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Quito
The Government buildings, in the old town.I´m ashamed to report that my blitzkrieg of Ecuador has been, so far, sadly successful.
It saddens me how fast I´ve been travelling in the last few days. I´m not even sure if it´s just been a few days, it seems like I´ve been going to town on the buses (literally) for longer than I´d like to remember. You probably know at least, because you might perhaps know when I was in Huaraz, and when I was hiking - but to me it is just a memory in the distant haze.
The night that I wrote my blog about Huaraz and the Cordillera Blanca I caught a bus to... um... where was it? Well, I just had a look at google maps and have pieced together my last week. From Huaraz I caught an overnight bus to Trujillo, where I stayed long enough to eat breakfast before catching another bus, with a couple from Holland, to Chiclayo, perhaps 3 hours further north. I hung around their all afternoon, enjoying the dusty streets and an extended lunch before struggling to find an onward bus. Apparently lots of people catch buses on their sunday evenings, and I seemed to walk around
Quito
Old Town the city endlessly until I found a spot on a bus - I was pretty lucky. That overnight bus was to Tumbes, the Peruvian border town. That bus was ridiculously crowded with more than 60 people on a one level bus, the seats jammed pretty tight together - and there wasn´t even a bathroom. I slept really quite well even though the bus seemed to stop every 30 minutes to let people off and to let people on, the lights flashing on and off. At just after 4am we arrived in Tumbes, and then Aguas Verdes, the small town right on the border. Feeling a little dissorientated, and without a clear plan of action, I sat in the migration building, next to the sleeping border guards, until I had developed a vague plan of action. After checking out of Peru I caught a mototaxi, a motocycle with two wheels and a seat at the back, to the border, where I walked across the bridge and caught a waiting taxi to the Ecuadorian migration office, which is a couple of kilometres to the north of Huaquillas, the Ecuadorian border town. This border has been named ´the worst border crossing in South
Quito
Old Town America´, but I had absolutely no problems with any of the border guards trying to hassle me. They all seemed quite keen to get me on my way, and after finishing formalities I caught a taxi back to Huaquillas where I managed to hop straight on a bus destined for Machala, an hour and a half North of the border.
Machala is the self proclaimed banana capital of the world, and driving through seemingly endless banana plantations I got the impression that it was pretty serious about the issue. I arrived quite early in the morning, around 8am, with not much idea of what to do in this small town in south-western Ecuador. I went to the tourist office, where I got a couple of maps, and took a walk around the market, and wasted a couple of hours getting frustrated whilst trying to upload photos to my blog. I eventually had an extended lunch somewhere, and then did something else, and then went for another walk after buying a bus ticket and leaving my pack at the bus company. On one of my extended wanderings of the city I went into a shop and started talking to a
Friends from Machala
While I was trying to kill a day I met a couple of friends, from the Bahamas and Ecuador. bunch of people, one an exchange student from the Bahamas. They ended up taking me to their favourite mall, where I found out that they wanted to go see a movie, which I didn´t have time for before my bus. So I hopped out of there and jumped onto my third overnight bus in as many days, this time to Quito.
Thankfully Quito has a central bus terminal, and thankfully it is conveniently located just south of where I was planning to be stay. They say that Quito is set in the middle of this beautiful valley and that its simply gorgeous and breathtaking - well, its not really. Sure, perhaps I´m a little harsh, but compared to La Paz´s valley, this one was nothing special. Central Quito can be divided into two areas, New Town and Old Town. I decided to stay in the Old Town for a couple of reasons - but mostly becasue I like the concept of the ´Old´compared to the ´New´. I spent my first morning in Quito exploring the Old Town, with its cobbled and paved streets and its numerous plazas. First up I went to the Basilica del Voto Nacional, an imposing
Neo-Gothic church set high on the hill which overlooks both the Old and New Towns. For a couple of dollars (the Ecuadorian currency being the US dollar since the early 2000s) you can climb the towers, and so I launched myself up staircase and perilous ladder until I reached the belfry, from where you can actually sit on the edge, overlooking the city, with not much to stop you from falling the 50 or so metres to the pavement below. After spending a little while contemplating Quito I headed over to La Compania de Jesus, supposedly the most beautiful in the country. Seven tons of gold were used to gild the inside of the church, which took 161 years to build. It was really rather spectacular, with very ornate baroque and neo-classical (??? I think thats what they said) carvings in the alterpieces. I attached myself to an english speaking tour, which was quite interesting, and I found out that one of Quito´s most famous saints has her ashes inside the church - which was pretty neat.
After a late lunch, the clouds started coming in over the hills and, feeling a little tired, I thought I might go
Basilica del Voto Nacional
Above the main chamber is this rickety wooden bridge that you need to walk along in order to climb up to one of the lookout spots! back to the hostel. Well, that was at 3pm. When I woke up I decided to go for a spot of dinner, feeling a little peckish. That was the plan until I realised that it was 2am. Thinking that this was a little ridiculous, I went back to bed, sleeping until 9am. I suppose thats what 3 nights on the bus does to you.
I went for a bit of a walk before catching a taxi up to the Teleferico, a cable car that takes you to a mountain high above Quito. It drops you off at the foot of a Volcano, but I didn´t feel up to the 500 metre accent to the summit, so I just had a poke around and took a couple of photos. Although at only 4100 metres, I felt the altitude, and, not feeling so well, headed back down to the base of the complex where there is a theme park complete with a rollercoaster. I met up with a couple of Israeli folks who I ended up walking the couple of hours back into the Old Town with, before hopping on a bus to Otovalo, a couple of hours north of Quito.
The bus is supposed to take a couple of hours, but it did seem to drag on as it picked up passengers and manadarin sellers every couple of minutes, until we had finally exited Quito. The bus ride was quite pleasant, as we sped through the hills as the sunset, having a few nearmisses with cars trying to overtake cars that are overtaking cars, as you seem to do around here. Once I arrived in Otovalo I got a real bounce in my step - it felt really really good to be out of the big smoke and somewhere a little smaller. I walked from the bus terminal, found a hotel, payed a few dollars to get my single room with a hot shower, went for dinner at the local chinese joint before having a blissful sleep. This morning I had a walk around, had some breakfast and checked out the market here - where hordes of foreigners come every Saturday. Thankfully its not the weekend yet, so there aren´t too many people around. This afternoon I´m planning on catching a bus to Colombia, and heading perhaps to Cali this evening. I´m still really looking forward to getting to
the Carribean, and I´ve got my eyes set on it so much that I feel that I haven´t given Ecuador a very good chance. I really have enjoyed Ecuador, it is fantastic, and I wish I could spend more time here, but I can´t.
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Ben
non-member comment
Public busses
Hello, I am going on a two-week vacation this summer to Ecuador and I plan on traveling via pubic busses. The route I have to take is: Guayaquil to Cuenca Cuenca to Riobamba Riobamba to Quito Quito to Mindo Mindo to Canoa or Muisne Canoa or Muisne to Guayaquil From this, I need to find out which route is faster, via Cajas or Canar. I need to find out how much time I save returning to Guayaquil via Canoa instead of muisne. And I also want to find the earliest departure for each route (7am would be perfect) I am sorry if this is any trouble for you but I am having great difficulty finding the route I need and the prices.