Ecuador & Galapagos travel guide blog

Ecuador is a unique country, that gathers a vast range of different attractive in such a tiny region, been the second smallest country in South America, and about half the size of Spain . It’s the ideal place for nature lovers, for extreme sports, for adventure, and for all those that want to experience a different culture.  In its landscape you will see   enormous picks in the highlands, a vast jungle, beautiful beaches with warm water, some of them isolated, and each region with its own diversity a faun and vegetation. All of this with a few hour travel by car. You can also jump from here to the Galapagos islands, home of the giant turtles, and the place where Charles Darwin generated most of his theories. This islands remains a nature sanctuary, where mans influence have not made a considerable mark.

Lush tangles of mangroves may be losing ground but they’re the main attraction at Reserva Ecológica de Manglares Cayapas Mataje in northern Esmeraldas. If you’re looking for adventure, turn back the hands of time with a canoe journey upriver out of Borbón, where you can glimpse remote river life in the tropics and hike in the tracks of big cats. Moving from the exuberant vegetation and Afro-Ecuadorian flavour of the north, you find Atacames, the most developed coastal resort, next to the quiet charmers of Same and Súa. Surf-seekers shouldn’t miss Canoa and Mompiche, whose killer waves have been known to trap surfers into setting up hostels and staying. Almost as good is the trip you take to get there: choose from a handful of highland routes that swoop into the lowlands, making giddy turns through lovely panoramas.

The steep green hills, dust-blown villages, busy cities and flower plantations of the north are a stone’s throw from the capital. Strong indigenous cultures, Afro-Ecuadorian communities, colonial descendants and mestizos all inhabit this highland region. The famous Otavalo market, with its cacophony of colour, dates back to pre-Inca days. While many foreign visitors flock north for the Otavalo market, the humbler byways of this region offer much more. The massive glaciated Volcán Cayambe, the third-highest peak in the country, stands sentinel at the gateway to the north. Beyond it lies the diverse geography of volcanoes, lakes and hot springs, the harsh and misty beauty of the páramo (Andean grasslands), and humid green valleys growing bananas, papaya and coffee.Between the cities of Otavalo and Ibarra, small indigenous villages continue their traditional weaving, woodcarving and leatherwork, a process perfected through the centuries. Some of these small hamlets make an excellent base for hiking the steep surrounding slopes, Volcán Cotacachi or the revered Taita (father) Imbabura. Ibarra, a busy town with ashen colonial facades, marks the beginning of the Ibarra–San Lorenzo route to the north coast. Further north you’ll find the lowland Afro-Ecuadorian communities of the Chota Valley, famous for their marimba beats and soccer stars. A wobbly road out of Quito whisks you to the cloud forests of the western Andean slopes. Excellent bird-watching, hiking and tubing entertain visitors through lazy days in Mindo. The Intag region offers a glimpse of a very remote life in lush pointed hills.

While some would sum up the south coast in two words – sun and surf – this region can’t be so easily pigeonholed. Stretching all the way from Puerto López in the north to the Peruvian border in the south, it undoubtedly does include a long, sandy coastline. This draws and sucks in a motley crew of international travellers, who head mostly to mellow hangouts like Montañita and around the Parque Nacional Machalilla, while the resorts further south on the Santa Elena peninsula serve more as weekend and holiday spots for wealthy Guayacos. During the off season, some of the coastal resorts feel like ghost towns – with the only thing missing a piece of scrub brush blowing in the wind. But the south coast also includes Guayaquil: Ecuador’s largest city, its commercial and business capital and, more importantly for travellers, an emerging city that is just beginning to come into its own. The rejuvenated waterfront, a far cry from the old Malecón of concrete and shady characters, is more like Disneyworld these days, filled with children and families and couples succumbing to the universal romance of a bench, a river and piped-in salsa music. South of Guayaquil is mostly banana country, with miles and miles of the green fruit – or ‘oro verde’ as it’s referred to down here. Machala, the regional capital, while not especially appealing in its own right, has a good choice of accommodation and makes a convenient stopover for those heading to Peru or for exploring the nearby mountain towns of Zaruma and Piñas.

As you roll further south along the Panamericana, the giant snowcapped peaks of the central highlands fade from the rear-view mirror. The climate gets warmer, distances between towns become greater and the decades clunk down by the wayside. Although few peaks top 4000m here, the topography is rugged – so rugged in fact that not until the 1960s did the first paved road reach Cuenca, Ecuador’s third-largest city and the southern highland’s main urban center. The region’s isolation has given it a rich and tangible history. Many villages have cobbled streets and old houses with balconies, and the tradition of handicrafts is still very strong. In and around Cuenca, women wear white straw hats and colourful skirts, while further south the striking jet-black clothing and white felt hats identify the indigenous Saraguro. Although you won’t be out scaling glaciers down here, outdoor activities are abundant. The lake-studded Parque Nacional Cajas offers great hiking and camping, and superb trout fishing. Parque Nacional Podocarpus offers magnificent hikes through cloud forest, tropical humid forest and páramo (Andean grasslands). From the laid-back gringo hangout of Vilcabamba you can spend days walking or horse riding through the mysterious mountainside. If the southern highland colonial towns don’t take you far enough into the past, there’s always Ingapirca, Ecuador’s most important Inca ruins. They’re just a two-hour bus ride north of Cuenca.

You can’t help but feel the rub of the first world chafing against the ancient in the Oriente, Ecuador’s Amazon Basin. Consider the Tagaeri and Taromenani, who refuse all contact with the modern world but inhabit the same forest where oil exploitation grows day by day. These worlds will one day meet. The Oriente is an intense place with clenching stakes for everyone involved. Its earliest inhabitants lobbed heads for it, and politicians, colonists, environmentalists, indigenous groups and big industry continue the battle today. For visitors the pull is mega-biodiversity. Beyond the cloud forests of the eastern Andean foothills, it’s all rain forest, home to 50% of Ecuador’s mammals, 5% of the earth’s plant species and prolific bird life. Slip on your rubber boots to tread its forested hills, wetland marshes, big rivers and black-water lagoons. You’ll be sharing real estate with tapirs, manatees, freshwater dolphins, anacondas, caimans, monkeys, sloth’s, peccaries and seldom-seen jaguars. Equally fascinating is the human geography of the Oriente. The Achuar, Cofan, Huaorani, Quichua, Secoya, Shuar, Siona and Zaparo all call it home. These ancient cultures joined the 20th century at rocket speed, when, in the 1960s, oil exploration threw roads and colonists into areas few explorers reached. Ecuador’s native population is a panorama as diverse and discordant as any modern population. Adaptation has not made their history or cultures any less

Much like the revolutionary scientific idea it’s become synonymous with, the Galápagos Islands may inspire you to think differently about the world. Nowhere else can you engage in a staring contest with wild animals and lose. You can’t help thinking you’ve stumbled upon an alternate universe, some strange utopian colony organized by sea lions – the golden retrievers of the Galápagos – and arranged on principles of mutual cooperation. Don’t come expecting to see bizarre wildlife – there are no half-penguin, half-turtle ‘penurtles,’ no large mammals with shark fins. What’s truly special is that the creatures that call the islands home act as if humans are nothing more than slightly annoying paparazzi.