The day after we arrived in Cuenca (about two months into our trip), we spent the afternoon hanging out in the central square – Parque Calderon. We were just enjoying the public space, doing a little people-watching, and getting ready to plan our next few weeks – as we had just finished a round of travels through central Ecuador, including Riobamba and Banos.

While we were sitting in the park, this group of gentlemen got together on the bench across from us. They stood there for about half an hour, talking and discussing (I have no idea what they said; we were too far away to properly eavesdrop, and besides, our Spanish wasn’t great by that point anyway). I could see it coming together as their discussion progressed. This was the first time I tried the sepia filter in the camera, and it worked great – really captured the timelessness of the image. Hope you enjoy!

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Here´s another way to look at how we spent our time in Ecuador, on the mainland. There is a separate post about the Galapagos. You can also read all of our Ecuadorian posts; that will be much more informative…

• Days in-country: 45
• Cities visited: 10
• Hotels: 8
• Number of original VW Beetles seen: 76
• Hours traveling by bus: 44
• Hours traveling by bus-train: 4
• Hours traveling by airplane: 0
• Times we were guessed to be Italian: 2
• Times we were guessed to be German: 8
• Times we were guessed to be American: 0 (Is it wrong to be proud of that?)
• Times we received help from random Ecuadorians: 5
• City we most enjoyed: Cuenca
• Place we most enjoyed: Vilcabamba
• Cheapest taxi: $1 from La Mariscal to Teleferiqo
• Most expensive taxi: $50 from La Mariscal to bus station Quitumbe (the fare was $7.50, the extra $42.50 was to cover the spoiler that broke when I touched it)
• Political conversations with Ecuadorians: 7

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After we left Vilcabamba, we headed north to Loja briefly (we spent an hour hanging out at the bus station) before getting on the bus to go to Piura, Peru. Our bus left Loja at 11pm, and there were a whole set of security checks as we got on board (we were patted down by the security guard, and she got on board and videotaped all of our faces so that they had a record of who was on the bus. We slept pretty poorly, and were woken up at 3:30am at the border. Besides being the middle of the night, with an unfamiliar language in unfamiliar surroundings, having to cross a bridge on foot between the two countries, and not knowing that we had to go to the National Police Office on the Peruvian side (Stef caught that detail after we had both re-boarded the bus. Thankfully we still had enough time to run out and get registered), it was pretty uneventful and easy.

Piura is called a “transportation hub” according to Lonely Planet, so we figured that we would only spend a day or so there. When we got into town at 7am, we were not at all excited to spend much time there. We found a bus company, paid in dollars, and were back on the road from Piura to Chiclayo by 8am. On our first Peruvian bus ride, they showed the Mel Gibson movie “Apocalypto”. It’s very violent, but a pretty interesting depiction of Inca society at it’s height – the film ends with a fleet of Spanish ships arriving in a bay. A good way to enter Peru – learning a little about the civilization that dominated its history (and most of its tourism).

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After our funny days in Loja (laughable, not comic), we headed south to vilcabamba Ecuador. Known as the “Valley of Longevity” for it’s numerous residents over 100 years old, vilcabamba is a great town for hiking. We arrived on a Tuesday, and stayed until Sunday night. We stayed at Hosteria Izcayhluma, on several recommendations, and it was awesome! Great breakfasts, amazing food, beautiful scenery (it’s located on a hill), and German ownership (really clean and easy).
Vilcabamba is a great little town, and there is some amazing hiking around it. We did three different hikes – a short Chaupi village hike, the kind-of-crazy Mandango hike, and a shorter San jose village hike.
The Mandango hike is the signature Vilcabamba hike. It’s rated mostly difficult, about 4 hours long, and has some beautiful scenery. Here’s how it goes:

• One hour scrambling up the side of a hill from 1500m in the valley to 1930m at the top of the hill. This takes you to the first cross.
• About 15 minutes traversing a ridgeline to the next hilltop, including a steep (10 meter) scramble which is vertical – more rock climbing than hiking. This brings you to the second cross. It’s also the turnaround-point, if you feel the hike is too tough.
• About 90 minutes walking along a ridgeline. It’s between 2 feet and 5 feet wide, and during the afternoon is buffeted by winds. The sides of the ridgeline are pretty steep – very close to vertical – so about 20 feet from the center of the ridgeline, the ground is about 1000 feet below the ridgeline.



• About an hour (give or take) descending from the ridgeline through a farm, some cows, donkeys, and a riverbed. This brings you to a rock quarry, where you rejoin the paved road.

So that’s the hike – it’s strenuous, beautiful, and really interesting.

Did you know that I’m terrified of heights? Like a 10 foot drop next to me puts my hands in a cold sweat. So I had some trouble with this hike, but since I knew nothing about it before we started it, it was a lot easier for me – I was just surprised. And Stef helped me through it, too.
I survived it (obviously I’m still here), but I still get a little woozy just thinking about it.

We had a lot of fun hiking and resting and meeting people in Vilcabamba before we headed to the Peruvian border.

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Loja is a provincial capital, and according to the guidebook is known for its music scene (and as the gateway to the jungle). While we were there, we got to see one of the local reggae acts, and they seemed pretty good (I’m not the biggest reggae fan, but it was fun!). We also saw the gateway to the jungle that Loja built (in 1998):

I can’t explain why they built it, but it looks pretty cool – it reminds me of the Disney castle that they use in their film logo. I alps can’t explain why they built the gateway in the middle of the city…

We also learned two other things about Loja:

1. It has the WORST street layout ever. Basically, every sidewalk is wide enough for one person only. This was great when we arrived on Sunday afternoon, when basically everything in the city was closed and no one was around. But Monday morning the streets filled with people, and we had to step into traffic every 5 minutes just to walk down the street (not fun).
2. It hosts the Ecuadorian National Waiter Championships (or at least one of the qualifiers). On Sunday night when we were there, in addition to the standard Sunday night concert, they held a waiter’s race – a race between table servers. It was a big deal – the winner received $100, which is a lot in a country where most people make about $5/day. There were also a lot of rules:
   • Waiters had to be dressed in full serving outfits, including dress shoes.
   • They had to carry a silver tray with a full cup of either rasberry juice or chica, the national liquor (not sure which, but they had todrink their glass at the end!).
   • They had to keep one hand behind their back at all times, so only one hand balanced the tray with it’s precious cargo.
   • The waiter who completed two circuits of the main city square (approximately 1/3 to 1/2 mile) first with the most liquid remaining (as determined by a completely arbitrary panel of judges I think) was declared the winner.

As it turns out, this was almost too much – after the first race was deemed inconclusive, the waiters raced AGAIN. The oldest one (in his early 40s) won on the second go-around. Don’t believe me? Here are a couple of race photos.

Loja was a trip, but we were glad to move on (to Vilcabamba) after a day and a half…

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After our week in Cuenca, I spent a day touring Cajas National park (We both wanted to go, but Stef was out of commission at the time). Cajas, like most other things Cuencano, is the most diverse park in Ecuador (which is one of the two most diverse countries in the world, along with Costa Rica).

• The park extends from the paramor at 3600 meters down to the beginning of the jungle at 1000 meters above sea level.
• There are five different ecosystems contained within the park, including paramor, forest, and lakes.
• The park contains over 240 lakes.

That’s the good, interesting, front of the sign information.During the day, I also learned a couple of other facts about the park:

1. Most of the primary forest (original forest) is gone. It has burned down at various times and places. Native vegetation ha been replaced by evergreen pine trees, which are a good cash crop for Ecuador in December (can you guess why?)
2. All of the sea life in the 240+lakes is gone. About 30 years ago trout were introduced to the park as a food source and a way to create some sport for the park. Within about 10 or 15 years, they had eliminated every other kind of fish in the park. They are still a huge attraction, of course, and ecuadorians come to cajas all the time to catch trout, cook it, and eat it at the 30+ restaurants that are in and around the park.

The trout we had at the restaurant was really good – and I don’t even like fish! But the park is pretty picturesque – supposed to be verysimilar to Scotland (Braveheart, anyone?)… Definitely check out some of the views below!

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Stef and I spent just over a week in Cuenca. The colonial “capital” of Ecuador, as a city and tourism site its residents feel that it is MUCH better than Quito. In fact, if you speak to the locals, you will often find that they reaction to everything is superlative – just about everything having to do with Cuenca is “the best in Ecuador”, and often it is “the best in the world”. A few examples:

• More than 95% of Cuencanos are catholic, the highest percentage in Ecuador
• There are more than 50 catholic churches in the city of Cuenca (it might be more than 250; we are asking for an instant re-translation on that one)
• Cuenca is the most beautiful city in Ecuador (we agree with this – it’s also the most European)
• Cuenca adjoins Cajas National Park, the most diverse park in Ecuador (which, according to Cuencanos, is the most biologically diverse country in the world)
• Cuenca has the best ciclipaseo in Ecuador (because it’s an organized ride with a planned route)

We loved Cuenca – beautiful town, very comfortable, easy to get around, and a pretty friendly local population. Stef spent the week at Simon Bolivar spanish school with Miguel, a great teacher. We saw some local ruins, the museum and the process for making panama hats, and took a few salsa lessons. We even ran into a few friends from our volunteering program in the galapagos, and met up with a few new friends from Seattle (Hi Katie and Garrett)! The second weekend we were there was National Tourism Weekend in Ecuador, so they had a cool festival in the streets. We saw a ton of fireworks, some great music, and some interesting local dancing. There are a few of my favorite photos in this set (the churches and the old men in the park); be sure to check them out!

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The Nariz del Diablo train basically goes from Riobamba-Alausi-Siobambe-Alausi. So everyone gets off at Alausi, at least twice. It’s a pretty small town, but it appears that several former residents have moved to Connecticut, as the local travel agency offers special rates to New York, Los Angeles, and Stamford(! – Greg, can you check that out for us? Just kidding!). Other than being the real starting point for the Nariz del Diablo, we only found one noteworthy thing in alausi – a 60-foot tile statue of Jesus built on a hill. Yes, you read that right – sixty feet (or twenty meters)! It’s huge! And apparently there are about 70 people (probably ecuadorian, but at least of Hispanic descent), who contributed to building it in the early 2000′s. Their names are on a plaque (and some of them, as it turns out, live in Stamford Connecticut). You gotta see these pictures!

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We left Riobamba (after our train ride, Chimborazo volcano descent, and visit to crazy Guano), and went north to visit Banos, the city of holy water (and big Ecuadorian tourist destination). Here’s what we thought when we left Riobamba:

• Banos is really touristy
• It will be too loud, expensive, and fake for us to stay for a long time
• I will just want to mountain bike down to the waterfalls
• Stef will just want to visit the hot baths
• Therefore, we’ll only stay about two days

We were wrong about everything but the first point (Yes, Banos is really touristy):

• It´s touristy for everyone – Ecuadorians AND foreigners, which makes the foreigners feel a lot less conspicuous…
• We went whitewater rafting our first day there, and loved it. We rafted for half the day, on rapids up to Class IV (out of VI), and even got to rescue everyone in the other raft when their boat capsized!
• We spent four and a half days there
• I didn’t go mountain biking (all the bikes were in poor condition)
• We rented a dune buggy for an afternoon and drove to see all the waterfalls
• We hiked for two days around the mountains outside of town, and only saw three of the 30+ trails that exist
• We spent two mornings at the baths, which weren’t nearly as bad as I anticipated!
• I even had a discussion about President Obama and world politics with an Ecuadorian from Ambato (a nearby city), which culminated in his question: If Ecuador and Colombia went to war, would the US intervene on Ecuador’s side?(A year ago, the Colombian army invaded Ecuador and killed 20 ecuadorians in the process. They haven’t resolved it yet.) I didn’t feel right telling him that most Americans don’t know that there is a country called Ecuador, that it uses the dollar, and that it’s in South America. So instead this was my response:We tried that a few years ago, in a place called Iraq. It didn’t work out so well for us, so I’m not sure if we would do it again.

You have to see the pictures, which include:

• A 50-foot waterfall
• Our dune buggy
• Some amazing sunsets
• The Rhino-train that every tourist in town (besides us) rode around in
• The town from the mountaintops

Check them out below:

One set from around Banos:

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Another set from our dune buggy ride to a huge waterfall…

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I’ve spent many of the last seven or eight years cycling (true, I didn´t ride much in 2007 or 2008). I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I got here and wasn’t able to bike. When we got to Riobamba, Stef and I found a tour of the volcano Chimborazo through ProBici, who has been running mountain biking tours in Ecuador for almost twenty years. We met with Galo, the owner, who was extremely friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful. After discussing our options, I chose the medium long route down Chimborazo, and Stef came along as a passenger. ProBici has some of the best bikes available, all in perfect condition. My bike, a Kona Blast with Hayes mechanical discs, rode as if it were brand new!

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Riobamba is known as the starting point of the “world’s most dangerous train ride”. It’s the rail line with the largest number of turns (mostly switchbacks) and the greatest gain/loss in altitude in the shortest distance. They built a rail line in the Andes mountains, so those are records to be expected, I guess. It also happens to be the line that endures the most landslides in the world, a nasty side effect of building rail line across mountain passes. It’s become solely a tourist attraction, and they only run the train on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays now. We were there in the low season, so we got the first tickets they sold when we arrived at the ticket office at 8 am. We really enjoyed the train ride (even though it was really a converted school bus, not a real train), and saw some cool things, like a lot of indigineous people up early, walking their animals along the line, a cow that had to be pushed off of the train track (I guess cow-catchers aren’t just for fashion anymore!), a roast pig for sale, a landslide, the abandoned Siobambe train station in the valley, and of course, devil’s nose mountain. Check out the photo set to see them and some of the turns we had to deal with!

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Guano is a funny town. It’s about 25 minutes outside of riobamba, and has a few “interesting” claims to fame. Officially, it’s known for wool carpet weaving, of which there is a lot (like every shop sells carpets). Unofficially, it’s known for three things: two mummies, some fake old statues. and some REALLY strange bushes in the central park.

• Two Mummies The catholic bishop was buried inside his church 400 years ago, and sealed in tight. When they pulled the old church down 20 years ago, they found him inside, completely mummified.
  Oh, and a rat was stuck in with him too – you can see it in the photo set.
• Fake Stone Statues Thirty years ago, the town hired an artist – I don’t know why. But his idea was to emphasize Guano’s timelessness and historical side. So he cut several statues (a fish, a human face, and a few others that weren’t discussion- or photo-worthy) out of thousand-year-old lava stone (scheise lavastein for the Germans out there).
• Strange Bushes I´m not sure how to explain this:
  
  

What’s even better about all this is that it was explained to us (in Spanish) by one of the most unwilling tour guides we’ve ever met! He just so happens to work for the official government tourist agency, and opened up the town museum (all 250 square feet of it) just for us. Check out the rest of the pictures below!

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We spent about two weeks in Quito, and one of the most pictureseque areas is the old town, which dates back to colonial times. The presidential palace is there, and we were there to see the changing of the guards (which is a pretty big but ceremonial event). We also saw some of the churches. One night, we went to a restaurant called Cafe Hermosa for dinner, and saw the beauty of the nightime city skyline (as well as some really cool fireworks). This photoset includes all of those pictures. Click on the picture below to enjoy them…

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Our time in Ecuador has been a bit different than our time in Costa Rica. We’ve been in the city instead of on the beach, at altitude instead of at sea level, and in a different kind of program. So here is what has come in handy as we’ve moved through Ecuador:

• North Face fleece-lined jackets. Did you know that Quito is at 2900 meters (about 9400 feet)? And it sits in a valley between two sets of mountains, making the weather pretty predictable. Daytime temps range from 60-85 Fahrenheit, and at night it drops to about 40 or so. The TeleferiQo (a gondola that goes up one of the mountains) takes you up to about 4100 meters (~13,300 feet). At that altitude, it gets pretty cold pretty fast, and since you’re at the ridgeline, there is no mountain range to protect you from the winds. So we have been wearing our windproof, fleece-lined jackets a lot (stef every day).
• Stef and Matt business cards. With our picture, website, and email address, these have made it really easy to stay in touch with the people we’ve met. They are standard-sized white business cards with a picture of us, our first names, our website address and our email address. They are so easy to use! Every time we meet someone, we can just hand them a card, instead of writing down our contact info. It has also made Facebook connections a lot easier.
• Daypacks. These have been huge for us in Ecuador. We have two: an REI Lookout 30-liter pack and an ALTUS Drop 17 collapsible daypack. We picked up the ALTUS in Quito at one of the many outdoors shops. What do we use them for?
  • REI Lookout: Serves as our storage daypack; whenever we travel from town to town, we keep our primary clothing and bathroom stuff in here. It makes it really easy to unpack when we get to a new hotel! This is also the pack we bring if we make a large grocery run or generally know that we need to pick up somethig bulky.
  • ALTUS 17: this is our all-around daypack. It goes with us almost every day and carries sunscreen, books, water, and extra clothing (like hats or jackets). Stef loves this bag because it has it’s own built-in carrying case and folds up into something about the size of a fist.

Those have been the most useful things so far in Ecuador.

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We’ve spent about a month in Ecuador now (not including our time in the Galapagos), and it’s been great! We’ve learned a lot of Spanish, a lot about traveling, and seen some really cool things! It got me to thinking about This as a place for travel. Here are the three reasons why I think Ecuador is such a great place to begin (or learn) how to travel in a place (rather than through a place):

• The dollar IS the currency. Ecuador’s infrastructure (economic as well as living) is very similar to those of develops countries. It has adopted the dollar as it’s currency (as of 2000), it uses plugs that are compatible with north American plugs, and it’s pretty close to the States. All of these make the little things (like in-your-head currency conversions) MUCH EASIER to handle.
• It’s easy to get around this diverse country. The mainland is pretty small (about 22 hours by bus north to south and probably about 15 east to west). The bus system here is great, and we’ve yet to be on a bus that leaves more than 10 minutes after it’s scheduled. So everything is really accessible. Even the galapagos are only a 4-hour flight from Quito. It is SO DIVERSE – it has the galapagos, the beaches of the coast, the Andes mountains, and the Amazonian jungle all within that little space. So you really can experience every type of South American landscape here.
• The Spanish is very clear and easy to understand. the Ecuadorians have the closest accent to “textbook” Spanish of any of the Latin American countries. It makes it much easier to both communicate in the native language (essential when asking directions or confirming a reservation) and to learn it. (When I was talking with someone about this, they mentioned that, especially in the Andes, Spanish could be a second language (to Quichua or other Incan/Mayan/indigenous language), so the people generally learn it academically – which would explain why it is so easy to understand for those of us for whom it is also a second language!

These are the main reasons we have found it really easy to adapt to travel in Ecuador.

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Quito is a mountain city – it’s at 2900 meters (9400 feet) above sea level. Cars are pretty expensive here in Ecuador (an equivalent model seems to cost 2-3 times (in dollars, no cost of living adjustment) what it would in the States; so we were pretty surprised when we saw a big variety of customized cars as we walked around Quito. I put together a photo album of some of the most colorful and interesting; click on the picture below to see it!

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Quito is not only a big mountain and outdoor sports town, it also supports a lot of activities. Every other Sunday is the ciclopaseo, where the city shuts down one of it’s main thoroughfares (Avenida Rio de Amazonas) from 7am until 5pm to cars and buses. It’s open only to pedestrians, cyclists, and rollerbladers. I rented a bike (it was 20 years old, but considering that I’m not in great cycling shape right now AND that we’re at altitude, it didn’t really matter how fast or new the bike was), and rode up and down Amazonas for a couple of hours. There were a lot of different bikes (from old-school rigid mountain bikes to full-suspension disc-brake monsters, from racing road bikes to BMX bikes, and from kids’ plastic tricycles to fully-custom cruisers), and riders of all ages. I shot pictures of the most interesting and colorful ones, check them out by clicking on the shot below!

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We are going to spend a few more weeks in Ecuador. After returning to the mainland, we’ll spend about a week each in Quito, Riobamba, and Cuenca Ecuador. We are really excited about Cotopaxi and the rest of the southern highlands.

Do you have any suggestions or recommendations for what we should visit? Let us know with comments or emails!

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I was a geeky child. I know this comes a shock to those of you who know the incredible figure of coolness that I am as an adult (really, I’m just taller now).
But I was a full fledged geek.

A dead giveaway was the fact that I read maps for fun. I found it fascinating to find all those names of exotic places and see where they were in reference to me. To pick out a place and imagine what it was like there.

So the Equator was a good friend to me in those days, telling me thingsI thought I needed to know about the places I imagined.

When we came to Quito, Ecuador, we were told by many people (including South American Explorers, South American Explorers , a group that our friend Cliff recommended and has been fantastic) that we had to visit La Mitad Del Mundo. Translated as “the middle of the world”, it is a monument erected on the site of the equator, about a 15km outside of Quito. It has since been questioned as being the “real” site, since GPS put the actual equator at about 200 mts north of the site, but more on that later.

Rather than spend money on a tour, Matt and I decided to take the local bus to Mitad Del Mundo. After much research (thank you, Matt and Lonely Planet!) and 60 cents, we found ourselves at the gates of the monument.

Say what you will about touristy sites, it was still pretty cool. The geeky kid inside of me was turning flips when we went to the top of the tower and could look down on the line between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Don’t you wish life was as clear as the big orange line indicating which side of the world you are on?

Here’s what we saw there: (click the picture to see the set)

Now, we had also heard about the controversy about the GPS verification, so we hoofed it down the road to El Museo De Solar Inti nan, which bills itself as the actual site of the equator. Again, my inner geek gleefully watched water drain without a vortex from a sink while on the equator- it drained with a vortex when the sink was moved to the Southern hemisphere. If there is another reason for this happening, please don’t tell me (at least not yet- I’m enjoying the mystery of the equator far too much right now).

No-vortex draining:

Southern-vortex draining:

We also tried to balance an egg on the head of a nail- an amusing Englishman was the only person in our group to succeed. Our guide was lovely and very engaging- well worth the extra trip to see this GPS verified site.

And here are the pics! (click the picture to see the set)

After many hours of hemisphere hopping, Matt and I trundled back on the bus, dirty and tired. But also kind of awed. We can try to understand the world through mathematical equations, longitude and latitude, and other tools- and we get a pretty good picture of it. But standing there, amid mountains and sky so big Montana would be jealous, it was very clear that there is magic and mystery to a place that cannot be captured with numbers or charts. And isn’t that the coolest thing?

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