Adios Ecuador - But I'll be Back!

Ecuador is a country of sharp contrasts - culturally and scenically. While my visit didn't cover much more than a hundred or so miles to the east and west of the central valley - where Quito is located - the contrasting lives lead by its people and the differences in scenery added much to my appreciation and enjoyment of the country.

Quito is situated in an inter-mountain valley in the Andes, and as a result of the surrounding topography, it does not receive nearly as much precipitation as the east and west slopes of the Andes. On clear days, a number of volcanoes reaching skyward to nearly 20,000 feet in elevation can be seen. Parts of this inter-mountain valley are quite dry and resemble much of the Southwest US or even drier areas of Montana.But west of Quito on the west slope of the Andes, moisture from the Pacific Ocean banks up against the mountains to form a cloud forest vegetation type with precipitation in excess of 100 inches per year in places. This aerial view gives a perspective of how the moisture laden clouds meet up with the west slope of the Andes.The east slope of the Andes is also quite wet, being influenced by the climate of the the great Amazon Basin. As mentioned in previous blogs, the Epiphytes that adorn many of the trees on the east slopes add great beauty and diversity to this region.On the surface, Quito, a city of nearly 2 million inhabitants, probably looks like many other cities of its size around the world. Below is a photo of Quito from my hotel window. But it is the center of banking, and wealthy families on one hand, and home to many very much less financially fortunate on the other. In the rural areas of the country, there is very little sign of wealth where we visited with the exception of a few quite beautiful, but small resort facilities. This spa and resort facility was located about an hour or two east of Quito at an elevation of about 12,000 feet, near Papallacta Pass. It was not at all busy during our short visit but apparently gets much more business on weekends from wealthy Quito residents. On our first day in Ecuador, we ate lunch at a beautiful old "hacienda" type enclave near the town of Otavalo. This was certainly not typical of life in the country, but a wonderful pause from a day of birding.In rural areas, the homes are quite small and many seem to have small plots of land for gardens and animals. The market place at Otavalo was a rainbow of colors and a great place to to shop for gifts to take home to wives and family who - unfortunately - did not accompany us on this trip. The meals that were served at the lodges we stayed at were excellent, especially at San Isidro Cabanas. One of the owners of this facility - Carmen - had an advanced university degree in the culinary arts, and the gourmet meals served there certainly corroborated that fact!! The black pepper ice cream listed as the desert on this menu -click on it to enlarge - was really delicious!Perhaps in contrast (but maybe not), the meal of roast pig served on a Sunday in this town of Calacali was likely a special treat to its residents, although it did not look especially appetizing to me. The yellow "cakes" seemed to be some sort of corn or maybe potato dish. This town of Calacali was also the site of a monument to the Equator. Ecuador is equator in Spanish. That is John Shipley standing on my right. John organized this trip for me through his Kingfisher Bird Tours company and I was very pleased with the entire itinerary!This is the last Blog in my series on Ecuador. It was really a great trip and I hope to return to Ecuador in the future to visit the Galapagos Islands and perhaps visit some lower elevation lodges in the Amazon Basin. I hope you enjoyed this series as much as I enjoyed putting it together. This coming summer, I'll be spending about a month on St. George Island of the Pribilof group in the Bering Sea west of Alaska. Although good Internet access there may be problematic, I hope to be able to do a series on my stay there - while I'm there!