack ready to go OUT THE DOOR when the sirens go on. Each citizen has a particular evacuation route and no Ecuadorian is scared about this volcano. And guess what? The taxi driver who took us from the bus terminal to our hotel (cute little place, $19 USD a night) was on ¨Volcano eruption call¨ and told us that the volcano had started erupting the day before and he would call us if that happened again. Well, the next morning, just as we were going to breakfast, we got the call. He said ¨Hurry, I´ll take you to see the volcano erupting.¨ Well, that sounded cool to us, so we went TOWARD the spewing volcano. We heard it rumble and grumble, we saw the thick clouds of poison gas coming out and we got some awesome pictures!

Next...we went to Puyo, supposedly a town on the edge of the REAL jungle! On the way we stopped at a beautiful waterfall that fed into a river in a canyon. Years ago I had walked across the swing bridge with my husband and my daughters, but now there was an aerial car that you can take for $1 USD and cross that way. It looked unsafe at first, but we did it anyway and it was great fun! Next, we went to another waterfall and hiked a bit to get to it. My daughters Talia and Shanna may remember this one...we hiked years ago through the dense jungle and had a little picnic once we reached the Devil´s Cauldron. There was no one there, no hint of civilization. But now a wide trail has been created, a restaurant is there and you have to pay to go in. Changes. Good or bad? I don´t know. More tourists, more jobs for the Ecuadorians. More tourists, less Ecuadorian culture. Same thing in Nicaragua. Good or bad? Both, I think.

We reached Puyo and couldn´t really see how it was a town on the edge of a jungle. We were disappointed with our hotel, and the fact that there was very little to do in Puyo. Also, the electricity went out the night we were there and abruptly ended a good Internet session. The next day we did the only thing we could find that was interesting..we visited a monkey farm. This farm had 51 monkeys of different varieties all running around loose and waiting for unsuspecting tourists to come so they can jump on them. See the photos, it was fun enough, though we were filthy from the mud and had to get right on a long bus ride after that!

We decided to take the road less traveled to Cuenca, against everyone´s advice. But how glad we were! Yes, it took 3 hours longer to get to Cuenca, but we saw some views of mountains that cannot be described and experienced some hair-raising turns on the bus where we looked out the window and were so close to the edge that we peered down a few thousand feet into the canyon!

Cuenca is a beautiful city and there´s quite a bit to do there. We had our cheapest hotel here, for $12 USD for BOTH of us! We also had our best, cheapest meal. While we were taking a walking tour one day, we happened upon a beautiful hotel-restaurant that had a fixed price lunch. It was hard to believe, but we went in and sure enough, for $2 USD you got a fresh tamarind juice, home-made onion soup, a beef and rice and cooked carrot dish, and bananas flambee for dessert. I defy any of you to beat that. Of course we ruined the budget when we each got a glass of wine. Each glass was $4 USD, the price of two lunches!!! Ecuador is VERY inexpensive. Other highlights: we had a couple of great dancing nights, I finally found the Panama hat I was looking for (for those of you who don´t know, ALL Panama hats are made in Ecuador!!!). We saw them in Panama, but they told us the same thing, so we waited ´till we got to Ecuador, where they were much cheaper. We enjoyed walking along the river and through the city. One day we took a trip to another little town, also called Baños. We arrived in the middle of a horse parade tribute to the Virgen, so we watched that outside of a brightly painted (blue) church! Then we walked down to some thermal baths, where we soaked away all of our toxins for a couple of hours. In Cuenca you can get books in English, very typical European and North American food, and anything else you are used to. And the city is beautiful.

Then we took the bus to Machala, where we had to get another bus to the border with Peru. After much research, and learning that Peru is much more dangerous for a tourist than Colombia is now, we decided to take a bus from Machala that takes you THROUGH the border and leaves you off in Tumbes, Peru. We were escorted (at night) through the whole immigration process which actually took about 5 minutes. On to Peru...... To see the photos for this section, click here.