Ecuador Recap 8/9/12 - 8/20/12

Recap of Ecuador:

Time in country:  12 days
Money spent: approximately $400 USD each
Currency:  USD

Food:
Basically the same as Colombia: typical local plate consists of a soup, plate with rice, beans, salad, and choice of chicken/pork/beef, and juice.


Places Visited (in order):  Otavalo, Quito, Salinas (not the coastal town), Banos, Puerto Lopez

Random Thoughts:  
Ecuadorians were nice to travelers; however, not as overly, "go out of their way" nice as Colombians. 

We went through LOTS of security checkpoints (checking for passports and drugs) while on the various buses throughout the country.  

We enjoyed Ecuador, but in the short time we spent there we didn't see too much that blew us away, besides the whales ;-). Banos was our favorite stop in Ecuador.

Puerto Lopez 8/18/12 - 8/20/12

After the night bus dropped us off at a random location, no where near a bus terminal and not in the town we thought we were going to, we figured out that we had to get a cab to the bus that was headed to Puerto Lopez.  Fair enough and easy to do, just not what we expected at 5:30 in the morning in a random Ecuador coastal town.

There wasn't a lot to the town of Puerto Lopez.  It was a pretty basic beach town and it was overcast most of the time we were there.  We went to Puerto Lopez with one thing in mind- going whale watching!  We were told the high season for whale watching was somewhere between July and September.  This is the time of their mating season.  Whales jump out of the water as a part of "flirting" during mating season.  Thus, we navigated our way through the 30 something guys trying to sell us whale watching tours and sat along the beach in order to watch what kind of boats went out on these tours.  From what we could tell, it was a "pack 'em in and maybe they will see a whale out there" mentality.  We saw at least 30 people getting on boats that were probably meant for 15 people. That wasn't what we wanted.

Luckily, we stumbled upon a shop that offered much more.  We had to stay an extra day to do this tour because they were full the next day, but we figured it was worth it.  The tour consisted of a boat, which only carried 16 passengers, traveling one hour to Isla de la Plata (a small island), a 2 hour hike around the island, lunch, snorkeling, and another hour back to town.  The hour trip each way was the whale watching part of it.  All in all, the tour was about 7 hours and didn't cost that much more than the 2 hour whale watching trips with other companies.   

The island was cool to see, but there wasn't much to it except for the Blue Footed Boobies (that's a bird) and an easy hike.  We got to see some huge sea turtles from the side of our boat and they were incredible.

Then, the one hour boat ride back to town was when the magic happened.  On the way to the island we saw a couple of whale tails from afar, but nothing to write home about.  But, on the way back we had a good thirty minute session of true, up close whale watching!  The Captain told Matt that we were very, very lucky to see what we saw.  Some days the tour doesn't see any whales, but we were lucky enough to travel super close to 3 humpback whales that were jumping like crazy.  Everyone in the boat watched these magnificent animals in amazement!  The pictures and videos we took don't even do it justice.  We loved every second of it!!  You can view all of our pictures and videos of the whales on our flickr page by clicking the "Picture Album" category on the right hand side of this page. 

Puerto Lopez was a success!  Next on the agenda- wake up early and get to Peru.

Although Matt forgot pics, just a note that we stayed at a place called Hostel Maxima for $7 each.  It wasn´t too impressive, but clean enough for us and had hot water (although it had a bit of saltiness to it).

Baños (the town, not the porcelain palace) 8/14/12 - 8/17/12

Getting from Salinas to Baños did not take long at all, only about 4 hours and $5 each.  Once we arrived, we quickly saw how touristy the town was.  Not that it was a bad thing, but the amount of activities to choose from was a little overwhelming.  We compared it to San Gil, Colombia.  Baños offered most of the same activities: rafting, horseback riding, biking, etc.  Another plus of a tourist town is the plethora of great food.  We've learned you have to get it while you can.

Within the first hour, we ran into a friend, Tom, that we previously met in Colombia.  We had lunch with him and he told us that he and his friend found a bridge that the town uses to jump off of.  Long story short, Matt wanted to jump with them the next day, and Kristin wanted to go as well.  Thus, the following day we went to the San Francisco Bridge (roughly 100 meters high), let the adrenaline flow, put away rationale for a few minutes, and each jumped off.  You jump, free fall for about 3 seconds, and then swing back and forth while seeing amazing views of the river below.  BEST part of the trip so far!!

To see videos of our jumps click on the "Picture Albums" category on the right side of this page, then once on the Flickr webpage click the Ecuador album, then Banos, and our videos are there!

That was the highlight for us of Baños, and the other days we kind of took it easy.  We hiked up to another mirador (Latin America loves their outlooks) and also went on a go-kart adventure that was cut short due to a starting cable dis-connect.  This lead to us leaving the kart on the side of the road and jumping in our friend, Ricky's, kart.  We rode 3 people in the go-kart for about 20 mins back to town and got some funny looks and laughs from the locals along the way.  

Our last day, we did a 1 km long zip line over a river, superman style.  Once again, some more great views!  That evening we left on a night bus heading 14 hours west to Ecuador's coast.  

While in Banos we stayed at La Chimenea Hostel.  It was very clean, nice, comfortable, had a private bath, HOT water, and had an amazing view of a waterfall from our balcony.  Only $8.50 each.

Salinas (not the beach town) 8/12/12 - 8/13/12

One great tip from our Quito stay was to go to this very small, remote place, Salinas, and really have a low key locals vibe experience.  Thus, we thought why not? 

We made our way to Salinas, which included two busses and a ride in the back of a truck taxi.  The truck taxi mode of transportation was cool because it provided great views of the mountains along the way.  

Truck taxis are used in this part of the country to frequently transport people between the bigger town of Guaranda up the mountain to Salinas.  There is only one road in to Salinas.  During our ride, 4 very, VERY, let me stress EXTREMELY drunk Ecuadorian men jumped in with us for about 20 minutes of the 45 minute ride.  Sometimes Matt doesn't really know what the heck people are saying in Spanish, so add a drunk slur and he really has no idea.  Most of the time we weren't sure what they were saying or laughing at, but regardless, we got there safely and they added some entertainment.

Quick note about the area:  apparently a European visited this poor village and saw a way to help.  He proceeded to help them form a Co-Op of a community that produced cheeses, salamis, chocolates, and a few other things (including soccer balls).

In our day there we proceeded to see the whole town from top to bottom in four hours.  We walked through town and at each factory (more like small brick buildings, not necessarily large manufacturing structures) we were able to walk in and see the workers in action.  

We also hiked up a small mountain in the main part of the square in order to see an aerial view of the town and surrounding mountains.  What a sight!  

After the tours and hike we made a tasty lunch out of the salami, cheeses, sausage, and yogurt from the factories!

This really was a small town.  Town closed down soon after dark and there were maybe five restaurants in all of town.  One of them happened to be a pizza joint, with only two tables, that we ate at two nights in a row.  Good pizza in Colombia and Ecuador has been impossible to find.  We keep ordering it and we keep being disappointed.  Too much cheese and no red sauce.  We miss Grimaldi's.  The pizza and calzones at this restaurant were actually pretty good.  

It was quite a good feeling being in Salinas.  Matt said the weather, smells, and accommodation reminded him of a late November/early December weekend in Texas at the "deer camp".  It was a cool 50 degrees, overcast, gravel roads, and the smell of smoke was in the air from the fires used to heat homes and cook.  On top of that, our place of sleep did indeed look and feel like the deer camp; including no hot water.  We stayed at the less expensive of the two places called Samilagua.  The beds, with four blankets piled on each, stayed warm through the night, and there was a quaint common area with a fire place for $7 each a night.

Salinas was a nice break from the go-go-go at times of travelling.  

Otavalo and Quito 8/9/12 - 8/11/12

Perhaps we can provide a quick guide on getting from Popayan, Colombia to Otavalo, Ecuador and show you what a travel day is like for us.

We woke up early at 5:30 AM to get out of the hostel and to the bus terminal.  Took a bus for about 8 1/2 hours to Ipiales where we took a short break to walk around and look at a church for an hour or so, then took a cab to the border.  Cab dropped us off past Colombia Immigration Office, and we walked across the border to Ecuador.  Once we realized we had no exit stamp from Colombia (actually we didn't realize it, the ladies in the Ecuador Immigration Office informed us ;-) ) and that we were in the wrong country, we back tracked to the Colombia side, got the stamp, and then proceeded through Ecuador Immigration.  Oops. 

From there, we took a cab to the bus station and hopped on a bus and went on to Otavalo which took us about 3 hours.  We were dropped off along the highway and told/pointed which direction to walk to get to town.  A guy we were traveling with from Popayan insisted on walking to town, versus taking a cab, and we obliged, thus roaming the town at 10:00 at night for about 45 mins with all our bags on before finally finding a not so great hostel.

While in Otavalo, we moved hostels, took a walk through town, and headed out to a hike that lead us to some waterfalls.

Otavalo is best known for it's Saturday market, a very huge event.  Apparently it is the largest indigenous market in South America.   So we stuck around to go to it Saturday morning before heading to Quito to organize the rest of our time in Ecuador.  The market was crazy.  It took up all of the town's main plaza and all the streets around it for a few blocks. The stalls varied from the typical Ecuadorian clothes for the women, jewelry- lots of beads, warm sweaters, hats, beanies, gloves, etc, and there was a section of the market with fresh fruits, veggies, breads, and meats (including chickens running around).

Typical dress of blouses and skirts for Ecuador women

Kristin was in heaven!  That was until Matt reminded her she had to carry anything she bought AND would have to get rid of something else in the bag to make room for it.  All of a sudden the shopping became less fun.  Nonetheless, the market was full of all kinds of warm clothes for the mountains so Kristin decided she needed a warm beanie for the cooler countries and an alpaca hoodie (she gets cold easily).  In case you were wondering what an alpaca looks like ;-).

We have no reviews of hostels due to them not being worthy.  Part of our intention with providing hostel reviews is so that anybody strolling through these same places might have something to go off for accomodation and price.  Each place we stayed at in Otavalo was $5 and $4 a person for three of us sharing a room.  Other than that info, each place wasn't all that great.

That being said, in Quito we went to the Secret Garden hostel.  By far the best dorm bed we have stayed in. Super comfortable mattresses and blankets.  It was about $10 each, but well worth it.  The roof top terrace was another highlight of the hostel and was a great place to hang out, meet people, and get loads of info. about where to head next.

To be honest we didn't even want to go to Quito because of what people had told us about it; however, it was nice to stop over before we continued on the next day.  And, because we ended up changing our next destination based on info. from the staff.