Previously published at Moneylife at http://www.moneylife.in/article/you-cant-quit-quito/12658.html
Jaideep Mukerji explores Darwin’s Galapagos Islands near Ecuador—the only country where you can experience all four seasons in a single day
Located between Colombia and Peru is a small country with a range of attractions. Ecuador, a country about the size of Andhra Pradesh, has pristine beaches and seaside resorts, high mountain plateaus dotted with snow-capped volcanoes and a large area of dense Amazon tropical jungle. About 970km off Ecuador’s coast lie the awe-inspiring Galapagos Islands where Charles Darwin made his scientific observations before writing the famous book On the Origin of Species that is now considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology.
I had spent several weeks planning this trip and, fortuitously, an old friend said that he would put me in touch with an Ecuadorian gentleman. That connection with Pablo Gonzalez turned out to be a stroke of good luck as Pablo not only gave accurate information to help me plan the tour, but also became a friend and expert local guide.
Whether your flight connections are via Europe or the US, it takes almost 24 hours to reach Quito. Ecuador’s capital city is at 9,200ft almost directly over the equator on the eastern slopes of the often active Pichincha Volcano. Quito’s altitude makes it the second-highest capital city in the world after La Paz in Bolivia. Quito’s airport is in the middle of the city, although a new airport, some 50km north, is now under construction.
After checking in at Dann Carlton Hotel, Pablo took me for a drive to Quito’s Old Town which is the largest and best-preserved amongst the cities of Latin America with impressive Spanish colonial architecture. The first city to be named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1978, Quito is home to about 40 churches and chapels and 16 convents and monasteries built during the Spanish colonial rule.
Leaving the city, we drove a short distance north to the village of Mitad El Mundo with a large monument built on the equatorial line. There is a museum nearby and a small chapel where marriages are solemnised—with one spouse standing in the northern hemisphere and the other in the southern!
Later that evening, as the temperature dropped to a cool 12°C, we sat in a busy restaurant where locals were sipping the traditional delicious warming drink, canelazo, made by blending orange juice, cinnamon and the strongly alcoholic aguardiente distilled from cane sugar. A country with such diverse climate, Ecuador grows a wide range of fruits including mangoes, custard apples and guavas, along with cool-weather and tropical vegetables, and over 50 varieties of potatoes, a vegetable that originally came from the Andes. The favourite national Ecuadorian cuisine consists of rice, corn, potatoes and meat—known locally as churrasco. This is accompanied by aji, a spicy sauce.
Although I had initially planned to go no further than the Galapagos Islands, Pablo’s offer to drive south along the spine of the Andes on the highway (famously known as the ‘Avenue of the Volcanoes’) past a series of active and dormant volcanoes, to the central Ecuadorian city of Riobamba and the southern colonial city of Cuenca, was impossible to decline. We arranged to meet on my return from Galapagos and do this journey together with a quick trip north of Quito to the Otavalo region well known for its traditional indigenous markets.
Jet lag was catching up by now and it was a night of dreamless sleep before another early trip to the airport to catch the morning flight to the island of Baltra and join a four-day cruise around the Galapagos Islands.
Soon after taking off from Quito’s airport, the captain pointed out the 20,500-ft high glacier-covered summit of the Chimborazo Volcano which is the highest peak in Ecuador. In barely 20 minutes, we landed in Guayaquil, which is Ecuador’s largest city and commercial capital located on the Pacific coast, for a half-hour stop to drop off and pick up passengers.
Unlike Quito’s cool temperate climate, Guayaquil is humid and tropical and feels much like Mumbai. From Guayaquil, it is an hour’s flight west over the open Pacific Ocean to the tiny island of Baltra that has one of the two small airports on the Galapagos Islands. All international visitors have to pay $100 as National Park Fee and another $10 for a separate environment permit before being allowed entry into Baltra’s open terminal building. All walls are only half the height to the ceiling to allow daylight in and the ocean breezes to pass through for natural cooling.
I had booked my Galapagos cruise with Klein Tours based in Quito who operate the 4-star M/V Galapagos Legend cruise ship. From the tiny Baltra airport, the Klein Tours bus drove us 5km to the island jetty. Getting off the bus, all of us headed straight for the small shelter at the end of the jetty for some shade; instead we ran into our first encounter with Galapagos wildlife. The shelter was occupied by smelly sea lions—large males, the somewhat smaller females and several pups, all wanted to get away from the hot sun as much as we did. Gingerly skirting the sea lions, we boarded our inflatable powerboat—pangas as they are locally called—and were taken to the ship moored about half-a-kilometre offshore.
The Legend is a very comfortable and well-appointed ship with a library, lecture room, bar, restaurant, swimming pool and a small gift shop. I settled into my cabin—two decent-sized beds, a small TV, a writing desk and a private balcony to sit out and enjoy the magnificent scenery of the small and large Galapagos Islands scattered amongst the deep blue waters of the Pacific. The Galapagos Islands form an Ecuadorian province and the entire area is a national park and a biological marine reserve. The islands are geologically young and famous for their large variety of bird and animal species. These were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of his ship, the Beagle, and his observations contributed to the birth of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. The Galapagos group consists of 15 main islands, three smaller islands and 107 tiny islets. The oldest island is believed to have formed between 5 million and 10 million years ago while the youngest islands, Isabela and Fernandina, are still being formed by volcanic lava; the most recent volcanic eruption occurred in April 2009.
The buffet lunch on the Legend was fabulous with a variety of salads, soups, hot vegetarian and meat dishes and a selection of desserts. While we were having lunch, I could hear the anchor being raised and soon we were sailing north to the first of our island landings. After lunch, all of us were called to assemble in the lecture room for the first of our safety and wildlife briefings, where we received detailed guidelines on how to safely approach the abundant wildlife and avoid causing unnecessary disturbance.
Over the following four days, the Legend took us to North Seymour, Santa Cruz, Floreana, Española, San Cristobal and, finally, the Baltra islands. Before we arrived at each of the islands, the passengers would be divided into groups of about 12 and we would then board our panga, each accompanied by an expert naturalist guide. On every occasion, usually twice daily, we would step ashore on an island to be amazed by the variety of wildlife, landscapes and marine life.
No two islands offered the same experience; each was unique. Most islands are uninhabited and left completely in their natural state. San Cristóbal, however, has a small port; Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, with souvenir shops, cafes and Internet kiosks sharing the waterfront with the ever-present noisy sea lions. Marine and land iguanas, blue-footed and Nazca booby birds, the red-pouched frigate bird, flamingos and pelicans, Galapagos sea lions and fur seals, a forest of giant cacti, volcanic lava fields and colourful underwater marine life were just some of the highlights that we saw. Every evening, excursions were complemented by documentary films, slideshows and lectures by experts onboard the Legend. At the end of four days, it was hard to say goodbye to friends and leave behind what had been an intense experience to board the flight back to Quito on the Ecuador mainland.
Jaideep Mukerji explores Darwin’s Galapagos Islands near Ecuador—the only country where you can experience all four seasons in a single day
Located between Colombia and Peru is a small country with a range of attractions. Ecuador, a country about the size of Andhra Pradesh, has pristine beaches and seaside resorts, high mountain plateaus dotted with snow-capped volcanoes and a large area of dense Amazon tropical jungle. About 970km off Ecuador’s coast lie the awe-inspiring Galapagos Islands where Charles Darwin made his scientific observations before writing the famous book On the Origin of Species that is now considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology.
I had spent several weeks planning this trip and, fortuitously, an old friend said that he would put me in touch with an Ecuadorian gentleman. That connection with Pablo Gonzalez turned out to be a stroke of good luck as Pablo not only gave accurate information to help me plan the tour, but also became a friend and expert local guide.
Whether your flight connections are via Europe or the US, it takes almost 24 hours to reach Quito. Ecuador’s capital city is at 9,200ft almost directly over the equator on the eastern slopes of the often active Pichincha Volcano. Quito’s altitude makes it the second-highest capital city in the world after La Paz in Bolivia. Quito’s airport is in the middle of the city, although a new airport, some 50km north, is now under construction.
After checking in at Dann Carlton Hotel, Pablo took me for a drive to Quito’s Old Town which is the largest and best-preserved amongst the cities of Latin America with impressive Spanish colonial architecture. The first city to be named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1978, Quito is home to about 40 churches and chapels and 16 convents and monasteries built during the Spanish colonial rule.
Leaving the city, we drove a short distance north to the village of Mitad El Mundo with a large monument built on the equatorial line. There is a museum nearby and a small chapel where marriages are solemnised—with one spouse standing in the northern hemisphere and the other in the southern!
Later that evening, as the temperature dropped to a cool 12°C, we sat in a busy restaurant where locals were sipping the traditional delicious warming drink, canelazo, made by blending orange juice, cinnamon and the strongly alcoholic aguardiente distilled from cane sugar. A country with such diverse climate, Ecuador grows a wide range of fruits including mangoes, custard apples and guavas, along with cool-weather and tropical vegetables, and over 50 varieties of potatoes, a vegetable that originally came from the Andes. The favourite national Ecuadorian cuisine consists of rice, corn, potatoes and meat—known locally as churrasco. This is accompanied by aji, a spicy sauce.
Although I had initially planned to go no further than the Galapagos Islands, Pablo’s offer to drive south along the spine of the Andes on the highway (famously known as the ‘Avenue of the Volcanoes’) past a series of active and dormant volcanoes, to the central Ecuadorian city of Riobamba and the southern colonial city of Cuenca, was impossible to decline. We arranged to meet on my return from Galapagos and do this journey together with a quick trip north of Quito to the Otavalo region well known for its traditional indigenous markets.
Jet lag was catching up by now and it was a night of dreamless sleep before another early trip to the airport to catch the morning flight to the island of Baltra and join a four-day cruise around the Galapagos Islands.
Soon after taking off from Quito’s airport, the captain pointed out the 20,500-ft high glacier-covered summit of the Chimborazo Volcano which is the highest peak in Ecuador. In barely 20 minutes, we landed in Guayaquil, which is Ecuador’s largest city and commercial capital located on the Pacific coast, for a half-hour stop to drop off and pick up passengers.
Unlike Quito’s cool temperate climate, Guayaquil is humid and tropical and feels much like Mumbai. From Guayaquil, it is an hour’s flight west over the open Pacific Ocean to the tiny island of Baltra that has one of the two small airports on the Galapagos Islands. All international visitors have to pay $100 as National Park Fee and another $10 for a separate environment permit before being allowed entry into Baltra’s open terminal building. All walls are only half the height to the ceiling to allow daylight in and the ocean breezes to pass through for natural cooling.
I had booked my Galapagos cruise with Klein Tours based in Quito who operate the 4-star M/V Galapagos Legend cruise ship. From the tiny Baltra airport, the Klein Tours bus drove us 5km to the island jetty. Getting off the bus, all of us headed straight for the small shelter at the end of the jetty for some shade; instead we ran into our first encounter with Galapagos wildlife. The shelter was occupied by smelly sea lions—large males, the somewhat smaller females and several pups, all wanted to get away from the hot sun as much as we did. Gingerly skirting the sea lions, we boarded our inflatable powerboat—pangas as they are locally called—and were taken to the ship moored about half-a-kilometre offshore.
The Legend is a very comfortable and well-appointed ship with a library, lecture room, bar, restaurant, swimming pool and a small gift shop. I settled into my cabin—two decent-sized beds, a small TV, a writing desk and a private balcony to sit out and enjoy the magnificent scenery of the small and large Galapagos Islands scattered amongst the deep blue waters of the Pacific. The Galapagos Islands form an Ecuadorian province and the entire area is a national park and a biological marine reserve. The islands are geologically young and famous for their large variety of bird and animal species. These were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of his ship, the Beagle, and his observations contributed to the birth of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. The Galapagos group consists of 15 main islands, three smaller islands and 107 tiny islets. The oldest island is believed to have formed between 5 million and 10 million years ago while the youngest islands, Isabela and Fernandina, are still being formed by volcanic lava; the most recent volcanic eruption occurred in April 2009.
The buffet lunch on the Legend was fabulous with a variety of salads, soups, hot vegetarian and meat dishes and a selection of desserts. While we were having lunch, I could hear the anchor being raised and soon we were sailing north to the first of our island landings. After lunch, all of us were called to assemble in the lecture room for the first of our safety and wildlife briefings, where we received detailed guidelines on how to safely approach the abundant wildlife and avoid causing unnecessary disturbance.
Over the following four days, the Legend took us to North Seymour, Santa Cruz, Floreana, Española, San Cristobal and, finally, the Baltra islands. Before we arrived at each of the islands, the passengers would be divided into groups of about 12 and we would then board our panga, each accompanied by an expert naturalist guide. On every occasion, usually twice daily, we would step ashore on an island to be amazed by the variety of wildlife, landscapes and marine life.
No two islands offered the same experience; each was unique. Most islands are uninhabited and left completely in their natural state. San Cristóbal, however, has a small port; Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, with souvenir shops, cafes and Internet kiosks sharing the waterfront with the ever-present noisy sea lions. Marine and land iguanas, blue-footed and Nazca booby birds, the red-pouched frigate bird, flamingos and pelicans, Galapagos sea lions and fur seals, a forest of giant cacti, volcanic lava fields and colourful underwater marine life were just some of the highlights that we saw. Every evening, excursions were complemented by documentary films, slideshows and lectures by experts onboard the Legend. At the end of four days, it was hard to say goodbye to friends and leave behind what had been an intense experience to board the flight back to Quito on the Ecuador mainland.
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