Ecuador: Patagonia to Costa Rica 3

Ecuador is breathtaking: from an icy climb up the Cotopaxi volcano to a boat trip around the Galapagos. Find out more by clicking on the links in the next para. Other posts covering my Patagonia-to-Costa-Rica trip cover Chile, Peru, Colombia and Costa Rica. I’m also publishing a few other pictures on social media using the hashtag #patrica.

Ecuador stories

• The Cotopaxi Volcano
• Life and politics in Ecuador
• Spectacular Quito
• The Galapagos Islands
• Back in Quito: traffic reduction?
• Feedback

The Cotopaxi Volcano

The most cloud-free view of Cotopaxi I saw, with steam venting

Eduardo picks me up at Quito airport when I arrive in Ecuador in the 1991 Mercedes he inherited from his grandfather. He got into tourism when that same grandfather, who was a lawyer, took him on visits to the countryside to meet poor clients who paid for his help with chicken and eggs. The beauty of his own country struck Eduardo and he decided to study tourism, much to his mother’s chagrin. She didn’t like him playing football, either: for eight years he was a professional footballer, until someone broke his ankle. ‘I’ve never forgiven him,’ Eduardo says. ‘He set out to cause an injury.’ Now, he plays football with his son in the park.

A “disappeared” poster on a lamppost suggests some instability in Ecuador

Getting the right guide when you’re visiting a new country is a lottery. Nearly all guides are interesting characters, rich in knowledge. Eduardo says many, like him, have a tourism degree. They learn about a vast range of things, including history, geography, botany and first aid. But some guides are better than others at building a relationship with their customers. Some, like Eduardo, are are achingly empathetic, effortlessly communicating tailor-made, in-depth background and anecdotes. Others seem unable to diverge from their planned spiel. Do some feel a bit contemptuous of their customers? It’s hard to be sure.

Ice and snow near the summit of Cotopaxi

Cotopaxi, at 5,897m (19,347 feet), is one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. Its name means “Neck of the moon” in the local Kichwa which, like the Quechua spoken in Peru, is a language left over from the Incas. Conscious we’re due to climb to the Jose Rivas refuge at 4,864m (15,953 feet), I bring all my warm clothes except for my gloves, reasoning that the 500m climb from the car park to the lodge will keep me warm.

Eduardo, Daniel (r) and the “Great Wall”

This is a mistake. We transfer from the Mercedes to a Chinese “Great Wall” 4×4 pickup, driven by Daniel, to navigate a pot-holed dirt road past moorland, deer, wild horses and foxes to the visitors’ car park at 4,300m. ‘20 years ago this all used to be glaciers,’ Eduardo says. Now, in November, most of the 500m ascent to the refuge is on steep dirt trails. Within five minutes of setting off, the altitude has robbed my breath, as it did on the Altiplano in Chile. I try to keep up a snail-like but steady pace, “pole pole”, slowly slowly. The temperature falls to around zero.

Snow and rain blowing across the lower slopes

Freezing raindrops fall, building to a wind-driven, stinging deluge. I chat to Gordon, a doctor from Vancouver. The fact he’s a medic is somehow reassuring. We find a young woman slumped on the ground, soaking wet. Her thick padded jacket is unfastened. She seems confused. Another guide gives her a mango: ‘Bite off the end and suck the juice, you need the glucose.’ I fancy a mango myself. After we have stood around her for a few minutes in the wind and rain we’re all freezing. Eduardo, too, has forgotten his gloves. The cold is hurting a finger he broke playing volleyball a few months ago.

In the Jose Rivas refuge, wet and cold

The last few hundred metres seem easier once the refuge is in sight. Inside, dozens of people drink hot chocolate and coca tea, their bodies steaming as they warm up. Cloud descends. But when we set off down the rain, mercifully, pauses. ‘The mountain’s giving us a bit of a kick,’ Eduardo says. ‘You don’t want to be wet and cold at altitude.’

Jose Rivas refuge, on the way down

Life and politics in Ecuador

Ecuador, with a population of 18m, is the largest country to use the US dollar as its currency. Others include El Salvador (population 6.3m), Timor-Leste (1.4m) and the Federated States of Micronesia (113,000). Eduardo says the third Ecuador-Peru war, in 1995, set off an economic and political crisis: the local currency, the sucre, fell from 3,000 to the dollar in 1995 to 25,000 in 2000. Adoption of the dollar at that exchange rate wiped out people’s savings. But most welcome the relative economic stability dollarization has brought.

Wild horses below a cloud-shrouded Cotopaxi

In Quito, a Venezuelan woman with a baby comes round cars stopped at a traffic light, begging. Eduardo says the influx of Venezuelans over the past fifteen years has led to a crime wave. The first migrants were professionals fleeing the Chavez government after 2010. Then came ordinary Venezuelans, fleeing hardship. Unable to work legally, they were easy pickings for narco groups, which were becoming stronger in Ecuador as US pressure squeezed them out of other countries. Ecuador has not yet fallen prey to populism, he says, like Colombia or Venezuela. But he urges me to avoid certain parts of Quito. I am struck that people in Chile, Peru and Ecuador have all complained about immigration, mostly from elsewhere in Latin America.

“Visa advice, tickets, visas and more” – shop in central Quito

Ecuador: Quito

Seeking to travel seven kilometres from my hotel to the historic centre of Quito, I am delighted to find a convenient subway line; and thrilled that I can buy a ticket at the counter. In Lima, the need to buy a dedicated public transport card somewhere, then load it with credit, then find the appropriate bus, was too daunting. The Quito subway, which opened in December 2023, is large-scale, like the Parisian RER or the Elizabeth Line in London, with grandiose, cathedral-like stations. Tickets are 45 US cents each way.

The rather magnificent new Quito underground

People in Ecuador are proud that Quito’s historic centre was declared a “world heritage site” by UNESCO in 1978. Given the dodgy and random nature of what parts of the UN system do, one may question how rigorous the criteria are. But the colonial centre of Quito is extensive, cohesive and exquisite. As in Cusco, the most spectacular buildings are religious. The 16^th Century Church and Convent of San Francisco has “mudejar” (Moorish or Arab) elements, including a wooden ceiling, assembled without glue or nails, representing the universe with the sun at its centre.

The “Mudejar” ceiling of the San Francisco church

In the church, a guy wearing a Union Jack “Gap” sweatshirt spots me being briefed in English at the entrance and accosts me, his enthusiastic young son in tow. His son speaks English, he says. ‘Yes I do,’ says the boy in Spanish, beaming. The man says his brother lives in London, and searches in vain on his phone for the address. Does he like it there? I ask. ‘No,’ the man says. ‘Everything is too fast in London. And it’s freezing cold.’ Is his brother going to return to Ecuador, or stay in London? ‘Stay in London.’

Monks chant in the San Francisco church

In a packed church, friars chant “alleluia”. The music is serene and evocative, like Gregorian chants. The gaudy architecture, music and ubiquitous artwork are a reminder of the carrots of Spanish missionary zeal (for the sticks, see below). The Franciscans even brought beer with them from Germany: the former brewery is redolent of alcohol. The cloisters, fountains and hidden gardens exert on me the same secure, secluded attractions as some academic accommodation in historic UK universities. It’s nice to imagine an alternative life of simplicity and contemplation. It’s a pity you have to be a monk, or nun, to enjoy it.

Dodgy handrail (and sign) in a church choir

The religious foundations of Lima seem to be thriving: monks are everywhere, although no nuns are visible. In one church, families with children are visiting an exhibition of dozens of complex nativity scenes, many with moving parts including waterwheels and fountains. Outside, you can buy your own mini-nativity starting at $38. I’m not sure how the Church views the massive parade of cheerleaders and brightly-dressed dancing groups marching past outside. Cheerleading seems to be quite a thing in Quito. I ask Guillem, from Barcelona, about this later in the Galapagos. ‘Catholicism is very flexible,’ he says.

Cheerleaders continue dancing after the procession has finished

Tourists still seem to generate interest in Quito. Up a steep flight of steps to a church tower, two women accost me. Will I have a selfie with them? I agree to do so. ‘Enjoy Ecuador,’ they say. ‘It’s unique.’ They recommend a series of other sites I should visit in Quito. ‘Whatever you do, don’t miss the Society of Jesus. The Water Museum is good, too.’

Wall-to-wall gilt at the Society of Jesus

At the Jesuit church, an explanatory leaflet says that “every inch of the temple is gilded with fine 23 carat gold leaf”. Giant paintings depict the “sticks” of gathering converts, including “The Last Judgement” and “Hell”. The latter shows sinners being impaled, eaten by monsters, having knives thrust through their heads, being broken on wheels, being boiled in pots and a variety of other gruesome fates, for eternity. Each sinner is labelled, including: usurers (basically, bankers); gluttons; drunkards, gossips and vain people (a little harsh, surely?); liars; adulterers; the unjust and the unrepentant, along with others it is hard to translate: “nefando”; “registrador”; and “notator”. Does anyone have translations for these?

“Hell”

“A Quiet Evening” by master travel-writer Norman Lewis, which I’m reading, includes essays describing protestant missionaries seeking to persuade indigenous people to convert to Christianity in Brazil and Paraguay as late as the 1960s and 1970s by threatening that they will otherwise be tormented in hell forever. It’s reminiscent of James Joyce, who writes in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man how Jesuit teachers in his school described – for page after page – the rigours of hell. In countries other than one’s own it’s easy to see state capture by the church, and the wealth accumulated by religious orders, as a historical aberration or mania. In the UK, meanwhile, the Church of England is still the state church, as seen in the 2023 ceremony for the coronation of King Charles, “the Defender of the Faith”. 

Artwork in Quito’s City Museum depicts indigenous man meeting unflatteringly depicted Spaniard

I am grateful to Mateo, an Ecuadorian, for recommending the City Museum of Quito. It starts dully with brief accounts of indigenous people, then gallops through the Incas and Spanish colonisation with little excitement. But when it gets to the 19^th and particularly 20^th centuries, the museum explodes into passionate, partisan accounts of workers’ uprisings and the evils of the hacienda system, exploitative capitalism, and the wealthy in general. “La polémica es bienvenida!” (“controversy is welcome!”) a sign exclaims. Another reads “No quisimos endulzar la historia,” “we don’t want to sugar-coat history”.

Quito City Museum exhibition about women and political resistance (“We share our rituals to soften the world with a shout”)

The ideological bent of the displays is catching. A guide asks a huge group of Ecuadorean families: ‘was the building of the railways for the benefit of the elites, and businesses, or for the people?’ His answer: the life of the ordinary people working in the haciendas, whose owners grew richer with the railways, did not change. He criticises the fact that many of the utility companies were foreign-owned. A video addresses general strikes and military coups throughout the 20^th century. Another features a popular folkloric festival for indigenous culture with the headline “Who decides what it is necessary to conserve?” After many rooms of class struggle, I am exhausted.

“Do you recognize in your life story any privileges or exclusions related to your last name, class, or skin colour?”

Perhaps in Ecuador, as in Turkey, big political movements of the late 20^th century that we tend to consider exhausted or resolved are still actual. I remember being surprised to see people at the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Istanbul wearing Che Guevara T-shirts. Based on the TV news I’ve watched in a couple of nights here, Ecuadorians are fascinated by developments in the US. During my stay, the big news was President Trump’s decision to roll back green cards for citizens of 19 countries following the shooting of two national guards in Washington, D.C.

With “Lessons in Diplomacy” in Quito’s main square

Ecuador: the Galapagos

Bartolome Island, Galapagos

The Galapagos lie ninety minutes west of the port city of Guayaquil on the Pacific coast of Ecuador. Guayaquil is in the heart of the coastal belt, mostly categorised by the British government (FCDO travel advice) at present as “avoid all but essential travel” on account of what Le Monde describes as “rampant cartel violence“. My Quito guide Eduardo says a recent referendum rejected all four of the proposals in a referendum proposed by youthful President Noboa to tackle the cartels. ‘The cartels have more money. They decide the outcome.’ We touch down in Guayaquil for an hour after the flight from Quito, and sit on the plane while it refuels. The airport seems calm enough. A local woman boards the flight with an industrial-sized tub of strawberries as hand luggage. Presumably she has a permit, as fierce regulations ban tourists from bringing foodstuffs to the islands.

A road-blocking tortoise

The unique wildlife heritage of the Galapagos means every passenger coming from Ecuador must fill in a declaration about bio-security. At the “Seymour Galapagos Ecological Airport” zealous officials scan hand-baggage; one confiscates an apple from a hapless tourist. I do not spot what happens to the woman with the strawberries. Before our plane lands, the crew go through the cabin with an insecticide spray, dosing the overhead bins, and the passengers, with deadly fumes. Such anti-insect warfare used to be a feature of more international flights. Ian Fleming’s “Diamonds are Forever”, which covers a 1950s flight by James Bond to the United States in fascinating detail, describes “the hiss and sickly smell of the insecticide bomb” as the plane approaches New York.

One of many iguanas

But it’s worth it. When passengers step off the plane on Baltra Island to walk across the concrete to a terminal that has vents and overhead fans instead of air conditioning and uses no water in the urinals, a welcoming committee of iguanas waits in the dusty scrubland. The giant lizards seem to be everywhere.

Our “GO Galapagos” group

Many Galapagos travel companies have aspirational names. ‘Are you “GO Galapagos”?’ I ask a group at the airport, searching for my tour group. ‘No,’ they say, ‘we’re “Intrepid”.’ I’m not so sure about “Endemic,” which I first read as “Pandemic”; but “Amazing Galapagos Travel” sounds promising.

Sea lions at a cafe

On the island of Santa Cruz, a ten-kilometre drive into the highlands highlights how the islands’ microclimates jostle one another. In minutes, the landscape morphs from arid to lush. Rain blankets us, glistening on a giant tortoise blocking the road. The beast eventually lumbers off. ‘It’s the mating season,’ our guide Lolita tells us. ‘The tortoises gather in the highlands to get together.’ We enjoy lunch with a pudding of fresh strawberries as dozens of the giant reptiles lumber through surrounding fields. A Galapagos tortoise can weigh over 400 kilograms. Lolita urges us to avoid getting within two metres of any of the wildlife on the islands: ‘if a friendly sea lion comes to sniff your ankle, back away. They don’t understand the regulations.’

Travelling on a RIB (rigid inflatable boat)

This is good advice: around the coast, sea lions lounge on picnic tables, landing stages and the stern of our small (36 people) cruise ship, the “Coral 1”. I am intrigued to hear that a party of Rhodes Scholars is on board. But they turn out to be “Roads Scholars”, a travel club from the United States for the over-55s. By 9 p.m. everyone on the ship has disappeared to their cabins.

Descending steps at Genovesa

They’re all exhausted from 4 a.m. starts in Quito (new arrivals) or spending time in the Galapagos (Roads Scholars). Our schedule comprises two snorkelling trips or beach visits, and two short hikes on islands, each day. The deep-water snorkel trips in choppy seas are arduous and rewarding. In addition to Baltra and the large island of Santa Cruz, we visit the tiny islands of Genovesa (named after Christopher Columbus, from Genoa, in 1892 to celebrate the 400^th anniversary of his first voyage), Rabida and Bartolome.

Nazca booby with chick

The wonders of the Galapagos have been widely described so I won’t detail them here. Suffice to say, all you’ve heard is true. At Genovesa, we moor inside a collapsed volcanic caldera. The volcanic landscape is restless with cliffs, lava flows, boulders and tunnels, smashed, broken and eroded. A first tour of the rugged coast in a RIB (rigid inflatable boat) reveals blue-footed boobies, white tailed reef sharks, red crabs, fur seals, frigate birds, pelicans, birds of paradise and other delights. Most wildlife seems unphased by humans. In early December, birds’ nests teem with chicks. Although we cross the equator to reach Genovesa, the water is cool; a wet suit makes longer swims possible. In two days of snorkelling we see rays, reef sharks, penguins, countless shoals of fish, and the disappearing tail of a hammerhead shark.

On Genovesa island

In a small-group ship, we eat and travel together. Everyone is American or Canadian, except myself and Guillen, a Spanish diplomat based in Bolivia, and his mother Esperanza. Others include Hindie and Norman, orthodox Jews from New York, travelling with old and new friends; Jake and Eric, working with a company called Biomimicry 3.8; Cecelia, an electrician from Pennsylvania; August, a retired police officer; and Aaron, an ex-army engineer and wife Stacey, a retired teacher. Juan Carlos, a naturalist, is a guide for the Roads Scholars; Xavier is the burly, switched-on cruise director.

With Hindie and Nissan

Banter flies thick and fast around Hindie and Nissan. ‘I thought: I can get away with this,’ Nissan says when we see numerous sharks circling the boat one morning. ‘One push.’ He grins at Hindie. ‘All they’ll find is her hat.’ ‘Like Natalie Wood,’ Hindie says. ‘What’s the only kind of wood that doesn’t float?’ Nissan says. ‘Natalie Wood.’ ‘She was so good in West Side Story,’ Hindie says, ‘my favourite movie.’

Giving a talk in the lounge

Aaron likes to ask provocative questions. ‘Who brought the rats to the Galapagos?’ he asks Guillen and me. ‘Was it the British, or the Spanish?’ He and Stacey are on a six-month trip, including walking the Inca Trail with a private guide, and visiting Antarctica. Jake and Eric examine and discuss every organism they see, searching for features and adaptations that could inform more eco-friendly or efficient human building practices or engineering. They talk about the front end of a Japanese bullet train being based on a kingfisher’s beak; replicating shark-skin to prevent barnacles adhering to submarines; or how Velcro was inspired by burrs.

Camouflaged fur seal

I am as always astonished by the up-front hospitality of many Americans: several people invite me to come and visit when I’m next in the States. Is this an atavistic frontier spirit? I tell them that when I hitch-hiked around the US in 1979 for seven weeks, I only paid for one night’s accommodation.

Frigate birds at sunset

After three nights our boat tour ends and we are packed off onto dry land at crack of dawn so the crew can prepare for the next group. To fill the hours before our flight, we are ferried to another tortoise-viewing enterprise, literally next door to the one we visited while they got the boat ready for us on the first day, except that this one also has natural lava tunnels hundreds of metres long. My 72-odd hours in the Galapagos Islands feel a bit short – I feel FOMO coming on. So I’m relieved in the airport shop, examining the postcards, to find we have seen all the key fauna. As iguanas wander through the arid scrub outside the departure lounge, inside they’re playing a soupy jazz version of “Away in a Manger”.

Lava tunnel on Santa Cruz island

Flying back from Quito I have a beautiful view of a cloud-free Cotopaxi, previously only glimpsed through snow, rain and mist – see above. It looks like this.

Cotopaxi free from clouds

Ecuador – Back in Quito: traffic reduction?

Back in Quito for a final night in Ecuador en route to Medellin in Colombia, I meet Valerie and Tom in the Runa restaurant. They’re from Pittsburgh, winding down their business and indulging in some travel. ‘We were both rock climbers all our lives,’ Valerie says. ‘He used to be an ice climber, too. I do less rock climbing since I lost my partner, but we both still mountain bike.’ They’ve done some 6-8 week trips in their own small camper, visiting US national parks to climb and hike. ‘People ask, “are you full time?”, Tom says. ‘They mean: is the van your permanent home? We told them no, we live in Pittsburgh.’ We talk politics, Ukraine, Russia and whether Putin is simply playing Trump (my view: he is).  

Quito old town by night

The drive from the town centre to Quito airport takes over an hour through intense, choking traffic. A traffic-reduction system means that cars with number plates ending in “1” and “2” cannot enter the city on Mondays; those with “3” and “4” on Tuesdays, and so on. But the impact is not striking. I am reminded of petrol (gasoline) rationing in the US in 1979, when I hitched through New Jersey with Johnson Fortenbaugh, Junior. New Jersey was one of several states which had implemented odd-even gas rationing, where only people with odd-numbered licence plates could buy gas on an odd-numbered day, and vice-versa. Our Ford Pinto ran of gas on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Chile, Peru, Colombia and Costa Rica

Other posts cover Chile, Peru, Colombia and Costa Rica, all with plenty of pictures and some adventures.

Feedback

I’d welcome feedback on these travel blogs, in the comments or direct by e-mail. Is this too much detail? Too few/too many photos? Other thoughts? Let me know. I’m also posting a few photos on Instagram and elsewhere, with the hashtag #patrica (for Patagonia to Costa Rica).

If you enjoy my travel writing, you may like to explore my US road trip piece from 1979 “A voyage around America“; my piece The Russians: Vladivostok; or my recent account of a disastrous boat trip to visit the dragons of Komodo.

My trip-of-a-lifetime was organised by Sinead at Travel Differently.