Matthew & Jen's World Trip: Ecuador

Aside from our time in the Galapagos, we have spent a little over a week exploring Ecuador - a very pretty, friendly and inexpensive (Galapagos excluded) country to visit. Most of our travel was originated from Ecuador’s capital, Quito. Nestled in the valley between the mountains and volcanoes of the Andes, Quito is more than 2,800m above sea level. At this altitude it does take a little while to fully acclimatise to the altitude. Most of the time it is a shortness of breath after a very small climb up a flight of steps which takes you by surprise.

At 4,100m above sea level!

On a particular sunny morning, we found ourselves riding a cable car up to 4,100m for a spectacular view of the city. From the cable car it is possible to climb even higher to the peak of a number of the mountains surrounding the city - but we weren’t quite up for it on the day we went, only a small walk to the best viewing area had both of us feeling a little light headed.

Central Quito could essentially be divided into two parts - the northern part of the city is known as Newtown, and is, unsurprisingly the newer part of the city. Newton hosts international hotel chains, KFC, McDonald’s, Galapagos travel agents, large parks, wide streets and wide footpaths. The southern part of the city is the picturesque Old or Colonial town, with narrow little one-way streets, tiny footpaths where two people couldn’t even walk abreast, some of the most fantastic churches in the world - including one church where it seemed like the entire interior was lined with gold. Constructed in the 1,500’s this baroque style church had spiral columns and gold throughout. With its interior illumination, being inside was something truly spectacular!

Quito from 4,100m

Quito's Old Town

View of Quito at night from the Hostal Roof

The hostel that we stayed in was in the Old town. It probably wasn’t a high tourist area that we were staying in, but was all the better for it. There were literally dozens of cafe’s and restaurants within a 5 minute walk from where we were staying. They all served breakfast, lunch and dinner meals (which generally involved a juice (all meals), a soup (lunch and dinner), a main course of meat and rice (breakfast(!), lunch and dinner), and from time to time a dessert - for less than US$2 each!! Adding that up, we could eat stacks of food for about US$5 each a day. The cafe’s and restaurants were rather grimy and not particularly inviting and you had to force yourself to ignore the hygiene standards - not at all ‘tourist’ friendly - but the food was filling and tasty and neither of us have gotten sick yet (touch wood).

On Saturday, the day after returning from the Galapagos, we found our way onto an intercity bus north to the Otavalo markets. Supposedly the largest craft market in all of south america, it was souvenir heaven. Looking around at the market patrons, it felt like there were just as many, if not more, tourists than locals perusing the stalls. For us (or should I say me), we were rather restrained in our souvenir acquisitions, limiting ourselves to an Alpaca blanket, a Panama hat (look out for photos featuring my new hat!) and a couple of small paintings (to complement the African paintings in our soon to be re-modelled bathroom).

From Quito we jumped onto another bus to Cuenca - a quaint town, which reminds me a lot of the UK’s Bath. The bus rides in Ecuador aren’t quite as luxurious as the bus rides we had taken in Argentina and to Rio - shortly after setting off, a man jumps into the aisle and practically yells at us for over 20 minutes trying to sell everyone pills that would prevent them from getting cancer. I was ready to ask the guy to shut up and sit down within a minute of him starting his spiel and was looking around for support from other passengers - unfortunately for some reason everyone on the bus proceeded to buy these ridiculous pills. We were forced to listen to 3 individuals hawking all sorts of junk on the gullible bus passengers, most of whom were very successful, making a number of sales. A real pity that this tradition isn’t likely to end any time soon.

Quenca

Jen trying on hats at the Panama Hat museum

Quenca, flower market outside the Cathedral

The ~9 hour bus ride went through some truly amazing scenery pretty much following the Andean mountain range south the entire voyage. Sheer mountains, valleys, and villages situated on the most hostile and seemingly uninhabitable parts of land.

Cuenca, which has Quito’s Colonial town charm, but is much more tourist friendly with a number of very smart restaurants and bars. A short 1-2 hour walk around the city was more than enough to tick off the major sites. An afternoon was also spent in Ecuador’s hottest natural thermal baths 8km out of town. On our last day in Cuenca we took a 2 hour bus ride north (back towards Quito) to visit a 500 year old inca ruin known as Ingapirca. Supposedly the ruins look like a puma when viewed from the air. After a 2.5 hour bus ride back, we returned to Cuenca in comfortable time to pick up our laundry and make it to happy hour at the bars.