The long way back: Guayaquil to Quito, Ecuador

Ecuador should have been relatively easy. The currency is the U.S. dollar, and even the electrical outlets are the same as in North America. (This wasn’t true in Peru.) But I felt like we couldn’t quite get the hang of South America. 

Photo by Inés Ramos, Museo Nacional, Quito

I kept expecting it to be like Southeast Asia: cheap after all those months in the First World, lots of traveling around on buses. That’s how backpacking on the “gringo trail” is described. But the places we went, although in relatively cheap countries, were the most expensive places in those countries. And no wonder, because Machu Picchu and the Galápagos are where most people want to go. Bolivia is probably the least expensive of the Andean countries, but we didn’t go there.

It seemed like we were missing the budget on South America. Another thing that seems obvious, but could complicate your travels if you’re not prepared for it: English really is not widely spoken. In southeast Asia, any tourist-oriented person or business will address you in English, but here I had to ask; and it’s quite likely no one in the office would know any more English than I do Spanish. I always tried to have the conversation, but I was hesitant to put down money or do anything important if I couldn’t find some way of confirming in English.

It is not, of course, remarkable that one should need some Spanish in Spanish-speaking countries. More remarkable is how much of the world we got away with English. In any case, South America was turning out to be our most complicated continent. I remember thinking it was just as well were were doing it last. We’d spent about a year in Oceania and North America, and would have divided our two years of travel about equally between the eastern and western hemispheres.

While we were in Peru and Ecuador, both countries had election campaigns going on.

We who are used to elections, and often disappointed with them or their results, can easily take for granted the basics of democracy, however imperfect. But for much of the twentieth century (never mind before), democracy was the exception in South and Central America, rather than the rule. So I was happy to see people marching in Ecuador, and Peru confronting its violent past through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Other exciting things were happening in Ecuador. One morning in the wee hours I woke up to that loud clucking sound geckoes make. T. had left an open bottle of Coke on the bedside table (never a good idea) and a gecko had gotten into it! I was just glad T. hadn’t woken up and tried to take a swig. I took the bottle outdoors, thinking the gecko was drowning in there, but it was perfectly fine once I dumped it out. Well, apart from tooth decay.

Another morning, back in Guayaquil, I woke up to the sound of the window rattling. It rattled harder and kept going, so I rolled over to wake T., who thought I was having a nightmare. Turned out the first shake of the window was an earthquake near the Peruvian border, 7.5 on the Richter scale! The second was only a 5.5, but felt stronger, because it was so much closer. I was glad we were in a modern apartment building, not that leaky hotel in Galápagos.

Our Airbnb host, the same one from the last time we were in Guayaquil, had really wanted to show us something that he shows all his guests. We agreed to see it once we were back in town. All I knew was a bit of walking was involved. Well, first he took us to the mall!

It was a new, shiny mall, the largest in South America, and our host was clearly so proud of it. It did have the biggest food court I’ve ever seen, and was eerily clean.

Then he took us to a gated community, the public part of which we could walk around. The grand finale of the evening was frozen yogurt with pan de yuca, or cassava bread—kind of like little dough balls. Ever since the ’70s, he told us, Ecuadorians have loved eating these with their frozen yogurt. Sounds kind of odd, but I really liked them.

Mexican? Zebra's a$$!

It wasn’t often that I really liked food. I tried fixed price lunches in Peru, Ecuador, and at a Venezuelan place, but they all seemed to be the same: soup, chicken, rice, beans, and some type of plantain. As in Cuba (and Spain for that matter), nothing came with any kind of spice. If you want anything hot tasting, you need to ask for aji, which is hot sauce on the side. Even a Mexican place we went to disappointed on the chili front. As with the frozen yogurt, the best part was the fresh fruit: icy cold pineapple juice with one lunch, mango the next.

And so, we finally did it: got on a long-distance bus in South America. We were chugging up from the coast to Quito, the capital, whose altitude is 2,850 m. Maybe the cooler weather would prove refreshing to T. Maybe she would be up to a walking tour and other activities she expressed interest in.

Our Lord, and the speed limit, keeping us safe on the bus

It took over 7 hours. It was more comfortable than a Tanzanian bus, but didn’t stop any more often. I saw a stork out the window, a sign proudly advertising “Hotel Jhon F. Kennedy,” and lots of pan de yuca stands. Someone on the bus had a dog wearing a diaper (just as well). Someone else, I eventually deduced from the cheeping, had a bird in a cage. At least there was no pig on the roof, like in Vietnam.

The next day in Quito, I was determined to find something different for lunch, and I did. A nice vegetarian cafe had a set menu, along with a very chatty guy who thought, if I was from Canada, I must speak French. Just the fact that I could answer his question in Spanish seemed to impress. I also found a barbershop with a sign saying “Unisex” in the window. The barber tried the same approach as a hairdresser T. had found in Lima: looked on his phone until I found a picture of a haircut that seemed OK. I’ve had worse haircuts for a lot more than $3.50!

I started thinking of this journey in terms of where I’d managed to get a haircut: Aix, Berlin, Trou-aux-Biches, Hanoi, Melbourne (more than once), Honolulu, Phoenix, Toronto. Where after Quito? I wondered.

Next day, the walking tour of Old Town turned out to be more than three hours long. It was just as well, we thought, that T. wasn't up for it. I didn’t know it would take us up the Condor Tower of the Basilica del Voto Nacional.

Nope.

Although I didn’t have the shoes to brave the ladders, really, that take you to the top of the tower, I had wanted to see the Basilica. It’s most notable for having gargoyles in the shape of species native to Ecuador.

Iguanas

Jaguars

Monkeys

Through a window opposite the altar, you can also see a unique feature of Quito: the winged figure of the Virgin Mary that stands on top of a hill called Panecillo. I would end up staying near Panecillo and seeing her from many different angles, though I never took a taxi to the top of the hill.

The tour guide then took us to Museu Camilo Egas, featuring an indigenista painter, inside a restored colonial home. And, as I would do many times in the days to come, we crossed Plaza Grande.

The guide also told us something interesting: Ecuadorians study English all through 12 years of school, but then most of them never use English again. Which is why you rarely find someone in Quito who can speak it. There is definitely something wrong with a language teaching system that wastes so much time with something students hate. Someone more enterprising than I could really fill a niche here.

"Panama" hats--originally Ecuadorian

Old Town Quito is a UNESCO World Heritage site. How many World Heritage sites can we count on our travels? More than haircuts, I bet!

The next day, we set out to visit Mitad del Mundo, the monument at the equator. And that, dear reader, is where the wheels finally came off our once-in-a-lifetime big trip.

A colony of boobies: other islands of Galápagos

For a small country, Ecuador is home to a remarkable diversity of environments and species. From the Amazon basin in the east, to the Andes and across to the coast, Ecuador seems to have it all. The Galápagos Islands, of course, make it a slam dunk. It is estimated that 10% of all plant and 1/6th of all bird species on earth are found in Ecuador.

I enjoyed my trek from the Andes to the Amazon in Peru, but Galápagos was my #1 reason for visiting this country. We booked ten days in Puerto Ayora, figuring we would arrange activities from here.

This is usually the cheaper way to do things (e.g., I booked my Salkantay Trek with two days’ notice in Cuzco, rather than via a Western company from abroad). Most people who arrive in the Galápagos explore it by cruise, and we hadn’t entirely ruled that out. Even the Lonely Planet guides, which normally don’t even mention cruises (they’re not exactly “shoestring” travel), will tell you that you can only scratch the surface of the Galápagos Islands without taking one. You can book a cruise last minute, and we checked into it, but the prices were still ridiculous. I mean given the amount of money it takes just to get here, and the fact that you can do day trips and various things independently.

This was certainly the right decision for our budget, and I can’t compare cruises because we haven’t been on one here. But if you’re taking the dream trip of a lifetime to Galápagos, I bet you’d still be better off booking a cruise—if you can afford it. I’m saying that partly because a cruise is usually the nicest way of enjoying any part of the world (if you can afford it!) But there’s no escaping the fact that what makes the Galápagos special is that each island is unique in its flora and fauna. A cruise is just going to take you to more different islands.

T’s review of this part of our travels would be, ah, different. But I’ll give you the absolute highlight of my Galápagos, and possibly of the year. No, it wasn’t the beach nearest town (called Playa de los Alemanes or “German Beach”). That was a short water taxi ride away and not very impressive, although one of the nesting iguanas was comfortable enough to run right over T’s foot as if she wasn’t even there. I am talking about getting off Santa Cruz and to other islands: Seymour Norte or “North Seymour” and Mosquera; and Santa Fe.

There are only certain places in the Galápagos that people are allowed to visit, and on the uninhabited islands, this must be with a naturalist guide. Ours, the day we went to Seymour Norte, was very knowledgeable, especially about the birds that nest in colonies on that particular island. This time of year was nesting season for frigate birds, and they were everywhere.

I even saw one couple building a nest. Evidently the female birds are better food gatherers, so Dad mostly sits on the nest.

I’m not a bird watcher, but this was an incredible environment. The first bird we saw was actually a swallow-tailed gull, sitting on its egg.

The one bird I really wanted to see, though, was not in mating season, so we were lucky to see just one. This is the famous blue-footed booby. You may have seen a David Attenborough film where the booby, in mating season, lifts his blue feet one after the other in what, to a female booby, must be a very dignified dance.

Then we took the boat and made a “wet landing” at Mosquera, a pristine beach where sea lions just sit there, waiting to greet visitors. The sand here is coral that parrotfish have chewed up and excreted. All I know is it’s the hardest sand ever to get out of your swimsuit. It was worth it, though, because for an hour, I got to snorkel with sea lions! Not to take anything away from the gorgeous colours and schools of fish, but there were sea lions everywhere. And unlike dolphins, they really were swimming with us. At one point, six or seven were swimming around me, definitely outnumbering the snorkelers. They would swim right up to my mask, then veer away at the last second. One was a small sea lion, maybe shadowing its parent. They were so close it seemed certain that they were going to touch us (forget about the 2-meter rule), but they never did.

Mosquera

“Beyond epic,” was how a young man in our group described it. To be fair, everything seemed to wow him—all the flags on my backpack. But about snorkeling with sea lions, he was right.

Another place you can go in Puerto Ayora is La Ninfas Lagoon, a short walk down a street at the end of town. It’s a peaceful place to sit on the boardwalk, particularly if no one in the area is hammering and sawing. I saw fish jumping, an iguana swimming (used to that by now), and a brown pelican perched so determinedly on the hand rail that there was no way I could pass it and stay 2 m away.

We might have overestimated the amount of time we could spend on Isla Santa Cruz. None of these places are enough to fill a whole day, but they’re fun. I went to Las Grietas one morning, which are grottoes full of brackish water, “cold” by Ecuadorian standards. It felt good to me after walking from German Beach in the hot sun—I was soaked!

I was glad I got there when I did, because later in the morning, groups started arriving and it was full of screaming kids. While I was swimming, the water was so clear that I could see straight down to the bottom, and all the fish. In between swims, I walked a path to look out on Academy Bay, and for a while I had it to myself, bench and all. Quite a contrast.

Unfortunately, by the time of the day trips T. had started feeling poorly again. I waited until the last day to see if she was up for leaving the island again, but ended up joining a small group to Isla Santa Fe at the last minute.

It was amazing. We saw turtles from the boat. We snorkeled for an hour and saw a pair of rays mating, a couple small sharks, plus tons and tons of fish. Then we went to another place to snorkel and were joined by sea lions again. In between, we saw a family of sea lions on shore, including a baby learning to waddle along the rocks, and a whole colony of blue-footed boobies.

One of the boobies actually approached me in the sea, probing towards me with its beak! I could not get over putting my mask in the water and seeing its blue feet paddling away. Meanwhile the sea lions kept swimming by, then diving deep beyond us.

Later we had a ceviche lunch and a bumpy ride back to Hidden Beach, which is on Santa Cruz but can only be reached by boat. It was nice to walk around there, but nothing as spectacular as Tortuga Bay. I was glad at least T. and I had a good day together there, snorkeling and watching from the beach.

If you do travel to Galápagos independently, one thing I would recommend is to bring your own mask and snorkel (fins are not as important). If you don’t have them already, you can buy them on the islands and leave them at your guesthouse when you’re finished, or pass them on to another snorkeler. It will cost less than if you rented them each place, and you’ll be lucky to do so. I found that although the beaches, grottoes, etc. were said to rent snorkeling equipment, when I actually got there the place was likely to be closed, or nonexistent, or to run out of stuff. Of course, a day trip that involves snorkeling should include masks and snorkels, and fins as well. 

One other small recommendation is to bring any books you may want to have with you, as English language (or any) reading material is hard to find on the islands, and very expensive! I saw one book for $40, and as for newspapers or magazines, forget it.

You don’t have to base yourself in Puerto Ayora, as we did. You could spend a few nights there and then take a ferry to the next inhabited island, and so on. I would definitely recommend staying on the inhabited islands, rather than trying to do them in a day trip. You’d spend too much of your day on a speedboat getting between them. Having said that, the best parts of my trip were visiting the uninhabited islands.

The closest we got to the flightless cormorant

Sure, on more outlying islands you might see red iguanas or even a red-footed booby. You could see more than we did in ten days in Galápagos. But we’ve been here, and seen things I’m not sure I ever expected to see. And that’s pretty special too.

Photo courtesy of T.

Darwin's niche: the Galápagos Islands

It’s been a long ride, but we are back in England. As promised, The Discreet Traveler returns to our Galápagos adventures.

New name for the blog? Photo courtesy of T.

This is the second place in the world we’ve stayed named after Charles Darwin (the first is the city in Australia’s Top End). We are on Avenue Charles Darwin, and there’s little doubt Darwin made the Galápagos famous. His observations on the species here, notably the various finches that occupy specific niches in the ecosystem, were key to his forming the theory of evolution. 

We’ve based ourselves in Puerto Ayora, the largest town on Isla Santa Cruz, one of only four inhabited islands in the Galápagos. Our first stop was the helpful tourist information office, which gave us maps and recommended day trips, including other islands. Our second stop was about a twenty-minute walk to the end of the road and the Charles Darwin Research Station.

Opuntia

I don’t know why but I wasn’t expecting the islands to be a desert environment. Yet here they are, right in the middle of the turquoise Pacific, growing what looked to me like prickly pear cactus.

There is a tremendous amount of information at the Estacion, as well as research going on. The most popular research as far as the public goes is the tortoise breeding program. Here, they breed island-specific species of the famed giant tortoises, before releasing them back into the wild.

We got to see the tortoises at different stages of development, up to four years. The babies, who are still learning, were so cute—their numbers chalked on their shells!

You may have heard of “Lonesome” George, the tortoise who was discovered on Pinta Island in 1971, decades after his species was believed to be extinct. Many attempts were made to find a Pinta mate for him, or later any mate, but unfortunately Solitario George died childless in 2012, making him the last of his kind.

Map showing living and extinct species

Thanks to a New York taxidermist, George can still be seen at the Research Station; not sure how I feel about that. The good news is that what George lacked, another Galápagos tortoise made up for. Diego, so called because he was repatriated from the San Diego Zoo, has been so [re]productive that his descendants are now estimated at over 800. I mention this because I am pretty sure that’s how I first heard of the Galápagos Islands. I remember a song about them on Captain Kangaroo, and it wouldn’t have been long after 1975, the year Diego made the news. I remember the show mentioned the “Sandy Eggo” Zoo. 

After visiting the station, which is free (in the sense that we’d already paid to enter the national park), we stopped by the Playa de la Estacion. Our first chance to dip our feet in the ocean and get used to the sight of iguanas swimming!

Back in town, we stopped by the patio of what had already become our favourite restaurant, La Garrapata. T. says she could have their avocado and warm shrimp salad every day. I was just glad to see her eating! I didn't realize until later that garrapata means “tick,” as in the bloodsucking bug. I don’t know why these restaurateurs called their place The Tick, but they’re great.

If you don’t feel like eating at La Garrapata, there’s a Charles Binford street where every night they put out tables and everyone tries to lure you into their restaurant. T. was happy to eat there too—couldn’t get enough of encocado de camarones, or shrimp in coconut sauce. It was like old times, eating street food, but could never be as hectic as Hanoi. (Nowhere is.)

I also enjoyed Galápagos coffee, which was one of the few perks of our budget hotel. It’s a treat to have fresh brewed coffee in a part of the world that exports great coffee, but whose own people mostly drink instant. And, when we were around at lunchtime, we took advantage of the main meal, usually a set menu costing a few dollars. One day we had some really good lentil soup and a chaulufan, which is fried rice. This is what you get at a chifa or Ecuadorian Chinese restaurant.

Of all the astounding things about Galápagos, probably the most unique is how accessible the wildlife is. Walking by the fish market or along the dock, you can practically stumble over sea lions (indeed, I saw one phone-preoccupied woman almost do so. Goodness knows what she was looking at, as phone signals and WiFi are elusive at best.)

Why would you look anywhere else? Photo courtesy of T.

Even when you just spot an ordinary-looking little bird, you can be fairly certain it’s a species found only here.

Darwin's finch!

The wildlife is fearless in Galápagos, and that is special. It means that people aren’t here to hurt the animals, but to visit them in their own environment. Sometimes, this peaceable kingdom has almost ridiculous manifestations.

Everyone waiting at the fish market

T. had read that one of the great beaches in the world, never mind South America, was at Tortuga Bay. It’s a 3-km walk from town.

I have to say, it was a hot and steamy 3 km! Part of the walk is shaded by vegetation, but that equatorial sun really heats things up. We had sunscreen and hats, of course, but I’m still not sure we were prepared given where we’d come from, and that it’s February. If it hadn’t been for the rashguards we bought in Hawaii, we’d have burned to a crisp! It was worth it, though.

Tortuga Bay, in fact, spoiled us for other beaches. It had some of the softest white sand I’ve ever experienced, and the first beach, strictly for surfers, was captivating just to walk along—because people were outnumbered by iguanas. I even saw one that appeared to be body surfing.

Just friends

 We came round to the swimming side of the beach, but I still felt like the iguanas were in charge.

Iguana on my khanga

We tried to stay in the shade of the mangrove trees when we weren’t swimming, which is what the iguanas do. It was hard to stay out of the water, though, with a crystal clear pool to snorkel in. I’ve seen more colourful fish in other places, but no more concentrated in number—and like the other animals, fish have no fear. They swam right up to me; I’m sure I was nipped once! Fortunately, this was not by one of the little sharks, which are everywhere in Galápagos, and harmless.

Normally I'm very wary of leaving anything on a beach (I lost my watch that way), but I felt perfectly comfortable with this iguana and pelican watching over our stuff.

At Ningaloo Reef off Western Australia, I remember being a little spooked, and at the same time honoured, to be swimming with a reef shark. Here, there are so many sharks to swim with you just lose track of them. Not to mention the ungainly iguanas. I should mention, these pictures were taken at the dock, where sharks and rays made their appearance as we were just casually walking by.

Sharks

Rays

This is what I mean about accessible. So far we hadn’t paid for any guide, tour, or even taxi (although getting to the Islands in the first place is expensive). I felt like the little girl I saw at Tortuga Bay beach who, admonished by her mother, followed an iguana slowly and at a respectful distance, calling “Señor Iguana!” Would that all adults were as good at giving the animals their space.

T. and iguana swimming

The funniest thing that happened here was the first afternoon, when we were on the “terrace” (really just a laundry drying space) of our hotel. We hadn’t yet gotten used to the crabs and iguanas gamboling over the rocks and the pelicans swooping overhead, then plunging into the sea to fish. T. got so excited about photographing one of these birds in flight that she forgot she had a bottle of beer in her hand! Fortunately, it didn’t break, and she only soaked her shirt. 

We’ve had enough time in Ecuador, and Galápagos, to adjust to the Ecuadorian way of doing things. At lunchtime it’s too hot to be outside, so we come in and rest during the early hours of the afternoon (shops are closed too). The set menu at lunch consists of soup, a main dish with rice, vegetables, etc., and juice to drink. 

We must have been staying near an evangelical church, because on Wednesday night I heard a service singing a tune I recognized as “Sweet Hour Of Prayer.”

Catholic church--St. Francis, naturally

Of course, it’s ultimately about the wildlife here. There are many islands in Galápagos, but some of the best sights can be seen without even leaving Isla Santa Cruz. We hired a taxi for the day and rode to the Santa Rosa area, where three popular attractions cluster near each other. Our first stop was Los Gemelos, craters that were formed long ago by magma flows in the earth.

Today Los Gemelos are filled with greenery and, thus, with birds. I’m afraid I’m not very good at identifying birds and it wasn’t a day for us to pick out many different species. Still, it was worth a short walk in the remarkably cooler and cloudier highlands. It didn’t feel like we’d gone much higher than the coast, but my ears told me a different story.

Unique scalesia

Thence to El Chato, a reserve where native tortoises roam freely in the wild. The guides tell you to take a path that starts through the famous lava tunnels of Santa Cruz. We hadn’t wanted to walk through the tunnels, but it appeared we had no choice.

At El Chato we were practically tripping over the tortoises. It really was amazing. I noticed that when one moved, and then stopped, it emitted a deflating sigh, kind of like that pneumatic sound that a bus lets out. Tortoises are famous for moving slowly, but they can yank their heads back into their shells pretty fast if they want to.

Stuck behind a tortoise

As if we hadn’t been wowed enough by the tortoise reserve, there was just walking along the dock. One night we suddenly saw a big manta—larger and a different colour from the rays we’d seen. Another morning, on our way to the water taxi, I spied a sea turtle. We didn’t manage to get a photograph of the turtle, but it was pretty special to see. 

Manta. Photo courtesy of T.

The Galápagos Islands may represent our past, in terms of the evolution of species. But they may, and I hope do, also represent our future. Efforts to preserve this unique environment show what is possible when people really try. If we aren’t offered plastic straws or bottles, we can manage without them. We got a cardboard box at the supermarket to carry our groceries home. The people who care for the Galápagos have thought about all that plastic and where it ends up, and because of that, there’s very little litter on the islands. I haven’t even seen a cigarette butt. Most importantly, it’s not going into the ocean.