Ecuador
Viaje a la tierra media
(Journey to Middle Earth)
(Quito, Mitad del Mundo, Otavalo)
The flight from Miami to Quito is only 4hrs. By contrast San Jose to Miami took us 8hrs. We checked into this trendy travel hostel (L’Auberge), cute courtyard, room with several beds and bath and breakfast for $22. The front desk was particularly very helpful in getting our bearings and providing us with whatever we needed for the kids.
Quito is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. At 2850 m/9300 ft above sea level, it is the second highest capital city in the world and is located about 22 miles south of the equator. A monument marking the equator is known locally as "la mitad del mundo" (the middle of the world). Due to its altitude and location, the climate in Quito is mild to cool, fairly constant all year round, with a high temperature typically around 70F. There are only two seasons in Quito, summer (the dry season) and winter (the rainy season). The Spanish established the Catholicism in Quito and immediately after the San Francisco Convent was constructed, the first of about 20 more churches and convents built during the colonial period. The Spanish heavily evangelized the indigenous people (not quite so brutal as it was in the rest of Andes) and used them for construction. After nearly 300 years of Spanish colonization, the Ecuadorians under the command of Simon Bolivar led victory marked the independence of Quito and the surrounding areas.
The "centro historico", historical center, as it is called, was appointed a UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Site. It has many appealing plazas (the Independence Plaza being the most important) and manierist and baroque churches, including the Cathedral, the convent and church of St. Francis, which is the largest building of the Colonial era built by the Spaniards in South America, the church of El Sagrario, convent and church of Santo Domingo and the church of the Society of Jesus, or "La Compañía" which was built after the model of the Church of the Gesu in Rome. There are also several museums, many of them dedicated to colonial art and history; some of the most renowned are the City Museum ("Museo de la Ciudad"), the Metropolitan Cultural Center and the museum of the Convent of St. Francis. Markets are scattered throughout the area.
For tourist purposes, Quito is conveniently divided into the Old City and the New City. The area of the New City that everybody ends up in is called La Mariscal (or Mariscal Sucre). Nowadays, it's a mecca for international tourists. There's a mix of lodgings (at all price ranges, from $3 a night dorms to major international chains), restaurants, travel agencies, souvenir shops and Spanish schools. All of which makes it a convenient area to stay in, but nothing unique to Ecuador.
We were located near Parque El Ejido, a large park at the southern end of the New City and at the edge of the Old city. Inside the park is the Casa de la Cultura, which hosts several museums. Past the Parque El Ejido with the Case de la Cultura, the Palacio Legislativo (legislature building), the Parque Alameda which is the site of the oldest astronomical observatory in South America. In the Old City, the architecture is of the typical Spanish colonial style, with many buildings with wrought iron balconies.
The Plaza de la Indepencia: There is a tall column/statue in the middle, the cathedral on one side and a government building on another side. Almost all days had a crowd of demonstrators in front of the Palacio de Gobierno. We took a peek in through the gate at the famous mural depicting Francisco de Orellano's descent of the Amazon.
The Jesuit church of La Compania: The exterior is ornately carved, but the interior is even more striking with more gold leaf than I had ever seen in a church. The claim is that over seven tons of gold were used to gild the walls, altar and balconies. There's a mix of influences, from the Moorish arches favored in Spanish architecture of the period to elaborate sun symbols, strategically intended to attract converts from the indigenous population. It is possibly one of the most beautiful churches I had seen in Latin America.
The Plaza and Monastery of San Francisco: While it isn't as ornate as La Compania, there is still plenty to gawk at. The most famous thing to see, though, is the original statue of La Virgen de Quito, a large copy of which tops El Panecillo, a rounded hill that overlooks the Old City.
We reboarded the bus to La Mitad del Mundo ("the middle of the world") – latitude 0’0’0 which is the obligatory tourist excursion La Mitad del Mundo (the middle of the world) is a small village located about 22 miles north of Quito, on the equator, where visitors find a monument to the equator housing a historical museum, in addition to a planetarium, various exhibits, and shops. It was entertaining to watch people kiss or shake hands across the line. The complex includes several restaurants and souvenir shops and a scale model of Quito.
Otavalo: A long day north, via the capital Quito and across the equator, to Otavalo. A day of pottering around the small and pleasant town. The Saturday market was massive, and famed throughout South America. The 'otavalenos' looked very striking in their traditional dress, with the men in their ponchos and dark felt hats with long pony tails hanging down their backs and the women in black skirts and embroided white blouses. The market was fun to explore. They come from the surrounding villages to the Otavalo markets; we see beautiful weaved cloth, ponchos, pottery and music instruments. Reena bought a few scarves.
On arrival in Cuenca, we took a taxi to the city center, where we got a double room (with bath and breakfast included) at the hostel at a place suggested by Luis for $21. It was Christmas eve so we had a little trouble finding places to eat. The new cathedral was very well lit and there were services going on. Cuenca is a city filled with churches. Local rumor says there are 52 - one for each week of the year. There was also the Festival de Los Inocentes. It is a mixture of Latin American catholicism, specifically Ecuadorian or Cuencan. Families bring small dolls of baby Jesus to churches to be blessed. The more spectacular twist is that people, especially children, dress in costumes. There were some paper mache masks I assume were more traditional but I saw a lot of the sort of plastic masks we got for Halloween, as well as one adult dressed as Spiderman There's a nice walk along the river, past colonial buildings and drying laundry on the riverbanks to some Inca ruins - just a few remnants of walls. (The major Inca site in Ecuador is Ingapirca, which is a couple of hours north. We didn't make it there.) There are several museums and art galleries. The modern art museum is reasonably good. All of the signs are entirely in Spanish. The churches are the major attraction of Cuenca. And the most impressive is the new cathedral.
Ecuadorian Amazon (Oriente)
In eastern Ecuador (the Oriente), tropical rain forests are home to indigenous Quecha people and hundreds of species of plants and animals. Rivers, such as the Rio Napo and Rio Aguarico, begin in Ecuador, and eventually join with the Amazon much further east. In the jungle, we can see wide variety of birds and animals – caiman (a relative of the alligator), macaws, toucans, monkeys (squirrel, red howler, spider), jaguar, pink river dolphins, manatees and piranhas. We didn’t see much except monkeys, macaws and some birds. It took us close to 6hrs from Quito to get to Tena. We found a little hut on the banks of Rio Napo. But right on the river and without any lights for miles around, we could see the milky way band very clearly. Next day, we hired a guide to take us down the river in a panga who explained us some of the flora and fauna took us to a Quecha village which made their own chicha (a toddy type liquor/beer) and panned gold on the river banks.
New Year
We slept in the afternoon and bought two bottles of rum and coke and Reena and I finished it around 9pm, before we started our walk down Avenieda Amazonas which was quite crowded and people burning effigies of the Old Year. We bought some fireworks and had a celebration of our own. The kids were a little tired and we ended up sleeping just before 2006. The next day we were bumped off the LAN flight back to Miami, we went back to the hostel but the room wasn’t available. So we walked around downtown and the smelly backstreets but beautiful in their own way and found a room in another hostel. It looked a little corny when we walked in. The front desk seemed to be amused that a family was checking into a red light hotel.
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