Ecuador & Galapagos

…somewhere over the rainbow… We landed in the city of clouds 🙂

Quito’s Historic Centre

Quito’s Old Town is very pretty, with many colonial buildings having survived the numerous and frequent earthquakes. We visited the convent and church which are the main attractions here. The old town has street market stalls with fruit and veg and surprisingly many religious ornaments. Salsa music can be heard everywhere. For our first foray into the Americas south of Mexico, it was unfortunate that there were hardly any tourists in sight, although the police were everywhere. True, this may have been because there were anti-police demonstrations ongoing and the taxi dropped us off outside the police precinct. We walked about the entirety of Quito’s old town without trouble, and used the trams and buses to get about.

Quito’s La Mariscal Sucre

Described in LP’s SAoaS as one of the most dangerous parts of South America, we had earmarked the Mariscal for a visit. Indeed with no police, drunken tourists, and dark alleyways, you could see how the place could be hairy. Rumours are that the lack of police is not by chance. We took out money for our trip to the Galapagos, stuffed it down our pants, and didn’t get robbed. In a sweeping summary: the Mariscal could be anywhere in the world and is patronised solely by gringos; the Historic Centre is authentic and deserted by gringos.

Cotopaxi

Our family-run hostel had ‘See Cotopaxi’ excursions, so having spent our first day seeing much of Quito, we thought seeing one of the highest active volcanoes in the world would be an interesting and relaxing thing to do. With Quito being at nearly three thousand metres above sea level, even walking up a flight of stairs was noticeably difficult and breath-taking. After a drive of an hour or so from Quito we changed into a jeep, at which point the guide rather ominously asked whether we had warm clothing.

So it turns out the excursion was to see Cotopaxi from the top, not the bottom. So be it. Our jeep’s windows didn’t close and it was cold. We drove through the national park, up to and up Cotopaxi, parking at four and a half thousand metres. So it turns out the excursion was to climb the final seven hundred metres to the glacier. We made the two-kilometre walk, just. Hiking to the mountain hut at 4,800m, we were desperate for food at any price. From the bottom of the glacier, at 5,200m, we were afforded amazing views of the surrounding area. Well, we would have been if we weren’t inside clouds the entire time. Experiencing most of the symptoms of altitude sickness, we descended rapidly. Still, it’s the story that counts – and after that, a flight of stairs in Quito was a breeze.

On the way back we stopped for food, foolishly admitting to the driver we were yet to try Guinea Pig. One whole spit-roasted pet later, and the verdict was that the rabbit-chicken simply wasn’t worth the hassle or guilt.

Random fact: Skoda cars have indeed made it everywhere! (They just never make it back home.)

Otavalo

So we had a few days or so to kill in Quito. We headed out to Otavalo which was about two hours on a bus, heading over the Equator (you can buy tours to the monument from Quito if, for some reason, you’d want to) and past spectacular scenery. The US$2 charge seemed reasonable until and unless in the future we go deaf from the volume of salsa music played the entire journey. Otavalo is a reasonably small town, famous for being the site of the largest local craft and produce market in SA and is worth a bus journey, and the surrounding countryside is pretty too.

It was nearly the start of one of our huge highlights of the trip, our Galapagos cruise. As part of the deal we’d got with the agency, we had a free night’s accommodation. We headed out across the Mariscal to our new digs. Hmm. No wonder the room was free. I’m not sure, technically, at what point you can start to refer to stables as a room, but this was cutting it close. No heating, electricity, or hot water. Does a hose running through the gap between the wall and the corrugated iron roof count as a shower? Regardless, we were off to Galapagos in the morning!

Galapagos – the Enchanted Islands

Kat apparently nearly lost two of her toes and Jon wused out of a fight with a 1000 lb sea lion, but lots of fun was had, with to-be-expected awe-inspiring animals and scenery, with good food and company to boot.

We met Nils and Jo in the taxi to the airport, a couple who had also booked with the same travel company. Bizarrely, they were booked onto the same Galapagos cruise as us, they were booked onto the Inca Trail on the same day as us with the same company as we initially booked with, they were booked onto flights home the same day as us in December, and we met up with them again in Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. We never established who was stalking whom.

Galapagos Islands we visited

San Cristóbal, Española – Punta Suarez and Gardner’s Bay, Floreana – Post Office Bay, Plazas – Plaza Norte, Santa Cruz, Rábida, Puerto Egas – Santiago, Bartolóme, North Seymour, Isla Mosquera, Santa Fé.

We booked via Galapagos Natural Life which is a direct tour operator offering a wide range of tours and some amazing and affordable last minute deals.

Our home for the next 8 days was a catamaran called Galapagos Vision – our crew was simply fantastic and even more fantastic was the mixture of our fellow travellers. Our cook Virgil – what a character! – made many memorable feasts for us (even a cake for Nils’s b’day) and Gustavo our guide made sure we always made the most of all islands and saw the most animals.

Highlights

So many! We were treated to: iguanas, both marine and land; sea lions, which according to some people (Jo) are distinct and different to seals; blue footed boobies whistling like escaped tracheotomy patients; snorkelling with sea lions and fish; giant tortoises and turtles; a pod of 40+ dolphins joining our catamaran one morning; a single, solitary, lonely penguin, who in what we can only presume was a spiteful fit of stubborn pique, sat on a rock with his back turned to us; a Chinese lobster, which was more impressive than it sounds; a misguided swimming stingray hunt; displaying frigatebirds with massive inflated red throat pouches; weird landscapes changing from white to red beaches and amazing turquoise seas; volcanic islands and formations, with bizarre cactuses and other plants and trees, and; many lovely sunsets, followed by a breathtakingly clear view of the Milky Way in all its stunning immensity.

And, of course, after four days when we hit land with civilisation, a cheeky trip to the shops for some ron. Who on earth thought two bottles would be enough with a drunken chef on board? Memorable days. Which is lucky. Without wishing to put a downer on the story, the very last item we would have chosen to be lost or stolen from this entire trip was, in fact, lost or stolen in Peru or Bolivia: the memory card of photographs from this Galapagos trip. Guess it’ll just have to be visited again 🙂

After our return from Galapagos we did another short trip from Quito to Mindo – a cloud forest area where you can find many waterfalls, a lovely forest, zip lines and cable cars, birds, etc. It’s truly a very relaxing area and on top of that it’s a humming birds’ paradise. We also visited a butterfly park; we hiked the Yellow House trails totally on our own. Definitely worth a visit for a few days.