Weeks 6-8 South of the Equator -- Notes from Ecuador
After 5 weeks in Costa Rica, we were ready to head south with Amy´s parents for some cooler weather and new adventures. The first stop in our South American trip was Ecuador. We landed in Quito and were greeted with signs that say "Welcome to Quito. You are now at 9,200 feet. Please walk slowly."
The weather and the country did not disappoint. With a list full of places to visit and resturants to dine in from our friend, Tom, who taught English in Ecuador for a year, we were off to explore Quito. The first thing you notice getting off the plane is how dry the climate is. Think of the California high desert with catcus and huge aloe plants. Surrounded by snowcapped volcanoes and brown hills, Quito lies in a long valley divided into an old colonial city with ornate churches and narrow steep streets to the new city with its modern glass skyscrapers.
We stayed in the middle in a neighborhood known as Mariscal Sucre, that we affectionately dubbed ¨Gringolandia¨ because of all the budget hotels, laundry places, Internet cafes, and T-shirt shops, plus all the gringos walking around. Luckily for us, the protests of the Mariscal Sucre residents about the petty crime in the neighborhood had recently been addressed by Quito´s city hall. So there were plently of police on every corner during the day and night, and we were free to ignore Lonely Planet´s warning to take cabs everywhere you go in the neighborhood.
After taking a day to acclimatize to the altitude, we headed off to explore Old Town Quito. Our first stop was Quito´s unfinished Basilica. Construction of the Basilica began in 1926, and the church is mostly finished with some scaffolding adorning its upper parts. However, due to lack of funds, construction was halted in the mid 1990s. An LA Times travel article described the Bascilla as a ¨testament to Ecuador´s lack of personal injury lawsuits¨ because for $2 you can climb on the catwalks and ladders previously used by the construction workers to reach the central tower several hundred feet in the air. The payoff for putting your personal safety at risk is the amazing 360 views of Quito. The only safety precautions taken for the tourists who gingerly climb up to the tower is some flimsy chicken wire under parts of the steep ladder you climb to reach the tower. I´m glad to report that everyone in our group, even Amy´s mom, made it to the top of the tower and returned safely back to terra firma.
Next, we ate lunch at the only vegetarian resturant in Old Town run by the Hari Karnishas. I have to admit, after eating there, I was mildly interested in finding out more about signing up with the religion. It wasn´t the food, which was pretty good, but more the service. It was the first place in our 5 weeks in Latin America where the food and the bill came fast.
Afterwards, we headed to the Plaza de la Independencia, the central square in Old Town which is bounded by the cathedral and Presidential Palace on two of its sides and contains way too many shoe shine boys and "English speaking" guides who don´t take no for an answer. We ended up visiting four churches within a few blocks radius of the plaza. Each one more spectacular than the next.
Our favorite had to be the La Compania de Jesus, the Jesuit church whose interior is covered in gold leaf. The church is currently not in use because of renovation, but most of the walls are visible with one restored altarpiece newly covered with gold leaf after a fire a few years ago. Standing before this shining altarpiece, you can only imagine what a seventeenth century Indian peasant would think stepping into this church with the sunlight streaming into the church. Maybe he or she would of thought that the previous Incan temple on the same spot was better, but if they hadn´t seen the original Incan temples then they probably would have thought they´d stepped into heaven, which was the idea of the builders.
On our way out of Old Town, we stopped for some fresh made ice cream from a store that has been making it the same way for 150 years. We had the mora [blackberries] and cream, which was soo good. The waiter invited us back in the kitchen to watch the cook make the next batch in a big copper bowl set in ice.
Quito lies just a few kilometers south of the equator. So, the next day, we headed to the Mitad del Mundo [Middle of the World]. I won't lie, it´s as cheesy and touristy as it gets in Ecuador, but hey, where else can you have one foot in summer and the other in winter? We took all the cheesy photos across the big painted red line running down the middle of the park with all the other tourists. Then, we followed Lonely Planet's advice and checked out the little family run museum a few meters to the north of the big park because it promised unique experiments that can only be performed at the equator. It's a good thing we went because it turns out that this little museum has the REAL equator going right through it and their equator is measured by GPS. Not only do they have GPS confirmation, but also the experiments to prove it. They take a tub of water and place it directly on the equator, and you watch the water go straight down the drain with no swirl. Then, they refill the tub and do the experiment again in the northern and southern hemispheres with the corresponding swirling. This museum also has a little Amazonian exhibit where they show you a pickled boa constrictor and a graphic 12 step illustration on how to shrink the head of your enemy. Afterwards, Amy's mom and I donned ceremonial Amazonian headdresses and shot a blowgun at a hanging catcus target. Now we can say that we've been to the real equator not like all those dupes at the official one next door.
From Quito, we headed to the Sani Lodge located in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest. We flew to Coca where we jumped on a motorized canoe for the three hour ride down the Rio Napo. The Rio Napo is one of the main rivers that form the Amazon in Northern Peru. Cruising down the river, you can see the effects of the massive oil drilling in this region of Ecuador. Since the 1960s, all the big foreign oil companies have been operating in this pristine rainforest with devastating effects on both the land and the people who live here. The Sani Lodge is owned by the Sani Indian tribe who is hoping that tourism will provide an alternative to selling out to the oil companies.
The lodge is located on a small lake just a few kilometers above the Rio Napo. Our group was mainly Americans with a couple of Brits and Italians thrown in to keep it international. Our first foray into the jungle involved paddling a small dugout canoe back into the mangrove swamp to a trail to see howler monkeys. Along the way, we saw lots of birds from parrots to kingfishers to toucans and large snailkites. Unfortunately, we did not see any monkeys while we were there unlike Costa Rica where they are all over the place. The primary reason is that the monkeys are afraid of humans in the Amazon because they have been on the menus of the local tribes until only recently. Our guide, Alfonso, three time president of the Sani Tribe, was able to scare up some conga ants. Conga ants are one of the biggest if not the biggest ants in the world measuring some 3 to 4 inches long. More importantly, they pack one of the most painful stings in the Amazon. I got to experience this firsthand as I was walking up to see what our guide was doing pounding on this pile of dirt. A monster conga ant bit right through my pants into my leg just as the guide was warning the group about how painful the conga ant´s sting is. Luckily, I survived, with the help of some plants the guide found on the way through the forest, but the sting lasted a good 3 to 4 hours.
We did get to see a baby anaconda, a small red-tailed boa constrictor, an anteater, and lots of birds during our stay. Plus, it was great getting to know everyone in our group and seeing the stars at night. Two members of our group, Julie and Kevin from Santa Barbara, were on their six week honeymoon through Ecuador, Peru, and Costa Rica. Now that is what I call a honeymoon. If we had only known about honeymoon.com three years ago.
On our last night, we went searching for caymans, which are the South American equivalent of alligators. We got in our tiny, very tipsy dugout canoe at night, and our guide searched with his flashlight along the shore looking for the red eyes of the caymans. While paddling over to the otherside of the lake, we heard a big splash which turned out to be a cayman jumping back into the water. I thought we should have gone back and gotten a bigger boat, but our little canoe went on. Eventually, we saw about 7 caymans that night. The biggest one measuring some 8 feet long. The guide was able to guess the length so accurately because he pulled the canoe within a couple of feet of this large man-eating creature much to the fright of those of us in this little, tipsy canoe. Our cayman sightings quickly dispelled whatever bravado we had when we casually dipped our hands in the water and talked about jumping into the lake for a swim during the previous days.
After returning with all our fingers and toes from the jungle, we headed south from Quito along the Avenue of the Volcanoes to Riobamba. Most of the peaks range from 18,000 to over 20,000 feet, and they were mostly shrouded in clouds during our trip south. We made it down to Riobamba, which is the starting point for the famous Nariz del Diablo (Devil's Nose) train. The train is famous because they let tourists sit on top of the train cars as the train descends down a narrow valley through a series of steep switchbacks. You have to get up at 5 am and get on the train by 5:30 am to get the best seats near the back away from the diesel engine, which we did. The ride lasts for about 6 hours and there are lots of locals who jump on and off the moving train to sell a variety of food and drinks for the tourists. The other thing you notice is all the native kids who come out of their houses at 7:00 am to wave to all the crazy tourists on the train. At first, you think oh, how cute. Then, it becomes apparent that the only reason they are out there is because the tourists throw them candy from the train. It's like Halloween every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday morning for the kids.
One of the things that strikes you visiting South America and especially the Andean highlands is how many kids there are. We later heard a figure from one of our guides that the average family in Ecuador has 6 kids with Indian families averaging 10 or more. We were also shocked to learn how high the birth and child mortality rates for these families were, considering Ecuador has socialized medicine. After Riobamba, we went to Otavalo were we took a tour of some Indian villages where they make all the textiles for the famous Saturday market in Otavalo. Our guide, a self described, old fashioned communist and advocate for the native people, showed us how the people lived in small one room adobe homes and had electricity for their television, but lacked running water or basic education or health care. He also showed us all of the unfinished homes around Otavalo, which were dependent on Ecuadorian illegal immigrants mainly in Europe for their funding and construction. When the immigrants get deported, the construction stops. Like most Latin American countries, Ecuador is heavily dependent on the money from its native sons and daughters who mitigrate to the first world for a better life.
With a new appreciation of the work and toil that went into the goods at the market in Otavalo, we went shopping. Every Saturday, the whole town of Otavalo turns into a huge street market with different areas for different goods. For example, there is an animal market where the local farmers sell their live cows, pigs, goats, and chickens. For the tourists, there is Poncho Plaza with all of the textiles and tacky curios. We picked up a few things, but it was difficult finding something unique among the hundreds of stalls selling the same stuff.
We ended our Ecuador trip back in Quito wishing we had more time to explore this country. We've definitely decided that we'll have to come back one day to visit the Galapagos Islands.
Next stop, Peru.
The weather and the country did not disappoint. With a list full of places to visit and resturants to dine in from our friend, Tom, who taught English in Ecuador for a year, we were off to explore Quito. The first thing you notice getting off the plane is how dry the climate is. Think of the California high desert with catcus and huge aloe plants. Surrounded by snowcapped volcanoes and brown hills, Quito lies in a long valley divided into an old colonial city with ornate churches and narrow steep streets to the new city with its modern glass skyscrapers.
We stayed in the middle in a neighborhood known as Mariscal Sucre, that we affectionately dubbed ¨Gringolandia¨ because of all the budget hotels, laundry places, Internet cafes, and T-shirt shops, plus all the gringos walking around. Luckily for us, the protests of the Mariscal Sucre residents about the petty crime in the neighborhood had recently been addressed by Quito´s city hall. So there were plently of police on every corner during the day and night, and we were free to ignore Lonely Planet´s warning to take cabs everywhere you go in the neighborhood.
After taking a day to acclimatize to the altitude, we headed off to explore Old Town Quito. Our first stop was Quito´s unfinished Basilica. Construction of the Basilica began in 1926, and the church is mostly finished with some scaffolding adorning its upper parts. However, due to lack of funds, construction was halted in the mid 1990s. An LA Times travel article described the Bascilla as a ¨testament to Ecuador´s lack of personal injury lawsuits¨ because for $2 you can climb on the catwalks and ladders previously used by the construction workers to reach the central tower several hundred feet in the air. The payoff for putting your personal safety at risk is the amazing 360 views of Quito. The only safety precautions taken for the tourists who gingerly climb up to the tower is some flimsy chicken wire under parts of the steep ladder you climb to reach the tower. I´m glad to report that everyone in our group, even Amy´s mom, made it to the top of the tower and returned safely back to terra firma.
Next, we ate lunch at the only vegetarian resturant in Old Town run by the Hari Karnishas. I have to admit, after eating there, I was mildly interested in finding out more about signing up with the religion. It wasn´t the food, which was pretty good, but more the service. It was the first place in our 5 weeks in Latin America where the food and the bill came fast.
Afterwards, we headed to the Plaza de la Independencia, the central square in Old Town which is bounded by the cathedral and Presidential Palace on two of its sides and contains way too many shoe shine boys and "English speaking" guides who don´t take no for an answer. We ended up visiting four churches within a few blocks radius of the plaza. Each one more spectacular than the next.
Our favorite had to be the La Compania de Jesus, the Jesuit church whose interior is covered in gold leaf. The church is currently not in use because of renovation, but most of the walls are visible with one restored altarpiece newly covered with gold leaf after a fire a few years ago. Standing before this shining altarpiece, you can only imagine what a seventeenth century Indian peasant would think stepping into this church with the sunlight streaming into the church. Maybe he or she would of thought that the previous Incan temple on the same spot was better, but if they hadn´t seen the original Incan temples then they probably would have thought they´d stepped into heaven, which was the idea of the builders.
On our way out of Old Town, we stopped for some fresh made ice cream from a store that has been making it the same way for 150 years. We had the mora [blackberries] and cream, which was soo good. The waiter invited us back in the kitchen to watch the cook make the next batch in a big copper bowl set in ice.
Quito lies just a few kilometers south of the equator. So, the next day, we headed to the Mitad del Mundo [Middle of the World]. I won't lie, it´s as cheesy and touristy as it gets in Ecuador, but hey, where else can you have one foot in summer and the other in winter? We took all the cheesy photos across the big painted red line running down the middle of the park with all the other tourists. Then, we followed Lonely Planet's advice and checked out the little family run museum a few meters to the north of the big park because it promised unique experiments that can only be performed at the equator. It's a good thing we went because it turns out that this little museum has the REAL equator going right through it and their equator is measured by GPS. Not only do they have GPS confirmation, but also the experiments to prove it. They take a tub of water and place it directly on the equator, and you watch the water go straight down the drain with no swirl. Then, they refill the tub and do the experiment again in the northern and southern hemispheres with the corresponding swirling. This museum also has a little Amazonian exhibit where they show you a pickled boa constrictor and a graphic 12 step illustration on how to shrink the head of your enemy. Afterwards, Amy's mom and I donned ceremonial Amazonian headdresses and shot a blowgun at a hanging catcus target. Now we can say that we've been to the real equator not like all those dupes at the official one next door.
From Quito, we headed to the Sani Lodge located in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest. We flew to Coca where we jumped on a motorized canoe for the three hour ride down the Rio Napo. The Rio Napo is one of the main rivers that form the Amazon in Northern Peru. Cruising down the river, you can see the effects of the massive oil drilling in this region of Ecuador. Since the 1960s, all the big foreign oil companies have been operating in this pristine rainforest with devastating effects on both the land and the people who live here. The Sani Lodge is owned by the Sani Indian tribe who is hoping that tourism will provide an alternative to selling out to the oil companies.
The lodge is located on a small lake just a few kilometers above the Rio Napo. Our group was mainly Americans with a couple of Brits and Italians thrown in to keep it international. Our first foray into the jungle involved paddling a small dugout canoe back into the mangrove swamp to a trail to see howler monkeys. Along the way, we saw lots of birds from parrots to kingfishers to toucans and large snailkites. Unfortunately, we did not see any monkeys while we were there unlike Costa Rica where they are all over the place. The primary reason is that the monkeys are afraid of humans in the Amazon because they have been on the menus of the local tribes until only recently. Our guide, Alfonso, three time president of the Sani Tribe, was able to scare up some conga ants. Conga ants are one of the biggest if not the biggest ants in the world measuring some 3 to 4 inches long. More importantly, they pack one of the most painful stings in the Amazon. I got to experience this firsthand as I was walking up to see what our guide was doing pounding on this pile of dirt. A monster conga ant bit right through my pants into my leg just as the guide was warning the group about how painful the conga ant´s sting is. Luckily, I survived, with the help of some plants the guide found on the way through the forest, but the sting lasted a good 3 to 4 hours.
We did get to see a baby anaconda, a small red-tailed boa constrictor, an anteater, and lots of birds during our stay. Plus, it was great getting to know everyone in our group and seeing the stars at night. Two members of our group, Julie and Kevin from Santa Barbara, were on their six week honeymoon through Ecuador, Peru, and Costa Rica. Now that is what I call a honeymoon. If we had only known about honeymoon.com three years ago.
On our last night, we went searching for caymans, which are the South American equivalent of alligators. We got in our tiny, very tipsy dugout canoe at night, and our guide searched with his flashlight along the shore looking for the red eyes of the caymans. While paddling over to the otherside of the lake, we heard a big splash which turned out to be a cayman jumping back into the water. I thought we should have gone back and gotten a bigger boat, but our little canoe went on. Eventually, we saw about 7 caymans that night. The biggest one measuring some 8 feet long. The guide was able to guess the length so accurately because he pulled the canoe within a couple of feet of this large man-eating creature much to the fright of those of us in this little, tipsy canoe. Our cayman sightings quickly dispelled whatever bravado we had when we casually dipped our hands in the water and talked about jumping into the lake for a swim during the previous days.
After returning with all our fingers and toes from the jungle, we headed south from Quito along the Avenue of the Volcanoes to Riobamba. Most of the peaks range from 18,000 to over 20,000 feet, and they were mostly shrouded in clouds during our trip south. We made it down to Riobamba, which is the starting point for the famous Nariz del Diablo (Devil's Nose) train. The train is famous because they let tourists sit on top of the train cars as the train descends down a narrow valley through a series of steep switchbacks. You have to get up at 5 am and get on the train by 5:30 am to get the best seats near the back away from the diesel engine, which we did. The ride lasts for about 6 hours and there are lots of locals who jump on and off the moving train to sell a variety of food and drinks for the tourists. The other thing you notice is all the native kids who come out of their houses at 7:00 am to wave to all the crazy tourists on the train. At first, you think oh, how cute. Then, it becomes apparent that the only reason they are out there is because the tourists throw them candy from the train. It's like Halloween every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday morning for the kids.
One of the things that strikes you visiting South America and especially the Andean highlands is how many kids there are. We later heard a figure from one of our guides that the average family in Ecuador has 6 kids with Indian families averaging 10 or more. We were also shocked to learn how high the birth and child mortality rates for these families were, considering Ecuador has socialized medicine. After Riobamba, we went to Otavalo were we took a tour of some Indian villages where they make all the textiles for the famous Saturday market in Otavalo. Our guide, a self described, old fashioned communist and advocate for the native people, showed us how the people lived in small one room adobe homes and had electricity for their television, but lacked running water or basic education or health care. He also showed us all of the unfinished homes around Otavalo, which were dependent on Ecuadorian illegal immigrants mainly in Europe for their funding and construction. When the immigrants get deported, the construction stops. Like most Latin American countries, Ecuador is heavily dependent on the money from its native sons and daughters who mitigrate to the first world for a better life.
With a new appreciation of the work and toil that went into the goods at the market in Otavalo, we went shopping. Every Saturday, the whole town of Otavalo turns into a huge street market with different areas for different goods. For example, there is an animal market where the local farmers sell their live cows, pigs, goats, and chickens. For the tourists, there is Poncho Plaza with all of the textiles and tacky curios. We picked up a few things, but it was difficult finding something unique among the hundreds of stalls selling the same stuff.
We ended our Ecuador trip back in Quito wishing we had more time to explore this country. We've definitely decided that we'll have to come back one day to visit the Galapagos Islands.
Next stop, Peru.
posted by chris at
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
2 Comments
