September 9 - Our first trip in the “old town” of Quito took place today. It was a half day trip in the afternoon starting out as a walking tour of the old town with its narrow streets. Highlights were the 16th century San Francisco church and monastery and the La Campania church with its abundant gold plating. The tour also went up to the statue of the winged virgin called the Panecillo from where there is a great view of south Quito.
September 20 - Our Metropolitan bus tour met us at our hotel at 7:20 a.m. and headed north on Eloy Alfaro Avenue until we were out of the city on the north Pan American highway. Our first stop was a little way out of town at the village of Calderon, known for its tradition of bread dough figures. The inedible figures can consist of kitchen magnets, miniature Ecuadorian buses, and Christmas ornaments among others. After this stop we headed on through arid countryside into a green valley. Near Guayllabamba it became lush with greenery and flower farms. Ecuador’s exports, in order, consist of oil, bananas, shrimp, flowers. This area has several greenhouses where long-stemmed roses and carnations are grown. We stopped at the Equator and had our photos taken with one foot in each hemisphere. We continued through the village of Oton to Cayambe, known for its cheeses and as a gathering place for climbing the ever-present volcano of Cayambe. Snow-capped Cayambe is the only volcano directly on the Equator. We made a brief stop at a tourist market overlooking Lago San Pablo, the largest lake in Ecuador (but not very large), and finally arrived at our main destination of Otavalo.
Otavalo has the world’s largest indigenous Indian market each Saturday. We set out on foot walking around the market, which is spread throughout the town, and looked through sections for cooked foods, fruits and vegetables, household goods, and crafts. The crafts are what draw most tourists. Although there was a large selection of paintings, weavings, and jewelry, we didn’t buy much, partly because we were only on a scouting expedition and partly because we have enough “stuff” to clutter up our house.
After Otavalo we drove to a nearby village called Cotacachi, known for its leather goods. Here Rita and I both found suede jackets we liked but we thought we would wait for another trip. We went back to Lago San Pablo to a nice restaurant overlooking the lake, where we had a good meal, and then went out to look at their penned llamas. Our bus trip went directly back to Quito via Tabacundo, arriving at our hotel about 5:30 p.m.
October 5 - Our small tour, consisting of six people, left our hotel at 7:40 a.m. and headed south out of Quito, through Conocoto, to the south Pan American Highway. The first stop was in Machachi, home of Quito’s Güitig mineral water. We stopped for the Sunday indigenous Indian fruit and vegetable market. We also saw some food stalls selling a delicacy of Ecuador: cuy, or roasted guinea pig, and a section of live animals for sale such as chickens, ducks, geese, and guinea pigs. We tasted the sweet meat surrounding the seeds of a plant they call guava but it isn’t like the guava we know. It was like a long, green pod, about an inch in diameter and two feet long. It tasted sweet but not especially enticing. We saw lots of exotic fruits as well as the vegetables common to US stores. There were also many, many different kinds of bananas and potatoes.
Our next stop was the small museum near the entrance to the Cotopaxi National Park. Cotopaxi is the world’s highest active volcano but it hasn’t erupted since the 1970’s. On a high plateau at about 12,500 feet we stopped by a small lake called Laguna de Limpiopungo. Our views of Cotopaxi were partly obscured by clouds but we did see some bird life and wild horses. The ground was full of pumice stones from earlier eruptions.
We drove to the little town of Lasso on the Pan American highway, called the Highway of the Volcanoes in this area. As the clouds lifted we could see the volcanoes of Cotopaxi, Antisana, Sincholagua. Quilindana, Ruminahui, Iliniza, Corazon, Atacazo, Ilalo, and Pinchincha on our trip along the highway. Near Lasso we drove to an old hacienda called La Cienega. The main building, built in 1580, today has nice hotel quarters and restaurant with a pretty little chapel on one side of the inner courtyard. We had a good meal, especially the smoked trout starter, and afterwards walked around the courtyard. We drove back through Sangolqui and San Rafael with great views of a cloudless Cotopaxi.
October 11 to 13 - This was a long, three-day weekend and we decided on two tours out of Quito. The first was a two-day tour that started Saturday morning at 6:40 a.m. There was only one other tourist on our trip, an older Spanish woman from Valencia. We headed south along the Pan American highway and stopped for a filling breakfast at Hualilahua hacienda, a very old farm which today grows broccoli and herds dairy cows. We met the owners, Señor and Señora Lasso, who live in Quito during the week, and had a good breakfast that started with a mixed juice of orange and tomate de arbol. Scrambled eggs, fresh bread, and hot cocoa rounded out the meal. We played with the local farm animals of horse, dogs, and alpaca.
Continuing on, we drove through the villages of Machachi and Lasso and stopped in Latacunga to visit the Saturday market. Again we saw fruits and vegetables as we had in other markets. It was interesting to see that the people came into the village from the countryside and not only bought or sold produce but also lined up to get haircuts or went to one of the many sidewalk sewing machines (old treadle type) to have their clothes repaired. Leaving Latacunga we noticed, and were informed, that this town is known for its “chugchucara”, or fried pig skin, cafes.
We drove south through arid country and the town of Salcedo, known for its many ice cream parlors, which serve Salcedo ice cream more like our sorbets with no cream. Next we noticed many fruit orchards and roadside fruit stands as we neared Ambato, known as the town of fruits and flowers. We departed the Pan American highway and drove east, stopping at the town of Salasaca. The indigenous Indians of Salasaca are unusual since they are originally from Bolivia and were resettled here by the conquering Incas hundreds of years ago. They remained here after the Spanish took over and retained a high degree of freedom from the Ecuadorian government. They also are known for their weaving and we stopped to watch a demonstration and purchase a small wall hanging for ourselves. Then we drove through the town of Pelileo, the blue jean capital of Ecuador. A blue jean market was taking place in the streets but we declined to stop. Finally we arrived in Baños, one of Ecuador’s resort towns. As its name indicates, it is home to a couple of hot baths. We had a very nice and filling lunch at Villa Gertrudis and then walked around Baños for a couple of hours. The waterfalls near the baths were interesting, as well as the local church dedicated to the Virgin of Holy Waters, and the town squares.
Finally we left Baños and drove to Riobamba and our hotel for the night, El Troje. We had a very nice room and at 7:30 p.m. we sat outdoors for an evening’s entertainment. There was a local Ecuadorian band with guitars, drums, and flutes; we bought one of their CDs. There was also folk dancing (Rita was invited to dance), bonfire, fireworks, and very strong drinks of fermented sugar cane alcohol, cinnamon, and tea mixed together and heated. Then we went inside for a three-course dinner. We ate well today. We went to bed early in anticipation of an early rise.
And early we did rise, at 4:30 a.m. for a 5:00 a.m. breakfast and 5:30 a.m. departure into town to catch our train, which left at 6:00 a.m. Our tour, Metropolitan Tours, had a separate first class cabin for their passengers, which we shared with another Metropolitan tour of about 20 French tourists. The train, unscheduled at best, was the Ferrocarril Ecuatoriano. Many of the third class passengers, a large number of them American and European kids with backpacks, sat on the rooftops of the train. Some of the French joined them and I probably would have but it was too crowded, although nobody apparently fell off. Our train departed nearly on time and we went through the villages of Cajabamba, Guamote, and Alausi, where we had a scheduled stop that lasted an unscheduled time of over an hour to unload and load freight. In the area we could see the snow-capped volcanoes of Tungurahua, Altar, Carihuayrazo, and Chimborazo, the tallest mountain in Ecuador. After Alausi we took a harrowing ride down the Devil’s Nose (El Nariz del Diablo), a switchback, zigzag ride with steep drop-offs right beside the tracks. Rita didn’t want to look straight down into the canyon. We went through Sibambe and departed the train in Chanchan, where our van met us. We drove back to Riobamba and stopped for a late lunch at Hosteria La Andaluza a little distance north of Riobamba. The weather turned ugly and we arrived just as a big hail storm hit. As we entered the restaurant the electricity failed and we ate our meal by candlelight, listening to thunder and watching the lightning outside. We finally departed for Quito in bad weather of hail, rain, wind, and fog, arriving at our hotel about 7:30 p.m. It was a long, exhausting day but fun.
Monday morning was Columbus day, an American holiday, and we didn’t have to work. We had gone to bed early the night before and slept about nine hours. Our next tour began today at 7:20 a.m. and we were the only two on the tour - besides our guide and driver. First we headed north of Quito through the suburb towns of Pomasqui and San Antonio to the Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World) monument. We stood on the equator, took one photo, and discovered that our camera battery had died. No more photos. Then we drove to an old volcano crater named Pululahua. While at the overlook, we saw a pretty black bird with red breast and blue areas on the backs of the wings. It was one of many species of tanager birds found in Ecuador.
We took the scenic drive west of Quito through the towns of Calacali and Nanegalito to the Mindo Forest. As we descended several thousand feet in altitude, the vegetation changed dramatically. Mindo Forest, a tropical rain forest untouched since the Spanish arrived in Ecuador, had tropical plants of bananas, palms, and many types of ferns. The forest is supposed to have ocelots, pumas, monkeys, and many types of birds. I have to believe the guide books but we didn’t see any of them. We did walk along a gravel road with occasional side trips on jungle trails and only saw a few birds, but our timing was not good since we arrived about 10:30 a.m. To see wildlife one must get up early or watch at dusk. We did see a toucanette (small toucan) and some pretty flycatchers as well as thousands of pretty butterflies and orchids. In the poor, very little town of Mindo we had our box lunches in the town square surrounded by eight hungry town dogs who feasted on fried chicken skin and chicken bones from our lunches. On our drive back to Quito we had great views of the volcanoes Cotopaxi, Antizana, and Sincholahua, all with big, fresh coats of snow from last night’s storms.
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