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I visited Ecuador for about three and a half weeks
in May and June, 1999. I spent the first couple weeks with a family
learning spanish at a Spanish school in Quito; the Old Town has many plazas
connected by narrow winding alleys and several churches, the insides spectacularly
gilded with gold. A weekend at the famous market of Otavalo is a
favorite for tourists, where you can buy Ecuadorian textiles and crafts
at unbelievably low prices. By taking a side trip to the small villages
near Otavalo, you can meet and talk to the indigenous Ecuadorians and see
how the textiles are woven.
After two weeks in Quito, I escaped the noxious
exhaust fumes and spent a week in the town of Banos, continuing my spanish
language studies. Banos is very popular with the tourists, both Ecuadorian
and foriegn, for its hot spring baths. It is the very antithesis
of Quito, with few vehicles and a more laid-back atmosphere - definitely
a better place to spend time. Banos is also the home base to climb
Tungurahua.
I then spent a couple days in small town of Machachi.
Machachi has no particular tourist attraction, except that it is the base
to climb the Illinizas, which was my intent. It was a very strange
two days, because I was the only foreigner, and an asian one at that -
it was very hard not to feel quite self-concious when wandering the streets.
I also realized that there is a reason some towns are not tourist towns
- because there is nothing to see or do. In the end, I didn't climb
either Illiniza peak, only a minor peak to the north (where I did hike
up to 4600 meters).
I ended the trip bussing down to the southern port
of Guayaquil. I only had an afternoon to spend exploring the city,
so I spent most of the time in the Plaza of the Iguanas, where the lizards
walk around freely without a care in the world about the humans stepping
over them.
Overall, my trip to Ecuador was pretty enjoyable,
but would have been better if I had more time to travel around, rather
than spend it in spanish school. However, I did learn enough spanish
to travel with, and new worlds of travel possibilities are now open to
me.
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