Our Adventures in Ecuador

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Discovering Ecuador

Cotopaxi Volcano, Ecuador

After spending a good chunk of our time in Brazil catching our breaths and seeing friends and family, we now had 2 months to see a bit of South America.
Fernando's dad and brother also had 20 days off, so we invited them to join us and ended up landing on what we'd soon find out to be an incredibly underrated country: Ecuador.

Thanks to the glowing recommendations from our friends Lala, Philippa and Paul - all who have been there - we decided to see for ourselves what Ecuador had to offer. We had little idea of what was about to come, but we soon fell in love with that country.

It is cheap, safe, beautiful, people are lovely, great nature, and the culture is mesmerising. It is not a country that is usually on people's radar, but it definitely became one of our highlights.

Ecuador is a fairly small country and they pride themselves on having "4 different worlds" - the Galapagos Islands, the Coast, the Mountains and the Amazon. Unfortunately we only had time to explore a tiny bit of the Mountain part, but that was enough to leave us wanting more. Below is the account of our experience.

Quito

Plaza de La Independencia, Quito

We all landed in Quito, and that was my first pleasant surprise. Nested in the middle of volcanoes and this incredible valley, the city is full of charm and history. We started our time there with a very informative Free Walking Tour, where we learned a bit of the Ecuadorian history and culture. Ecuadorians are a mix of three cultures / civilisations: the Kichwas (the native indigenous people of the region), the Incas (who came from Peru) and of course the Spanish. And you can definitely see these different cultures coming together in Quito. You'll find European and Arabic architecture, Catholic churches that have been built on top of old Inca houses and people still speaking the Kichwa language. It's a beautiful melting pot of these cultures coming together, not always in a peaceful way (with the Spanish virtually destroying the whole Inca influence), but definitely visible.

Views of Quito from Virgen del Panecillo

The historic centre is incredibly well maintained, with lots of churches, cathedrals and plazas, making it very pleasant to wander around. Our first days were spent exploring the city and trying some local food (including cuy asado, or oven-roasted guinea pigs!).

Trying the local delicacy, Guinea Pig

No... it wasn't that good, in case you're wondering. Quite a strong, rich flavour to a very bony meat. Oh well, had to try it.

The Middle of the World

At The Middle of the World with Diablo Uma

Of course, being in Ecuador, we had to visit the equator line, which falls a few kilometers North of Quito. We hopped on a delightful day trip there, with the first stop being Pululahua, an inhabited volcanic crater. The last big eruption is believed to have happened back in 500 BC, and today it is home to around 30 families, who settled down there to farm their own food.

Pululahua crater

There's a funny story about the actual Middle of the World: back in the 1700's, there was a French expedition around the area to determine the circumference of the Earth. About 200 years later, a monument was erected to celebrate this expedition and a museum was built around it (today it costs USD 5 to get in, and we found it to be quite disappointing: apart from the monument, there were just some random buildings around it with cafes, souvenir stores and some not-so-well-maintained small museums) and then when technology and GPS arrived, it was determined that the equator line actually passed about 200m away from the sculpture! I mean, it's quite impressive that they were only 200m off with no technology, but it's still wrong.

Now there's another much better (in our opinion), and cheaper museum on that spot: the Intiñan Solar Museum. It's a lot smaller and it only costs USD 4 to get in, but you have a tour guide walking you through the space. They have an incredible collection on the indigenous culture, with real huts, photos and materials of the native people who inhabited the area. They even have a real (!) shrunken head, and showed us the traditional process (in picture form... ofcourse) of how the Incans used to shrink the heads of their enemies.

After an incredible explanation on how these civilisations dealt with the sun and being in the middle of the world, they take you through a bunch of fun experiments on the (real) Ecuador line: they address the classic Simpsons episode and show you how the water goes down the drain clockwise/counter-clockwise depending on the hemisphere, how it affects your balance and your weight (you're technically 1kg lighter in the Ecuador line) and you can even sit a raw egg straight up with the gravitational forces!

On the (real) Ecuador line

Alex balancing her egg straight up

We can't recommend this museum enough, it's a fascinating experience and also incredibly informative.

Otavalo

The town of Otavalo, sitting 2,500m above sea level

Second to Quito, Otavalo is the most touristy city in Ecuador; it draws big crowds due to its huge handicraft market, which on Saturdays turns into the largest in the whole of South America (it runs every other day too, but on Saturday’s it literally takes over the town). Aside from this, Otavalo sits amongst a number of beautiful lakes and big crater lake called Cuicocha. We gave ourselves a few nights in this town to enjoy the market and do some hiking.

Otavalo itself is an incredibly humble and rural city, so it was a fascinating experience to see the local's daily life: their traditional clothings, customs and routines.

Hiking Cuicocha Crater lake

Cuicocha Crater Lake, the warmup

The Cuicocha Crater Lake was our first experience in Ecuadorian nature - and it did not disappoint. This wonderful volcanic lake sits at around 3,200m above sea level, so it was a great warm up hike and a perfect opportunity to acclimatise to the altitude. The hike takes you around the rim of the lake and it's 12km long - yep, not exactly a walk in the park.

So off we went - the 4 of us struggled our way up and around the lake, but did finish in one piece. Great start to our hiking holidays! And we were rewarded with incredible views the entire way around.

Cuicocha Crater Lake

The largest handicraft market in South America

Walking through the Otavalo Handicraft Market

The sole reason to bring us to Otavalo (and Alex's biggest dream come true), Otavalo is home to the biggest handicraft market in South America, that happens every Saturday. The city's square gets completely taken over by stalls selling everything from ponchos, to beanies, souvenirs, blankets and, of course, the classic llama design jumpers (which we got 2 of, obviously).

This is where we bought our biggest (and pretty much only - if you don't include clothing or magnets) purchase of the trip! A gorgeous blanket/throw made of alpaca wool, super cozy and warm and a steal at only 20 USD. There is also a large part of the market that's dedicated to local produce, and this was super fascinating to walk through. We always love finding new and unusal fruits and vegetables (and there were plenty we didn't recognise) and there were also more "exotic" foods on offer, such as tiny, tiny snails sold by the cupful and huge pig heads on display as the stall owners carve into the bodies.

Animal Market

Animal Market, Otavalo

A more low-key activity but just as interesting and fascinating was our visit to the Animal Market of Otavalo. Also on every Saturday, this is where the locals buy and sell - you guessed - their animals. You literally walk through aisles of cows, horses, chickens (and chicks), pigs and, of course, Guinea pigs, with people yelling their prices. I found out that a pair of chickens go for USD 5. Decent meal for a family.

It was quite confronting to see this market, but being such a rural and humble area, it actually felt less abnormal as, for example, the wet market we visited in Hong Kong. People there are actually shopping for their animals (dead or alive), to bring home to their farms and help feed their families. We were also pretty much the only tourists there so we felt like we couldn't really judge.

To finish off our traditional experience, we jumped on a local bus back to town. For only USD 0.30, we had the chance to experience how the locals get around and got REAL CLOSE to them.

Condor Park

The bird show at the Condor Park

Another amazing experience was to visit the Condor Park in Otavalo: it's a sort of a rehab centre for Andean birds, with lots of eagles, hawks and even a massive-sized Condor for display. It also offers a free flying show twice daily, where the keepers bring out the birds near the audience. They feed them, give tourists a lot of information about them and let the birds go free for a while (yes, they somehow always come back!).

Mindo Cloud Forest

In Mindo's Town Centre

It's amazing how much the landscape changes in a matter of a few hours in the car. Going from the valleys of Quito, to the semi-arid area of the Middle of the World, then to countryside Otavalo, we were once again surprised when we were engulfed by rainforest on our way to Mindo.

Not without reason for being called a rainforest: we experienced wet weather all the 3 days we were there - the day would usually start up dry and cloudy, opening up to a bit of sun around lunch time, before being hit by some heavy rain in the afternoon. This limited our activities here and we'd love to come back and do more.

View from our hostel in Mindo

Mindo is a cute little town in the middle of the forest with a handful of restaurants and hostels. We packed our days with some cool adventures like ziplining through the canopy (highlight being the "Superman" and "Mariposa" poses, in which you go belly-down and even upside down) and visiting the Mariposario - the "butterfly" (or "moth") house, in free translation. I admit I was not excited to visit the Mariposario, but I was happily surprised when we were shown the short lifecycle of a butterfly, which only lasts about 30 days between being an egg, transforming into a cocoon and finally into a butterfly. There's this outdoor beautiful garden at the end with nets around it keeping all the butterflies near you.

We also kept busy while it was raining by taking a cocoa tour, where you see how chocolate is made from the fruit to the bar. The place we visited produced all their own chocolate on site so it was a really interesting insight into the entire process.

Learning how Chocolate is made and visiting the Butterfly farm in Mindo

With not much to do at night, we spent our time drinking beers at the only brewery we found in town, which happened to have a Jenga kit that kept us entertained for a few hours! Looking back, Mindo was a very different scene to the rest of Ecuador (that we saw), it's a lot more tourist-centric, super chilled out, lots of adventure activities and more restaurants catered to the western tourist (i.e. trendy and healthy). The surrounding scenery is absolutely gorgeous and we would recommend a visit.

Hanging out in Mindo

Hiking the Quilotoa Loop

On our 3-day hike to the Quilotoa Lake

This was the main part of our trip. Alex had read about this multiday, self-guided hike and we thought "hell yeah, let's do it!". There's a few ways of doing it, but the one we chose had a lot more incline, but the benefit was that we would END it at the Quilotoa Lake (instead of starting with it), which resulted in a very satisfying ending.

It all starts at Latacunga, a city with very little attractions to be honest, but the idea is that you spend the night there, leave your bigger bags at the hostel and only bring the essentials for the 3 to 5 days of hiking ahead of you.

Feeling fresh at the start of our hike, in Sigchos

Our first day started with a 2 hour bus ride from Latacunga to Sigchos, where the hike start. The hostel back in Latacunga was kind enough to give us instructions, so with that, we tackled the hike. It had a bit of a treasure hunting feeling, with instructions like "after crossing the river, find a white house with a farm at the back and turn right". Suffice to say we were blessed with open land (with little to no signage and very few other hikers) and gorgeous views throughout the hike. We walked past green fields, valleys, rivers and farms (with a lot of uphill in between). Day 1 finished in the little village of Isinvili, where the locally famous hostel Llulu Llama is. The most expensive accommodation of our trip so far, this beautiful hostel is nested in the mountains and has its own spa with sauna, free yoga classes and, of course, its own llama. We decided to stay 2 nights there to enjoy the hotel and have a break before the next day of hike.

Views from Llulu Llama hostel, Isinlivi

At the spa, Llulu Llama hostel, Isinlivi

Making friends with the resident, Llulu Llama hostel, Isinlivi

All the uphills on day 1 took a toll on my (Fernando's) dad, and he had some bad knee pains, so him and my brother had to hitch a ride to the next stop, while Alex and I walked the second day, from Isinlivi to Chugchilán. As they had a car, we gave them all our heavy bags and travelled light, for a fast (but far from easy) Day 2 of hike. Chugchilán also had little to offer in terms of attractions, so next morning we fueled up for the last - and by far the hardest - day of our hike, which would finally take us to the Quilotoa Lake.

Hiking day 2

There were 2 routes for this day, an "extreme" version and a "safe" version. We opted for the safe version, without knowing that it was considerably longer than what the instructions said. Instead of 10km, we hiked a total of 14km with more than 1,000m climb. Carrying our bags with clothes, food and water. Not only that, but the last section before getting to the lake is a massive uphill full of switchbacks and a soft, sandy terrain! Oh man, that killed us.

Starting the last day of hike. Only 10.24km to go!

There was also the mental challenge, because once you reached the lake - which is amazing, by the way - you're not done. You still need to hike around the rim for another 1h30 until you finally reach the Quilotoa village and our much-desired hostel.

Made it to Quilotoa Lake! Still another 1h30 to go...

It was a real achievement for all of us. Fighting the high altitude, uphills, soft sand AND carrying our stuff for 3 days. Massive props to my dad, who managed to do that at the ripe age of 69. I hope I can be like you when I grow old, dad. You're amazing. Just like in Nepal, we were once again reminded how amazing it is to settle back with a hot meal and drink after a long day of hiking - seriously nothing compares!

Stunning views of Quilotoa Lake

We also gave ourselves a free day in Quilotoa, because from there you can hike all the way down to the lake shore and do kayaking (yep, if we hadn't hiked enough!). The way back up is just killer, but was a good way to keep our legs moving. The views at the bottom of the crater were also incredible, we've seen a few crater lakes now but this was the first time we got to see it from this angle. Even though we were in altitude for quite a few days now, it was still hard for me to sleep, constantly waking up short of breath.

Kayaking on Quilotoa Lake

Cotopaxi Volcano

The Agune boys at Cotopaxi Volcano

With one day to spare in Latacunga at the end of our Quilotoa hike, we jumped on a day trip to Cotopaxi, one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. The last eruption was as recent as 2016.

And yes, we once again had our socks blown off. This was our first time getting near an active volcano, and I truly felt a very strong energy. It was as if we were somehow humbling asking permission to get near this powerful giant. Thank you, sir, I come in peace and please do not erupt right now.

We respect you, Mr. Cotopaxi

The tour drove us all the way up to the car park, which sits at around 4,600m above sea level. We then had to hike to the Jose Ribas Refuge (at 4,800m), and finally to the small glacier they have there, cracking 5,000m of altitude. The distances were not so long, but at that altitude we were feeling every step.

As one guy we met on the road said to us, hiking at such high altitudes keeps you humble.

Smiling on the outside for breaking 5,000m. Pain on the inside

As we embark on our trip through the high peaks of Peru, these words remain as true as ever...stay tuned!

Alex at Cotopaxi

Cover photo: Fern, Alpaca and Alex at Quilotoa Lake, Ecuador. Taken on 27 Jan 2019.