April 2005 -- Side Trip to Ecuador

Aeropostal seems to have pulled up its socks - all of our flights were on time and all of our luggage arrived with us. The flight from Caracas to Quito stops at Guyaquil both directions. Guyaquil is a port city and is the largest city in Ecuador - the main reason for tourists to go there is to stage for the Galapagos. We arrive in Quito a couple of hours late, at about 1:00 a.m., because of weather (apparently a common occurance as Quito is so high) but the hotel's driver was there to meet us and getting through Customs and Immigration was very quick. We were amazed to find little children begging outside the airport even in the middle of the night!

We made Quito our base and we stayed at the Hotel Casa Sol www.lacasasol.com , a small hotel in the Mariscal district of the new city. It is very well situated, in a trendy University area, close to public transport and in an area that is safe for walking to the many close-by restaurants. The staff is excellent - young, friendly, and attractive, and ready to do anything they can to help. Some of them speak English. The rooms are pretty small but clean with private bathrooms, and the public areas are attractive and welcoming, with Ecuadorian art, TV, fireplace, etc. A delicious breakfast was included in the USD 52 per night.

We spent the first day touring in the old city in Quito. Quito is the capital of Ecuador and some of the buildings in the old city date back to the 1500's. The population of Quito is about 2 million with residential areas spread to the north and south along a narrow valley. The city is at around 9000 ft elevation, and we did notice the altitude the first day with slight headaches and tiredness. After the first day the symptoms went away and we just noticed shortness of breath if we did anything strenuous. The weather was very comfortable, mostly cool and cloudy with the odd brief shower. We wore long pants and sweaters and carried light jackets in case of a shower. We visited old churches, art galleries, and museums the first day. We also witnessed a demonstration in the main square. Hundreds of police - many in riot gear, some mounted, and a few noisy students shouting and waving placards. It all seemed quite friendly and we took lots of photos, unfortunately all of which were lost. Demonstrations must be a regular occurrence and part of the culture because some of the folk art for sale depicts the same scene but from a former era. In this case, though, the demonstrations were significant, because just a week later the President was ousted in a coup and there was some serious political turnoil. Fortunately, we were gone by then.



For the next two days we rented a car and drove north to the equator and then to the small, artsy, native town of Otavalo. The monument at the equator, La Mitad del Mundo, (Centre of the Earth), is very old and very touristy but well worth a visit. (photo) The city of Quito is a little south of the equator and the monument is actually in a suburb. Of course, being cruisers, I had my handheld GPS (photo)and confirmed that the monument is actually about 800 feet south of the equator - not bad for an eighteenth century survey, but posing with one foot in each hemisphere loses some of its appeal. There is a small museum just down the road that advertises itself as being on the "real" equator. Someone had told us that it had an exhibit with three sinks that showed the water draining in a left or right helix depending on the sink's location with respect to the equator. I was very skeptical but unfortunately the museum was closed. When we took a photo of the GPS reading N 00 00 00 we were actually about 10 feet outside the wall of the museum, so go figure.

The drive to Otavalo was beautiful through the mountains and valleys with lots of agriculture and huge greenhouses for growing flowers. The roads are winding but in very good condition. We stayed in a very nice bed and breakfast hacienda called Las Palmeras and sprung for the best room (king sized bed and fireplace) with breakfast for about USD 60. The next day we visited the famous Poncho Market which specializes in tapestries and other wool and alpaca knitted or woven items, Panama hats, Tequia paintings and other artwork, all at very reasonable prices. We also drove to the nearby village of Pechuga where we saw artisans weaving and bought some tapestries. Further along the road was a village specializing in leather items, and another village where woodcarving was the specialty. We were frustrated with lack of time!

The Otavalanos dress in very traditional costume. The men wear white pants and black jackets, fedora-type felt hats, and long hair in a single braid. The women wear colorful shawls over white embroidered blouses, long black skirts slit to the waist, over a white underskirt, many strands of gold beads around their necks, and unusual folded cloth headgear. It seemed at least half of them had a baby slung across their back papoose-style. It was difficult to get pictures, as they were quite camera-shy
The produce market was crowded and colorful with exotic fruits and vegetables.

That night we spent back in Quito to be ready for an early start on our trip to Chugchilan, a tiny village high in the Andes south west of Quito. We rode the public bus and were promptly robbed of one of our bags while we were sitting on the bus waiting for it to leave the Quito bus terminal. The bag was on the floor between Cliff's feet, but the robber must have snagged it from behind. We noticed two young guys jumping off the bus just as it was pulling out of the terminal, and can't help thinking the bus driver was an accomplice in the whole procedure. We didn't discover the loss until a while later when we were well on our way. The bag contained mainly clothing and toiletries, but unfortunately also held our passports, GPS, camera accesories and pictures of friends in PLC and the day in old Quito.

After we recovered from that shock we decided to carry on, and experienced the most incredible five-hour bus ride up into the Andes. It was just like in National Geographic. Old bus, crammed full of people, baggage and livestock, with more piled on the roof, (photo) and the road was just a donkey track with the back wheels of the bus literally inches from a vertical 2000 ft precipice much of the time. Not for the faint of heart but very exciting. Orma prayed most of the way while Cliff calculated how much (or little) each of our kids would get from our estate and took comfort in the knowledge that it would be a quick (but maybe not painless) death. Of course we made it and stayed in the famous Black Sheep Inn, very rustic and smugly eco with vegetarian menu and outdoor composting toilets. We met some very pleasant young travelers there and enjoyed the breathtaking views.

The women and young girls in this area wore the typical Andean dress of black felt fedoras, heavy wool scarves and sweaters, pleated knee-length wool skirts and kneehigh stockings. Many are very poor and live on subsistence farms in the highest reaches of the mountains, cultivating almost vertical fields. They have no vehicles, so either walk or travel by bus, hence the crowded buses and terrible roads way high in the mountains.


We had intended to stay a couple of nights at the Black Sheep Inn, but had to revise our plans in order to try to get replacement passports in Quito. So it was one night at the Inn then back on the bus to do it all over again. The trip back by a different route seemed a little better but maybe we were just growing accustomed to living on the edge.

Our last day in Quito was a round of visits to the Canadian embassy, the photographer, the notary, the police station, and then back to the embassy to pick up our temporary passports. It was an expensive learning experience (about $200) but it did provide us with some great stories. We met the ambassador in the elevator and he told us that he issues an average of 19 replacement passports a month. The process was aided tremendously by the fact we had photocopies of the stolen passports and the originals of our birth certificates. The folks at the embassy were great and we had the new passports in our possession by 3 pm on the same day.

We needed a police report on the theft so we went to the central police station in the old city. It was in a grimy, dark building filled with all sorts of unfortunate looking people. While we were waiting in line there was a great commotion out on the street and people started pouring into the building holding cloths to their faces. Soon our eyes started to water and breathing became difficult as we experienced our first taste of tear gas. Someone slammed the big steel doors shut and we felt a moment of panic and concern, especially when everyone around us was lighting cigarettes to further befoul the atmosphere. We protested but someone quickly pointed out that cigarette smoke is the best antidote to tear gas, and proceeded to exhale into our faces. He was right, and we soon felt better. We began to realize that we were the only ones who were in a panic and that everyone around us treated it as an everyday situation. Apparently the police were just breaking up a student demonstration outside the building. The line continued to move and we were soon sitting in front of a clerk telling our story as he typed up the report using an old typewriter and carbon paper.

The city of Quito seems to have managed its slums better than Caracas, with substantial concrete buildings for poor people to live in, unlike the tin shack barrios up the hillsides of Caracas, but we saw more outright begging in Ecuador than in Venezuela. You even see babies (3- or 4-year-olds) selling Chicklets on the streetcorners. We always felt quite comfortable walking around the area of our hotel or using the public transit (25 cents a ride), and taxis were abundant and cheap. We wandered through a couple of North American style shopping malls but found them quite boring (just like home) and relatively expensive. Using the US dollar for currency is very convenient, and the ATM's worked well.

We decided that Ecuador is a wonderful place to visit, but a week is not enough. We only scratched the surface and would like to return in the dry season to see more of this beautiful and interesting country.