Ecuador

I went to Santa Cruz, Isabella, Fernandina, South Plaza and North Seymour. You’ll see wildlife absolutely everywhere and the scenery isn’t that different on each island - they are all volcanic. The bigger islands are greener, the smaller ones more desolate. On Isabella you can hike to the rim of the crater, with stunning views once you get there.

Dunno. Did loads of snorkeling. Saw gazzilions of tropical fish, swam with sea lions, touched a sea turtle. Good enough for me.

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Ulises de la Cruz

I did read it, and it’s probably my favourite book of his. Reading it while on the islands themselves, with the references to the wildlife just augmented the whole thing.

The other Ecuador related book I read while out there was The Mapmaker’s Wife, which I also recommend if you’re going. Not because it’s a great story, it’s written by a scientist and you can tell. However the background to colonisation in South America and the loving detail that’s written about the country is really interesting and helps contextualise a lot of things.

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Here’s a brain dump while all this is fresh in the memory banks.

Galapagos
We tried to do it as cheap as possible, but that’s literally impossible on the Galapagos. You have to pay roughly $100 entry fee just to enter the islands, in addition to all other costs. It’s gotten even more expensive post-pandemic too. In Rough Guides, the bus & ferry from Baltra (where the airport is) to Santa Cruz (where most of the humans are) is no longer free. It’s only $6 each way, but with entry fees for each island, the costs add up remarkably quickly. We stayed for about 8 days, on Santa Cruz & Isabela. I also spent a day diving off Floreana. We stayed and ate on the edge of town in Puerto Ayora & Puerto Villamil and ate at places clearly not targeted at tourists. This meant our accommodation was about $12 per night on Santa Cruz, $40 on Isabela, and dinner about $5 per night with lunch about $3 (always menu del dia for the cheapest). Street vendors are good too, the freshly fried empanadas are amazing.

To go see anything, you have to do it as part of a tour. Even hiking up Sierra Negra was something you’re not allowed to do by yourself. This is because tourists keep fucking up the islands and doing stupid things. Even with the guides they do, so I can’t imagine how it used to be. These tours are not cheap. We went snorkelling round tintoreras with more sharks than I’ve ever seen before. We did the hike up the active volcano Sierra Negra, which was pretty hard work with the volcanic terrain. We saw the Darwin Centre, swam in Las Grietas, walked to Tortuga Bay. We saw the giant tortoise reserve, the caves and the two craters on the way, sharing a cab with two strangers and haggling with the driver to get us to Puerto Ayora and stop off at those places for $60. Our Ecuadorian friend said you’d be unlikely to haggle them any lower than that, and it’s worth doing on the way as otherwise you’d just have to drive back.

The islands themselves are abundant with wildlife, particularly marine iguanas, tortoises and sea lions. We also saw sharks, penguins, boobies, and other wildlife too, this was very cool and the main reason for visiting. However, it’s not the idyllic eco-centre my imagination had thought it was. Ecuadorians like their nightlife, and both Puerto Ayora and Puerto Villamil went wild on the weekends. I’m not talking the tourists, I mean the locals. We were getting up at dawn most days so didn’t join in much, but was interesting to see.

The waterways in November are choppy as fuck. I didn’t know I suffered from seasickness till doing a 2 hour small boat ride across the ocean to Floreana. I ended up taking motion sickness pills for any boat travel afterwards, but that only works if you are chilling the other side due to the drowsiness.

I wouldn’t say diving is worth it unless you go to Gordon’s Rocks and that’s only for experienced divers due to the strength of current. This place is always full of hammerhead sharks. Personally I preferred just snorkelling as you can go your own pace and most of the wildlife doesn’t go that deep.

I recommend going to visit, but with the costs, it’s not a decision to take lightly. You’ve got to fly from Quito or Guayaquil so there’s the extra travel costs involved there too. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

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Interesting this one, as I was commenting that Quito seemed far safer than the guides suggested. Did plenty of walking around at night, staying to visible areas, but never felt sketchy. The guide books made it sound proper dangerous, which is how I felt in Sao Paulo years ago, but didn’t get that vibe at all in Quito. Pickpocketing, sure, seeing locals with their backpacks on their fronts says it all, but otherwise felt ok.

Was this in Cuyabeno? We did 4 days there, was the highlight of the trip. More on that tomorrow…

Yes, it was Cuyabeno! Would love to hear your experience.

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This is exactly what I wanted to hear.

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OK, I’ll do Cuyabeno next

Cuyabeno / Amazon

If you want to visit the Amazon, you really need to go to beyond where the logging and oil extraction is happening, and the first such a protected place is Cuyabeno. You can’t do a trip here without booking a multi-day tour thing with one of the few lodges along there, but considering this includes your transport, food and basically, everything you need to survive during these times, it’s not too bad really.

Getting there is a bit of a pain, overnight bus from Quito to Lago Agrio (only $8), then a 2 hour bus ride to the edge of the park and another 2 hour motorised kayak ride to get to the lodges themselves.

Two things I’d say about this trip before going any further, and if the getting there hasn’t put you off already:

  • I’d recommend being in a fairly decent state of physical fitness. We did 5 hours of kayaking on one of the days, by the end of which my arms were destroyed. The hiking isn’t too far, but it’s difficult getting through the jungle, particularly the swampier parts.
  • If you’re a bit freaked out by creepy crawlies, don’t go. It’s the jungle. Our room was on the top floor of the tower of huts, but we still had loads of crickets and a few cockroaches in our room. A French family joined us on the last day and a bit, and the daughter spent a lot of the time crying as her dad told her to be more confident.

Enjoyed this part of the trip so much. Went with Bamboo Lodge after having a nightmare trying to book with Cuyabeno Lodge who essentially accused us of lying saying that we transferred the money to them. Two days ago, they transferred it back, minus fees and a half-hearted apology. The food was great, the guide had a huge amount of knowledge, right down to scientific detail on the ecosystem and particular wildlife. Highlights included:

  • The huge array of wildlife we saw. Anacondas, boa constrictors, caimans, tarantulas, piranhas, pink dolphins, spider monkeys (cute), howler monkeys (sound like the gates of hell), huge array of birdlife…
  • Most of the time you’re on boat, as there are very few places where you can walk around without breaking stuff. Mostly you’re on a motorised boat, but you’re also kayaking part of it as well. Means you’re quieter so animals don’t get so spooked when you approach.
  • The sunsets, lagoon swimming and the night sky are incredible. Haven’t seen the stars so clearly since the outback, can just spend forever staring.
  • The night walk was pretty freaky but exhilarating. Saw a ridiculous number of spiders, and almost lost my shit when I saw a wild tarantula. At one point the guide put a scorpion spider on my face after asking for a volunteer. A few of us later ate live ants from a branch also. They tasted of lemon sherbert and made my tongue go numb.
  • We visited an indigenous family to make cassava bread which was less performative than I thought it’d be. The father of the family offered us round some of his homemade sugar liquor which was pretty smooth. Also found out how ridiculously quick it is to make edible food out of yucca plants straight from the ground. No football though!

I guess this sort of thing isn’t for everyone, but I find the whole ecosystem of a rainforest fascinating, the way that the animal and plant life depends on each other so much, the parasitic and symbiotic relationships between creatures and wildlife. Getting a chance to see it all was a real highlight of the trip for me and worth the extensive travel time.

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Quito

From the moment you get out of the airport it’s pretty special. Regular city with massive snow capped mountain peaks on the horizon. Quito is ridiculously high up and has a great skyline as a result. Though I never felt the altitude sickness bad enough to take the medication I had brought with me, you definitely feel significantly less fit than normal with even a casual stroll uphill leaving you short of breath.

The Guayasamin secular church / his house was the highlight. Hadn’t even heard of him as an artist before, but can see so much influence in his style from others. There’s a lot to unpack from everything on the entire site, and there’s something unique about having such an insight into one person’s vision and their life.

Walking around the old quarter was cool, the sudden European architecture, the markets, the old men playing cards on the square, the shoe shines. Everywhere you look that statue on the hill looks down at you which is actually quite nice. Mostly just walked about and looked around the cathedral, standard fare for a city visit.

Going up the TeleferiQo was great too. Ruca Pichincha is not as high up as some of the mountains but has great views of the city, has a swing which fits adults so you can swing while staring at the city, and the cabel car ride up there is pretty special too. You can even go towards the summit a bit, though never underestimate the effect of altitude sickness and take it easy.

The free cultural museums were closed during the time we were there which was a shame. Apparently it was because the new museum director closed them as his first act as museum director and it wasnt clear when they’d open again. No idea of the details here but was a shame as have heard they’re supposed to be great.

Lots of chat in guide books about how dangerous Quito can be. Didn’t get that vibe at all. Could imagine being pickpocketed, saw lots of locals with their backpacks on their front even, but as time went on we relaxed more and more and ended up just walking most places even at night. Since Ecuadorian tourism seems to be mostly US Citizens I can only assume it’s aimed at naive US tourists who make themselves a target. In comparison, I was terrified most of the time I was in Brazil years back, but didn’t feel that at all here.

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Mindo

Though it’s near Quito, the drive through the Andes takes forever and was the most travel-sickness inducing drive of our trip. We really wanted to visit the cloud forests though, with the constant humidity giving it a unique ecosystem of its own which attracts a ridiculous number of birds. This is the place to go for great views and shit tons of birds.

We stayed in a treehouse outside of town, which rustic but serene. In retrospect we’d have probably stayed closer to / in town if we did the trip again though. Nicer to visit the forests rather than stay in them, in my opinion.

The information in the guidebooks wasn’t very helpful for Mindo, mainly because most people either go for a guided day trip or go to one of the reserves and stay there the whole time. We could find no useful maps locally or online, and even Google Maps has many things in completely the wrong place. This makes navigation a bit tricky, especially finding the cable car start and end points and knowing how the different routes out of the town link up. We worked most of it out by asking people, the most helpful being taxi drivers surprisingly. Definitely had that feeling that we wished we knew earlier what we learned later though.

The butterfly museum was great, the towers there are good for seeing birds too (don’t confuse it with the one in the town itself, there are two). The orchid garden was particularly interesting with the guide explaining in detail about all the different types they had there. The chairlift was incredible, though my vertigo did kick in at one point. I don’t usually get it so bad but being in a flimsy chairlift waaaaaay above the rainforest was a bit nervey.

Best time to be taking it all in is the hour after dawn when the birds are waking up. You’ll hear them more than see them but it’s cool to just watch them do their thing. A ridiculous number of hummingbirds in particular.

Cotopaxi

We looked into doing this one ourselves on the local buses, but since you need a guide in the national park, we ended up doing a day tour instead.

Never been so high up in my life before. Felt surreal to have been in 33 Celcius 36 hours before and then being in a snow storm on the way up to base camp. The altitude sickness is a serious thing, don’t get bravado about it. Saw multiple people just sitting in the snow, lying down, one adult crying at base camp because of how it made them feel. It wasn’t bad at all for me, but it really is hard to predict. We were at 4800m above sea level, I’ve never been so high up before, not even close. Every 50m or so going up we took a couple of minutes break to aclimatise. This helped a lot. The views were incredible and I definitely recommend doing it. On the way down we cycled down to the lake too, which was a hell of a lot of fun, even if you do end up a bit muddy. There’s not so much wildlife so high up but the views are spectacular.

Stuff we didn’t do

Quilatoa: Would liked to have but with so much travel sickness, couldn’t take another 4 hours on the bus.
Papalacta: Wanted to but again, the idea of going to a place to relax with hot springs didn’t tie into the fear of the bus journey.
Baños / Tena / Puyo: Mostly portals to the Amazon and decided to to Cuyabeno instead.
The coast: Would have been nice but didn’t have the time and probably would have been the most familiar environment, so not as exciting.
Anything further south like Cuenca: Again, not enough time but would have been great to go to these places too.

Overall

Fucking amazing trip. So much variation in so little space. Cannot recommend it enough. Was blown away by how much I enjoyed it and so glad we chose to go to Ecuador specifically. Felt like we were there for so much longer.

With all the forced use of tours and guides for the most spectacular aspects it was pricier than we planned, even though we were staying in places that were roughly $15 per night and eating on $15 per day. It doesn’t compare with a lot of Asia in that sense, but the reasons for it make a lot of sense, to preserve the spectacular landscapes and ecosystems they have there.

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