Ecuador: Best of Both Worlds

It's not often one can travel between two hemispheres and experience radically different climates and cultures in such short time, but we did. Attending the See Ecuador 2009 Travel Conference, spanning the cities of Quito, Cuenca, and Guayaquil granted something I that had never happened before - unrestricted guided access to both the quiet history hidden in the Andes, as well as the vibrant nightlife contained on the Pacific coast.

Our trip started a day earlier than expected when the mayor of Ecuador's capital city, Quito, suggested that we visit the archaeological site of Tulipe in the Andean cloud-forests and ancient home of the Pre-Incan Yumbo people. After about a 90 minute bus ride through lush vegetation and passing many exotic fauna, we stopped at the ruins of these fabled sun-worshipers. Dressed in period clothing and acting the part, we witnessed a shaman's ancient ceremonies. After a short scenic walk through the sub-tropical plant life, we were surprised at the attention to detail in the reconstructed Yumbo village and it's inhabitance farming, fishing, and doing daily chores along the riverbank as if the past centuries had never happened.

A few days of conference and a short flight later, we arrived in Cuenca, Ecuador's first UNESCO world heritage site. Among all the carefully preserved Spanish colonial architecture, grandiose cathedrals, and cobblestone lined streets, we were lucky enough to arrive on the night that a festival was being held. Among games of chance, booths selling wine and sweets, and crowds of happy talkative locals, a designated few were celebrating traditionally by lighting small fires under tissue-paper balloons. The heat will fill the bulb and cause the bright and colorful paper to rise like kites into the clear starry sky. The band playing regional songs and the people reciprocating with dance was interrupted when large towers of fireworks broke the calm. We were all excited when the night seemed to fade away among the bright sparks and the sounds of igniting gunpowder. A few of us decided to make a break for it and located a small bar in the city center where a popular local band was performing modern songs. Perhaps my most personal educational moment was convincing two English journalists that I spoke Spanish fluently by asking a Peruvian girl to dance. I soon discovered that I could perform neither activity very well. The slight embarrassment was outshined by the hours of laughter and fun that would round out the late evening and early dawn in that small club.

The bus ride from Cuenca to Ecuador's largest city, Guayaquil, is a short but visually stunning one. The path took us from the cloud speckled top of the Andes Mountains through the middle of the lush green pastures of Caja national park. This road is, perhaps, one of the best ways to see the parks steep mountainsides and crystal glass-like fresh water lakes without having to pay any additional money. Much more rapid than expected, the cool thin air of the sierras became rich with heat and moisture. Towns filled with ponchos and heavy hats melted into villages of light linen shirts and hammocks swinging with the afternoon siesta. Every new turn of the road offered a cornucopia of coconuts, ripe bananas, and other fresh produce.

After our own siesta, we were ready for the hot Ecuadorian night. At the large statue of liberator and hero, Simon Bolivar, located in the center of the spectacularly remodeled and visually stunning Malecon 2000, we boarded an open-air double decker bus. The city tour brought us first through the Zona Rosa, the youth filled strip between Guayaquil's two largest Universities. Music filled the sky as a passing chivas farrera, an open bus filled with dancing party-goers approached our stoplight. This moved crowds of students to dance on the sidewalks, and spectators from the windows and balconies began to cheer when out of the window of the chiva a sign announcing that this particular vehicle was to celebrate the wedding two of the passengers inside. The return trip crossed in front of Iguana Park where hundreds of the green animals sleep on the unoccupied benches and cover the canopies of the trees like living camouflage. The bus returned to the Malecon where we walked a short distance north to the historic neighborhood of Las Penas where the bohemian art galleries of the day play host to the restaurants and clubs of the night.

Returning home, we wish we had just one more day, but would one day have been enough when there was much more to be seen and to have done? Like relax in the beachtown of Salinas, watch the international surfing competition in Montanita, witness an indigenous tribe living in the Amazon Rainforest, or exploring the untouched and diverse life in the Galapagos Islands. It is comforting to know that next time, we can. And perhaps we will.

- Joseph Mach, T100G Travel Consultant