In early January of this year we left Peru and entered Ecuador. We had a great time exploring Peru, there is a great diversity in landscape, great archaeological sites, and friendly people, but Peru is a tough place to travel in. After 3 months we were ready for a change and looking forward to Ecuador. In an effort to keep the posts on this blog somewhat current we are skipping Peru for now, and we’ll get back to it soon, but for now we are going to get caught up.
Having the luxury to travel slowly through South America has been a real pleasure for us. It has allowed us to see and understand how the culture changes from country to country and even within each country. Growing up in the States we really didn’t have a great understanding of the differences between the countries in South America. Sure we’d learned a little about the Inca Empire in school, generally knew what things looked like on a map, maybe read about the crippling inflation of many of the countries had endured, and for sure heard that cocaine comes from Colombia, but we didn’t learn much more. Our international education was focused on what was going on in Europe or maybe some about Asia, but little about our neighbors to the south. Traveling to experience this gradual change in people and customs has been an incredible experience.
I can’t say that I am anywhere near understanding all the differences in culture or that I can tell you who are the best people of South America, just that there are big differences. It’s something you could spend your life exploring and studying. In my mind, probably the biggest influence is the ratio of people with indigenous ancestry to the people with European ancestry.
The Catholic church has had a powerful presence in South America since the first white man set foot on the continent. They have, since, made great efforts to Christianize the people, but they have not gone so far as to change the culture. The large populations of indigenous groups have allowed them to keep their traditions and rich cultures. Bolivia has the largest indigenous percentage of all of South America. Peru has fewer, but the indigenous people have a huge and proud influence on the culture. Ecuador is less and Colombia has very little. This is me speculating, but I think this spectrum is mostly due to availability of attractive farm land.
Yes, the Inca were great farmers, and developed impressive methods for farming like the terraces and massive irrigation networks, but these methods were NOT developed because the farming was easy. Just the opposite, they were developed because they farmed on, steep, dry slopes, and had a relatively extreme difference in the amount of rainfall from season to season. Of course, the Spanish were interested in areas with important resources. Like silver from Potosi, Bolivia, or later rubber from the Amazon. Or going into areas where the Inca had well established farming traditions like the Colca Canyon in Peru. Also, it was easy for the Spanish to move in where the Inca had developed infrastructure and social constructs and continue to tax the people’s hard work. In these areas it was the upper class folks would came, and maybe they didn’t even bring families. In these areas with poor farm land very few of the normal working class people came with families to established and build community.
Driving through these countries, up and down the valleys, makes this a lot more apparent. We can see what it takes to farm the steep dry slopes, we see the people doing the work. In Bolivia the rural areas are almost 100% indigenous, but in Ecuador the rural areas have changed to more and more people of European descent. Fundamentally it is because the Andes become more hospitable and the climate becomes less extreme as you go north, thus the farming is easier. These small lessons are something that we will take home with us.
Crossing into Ecuador was pretty easy just a few lines to wait in and a bit of wandering around trying to figure out where to go next, normal easy stuff. Upon entering the country we were all of a sudden in banana, shrimp, and crab country. It’s just about at the border that the climate changes pretty significantly. This change is due to the cold Humboldt current that has, up to this point, flowed up the length of South America. It is here that it takes a big left turn and flows out into the Pacific. The cool waters have kept the coast dry. In Ecuador, a warm current flows south, warming the air and making it humid. We are finally out of the vast dry coastal desert that has stretched north from central Chile.
Since it was December 30, we were trying to figure out where to bring in the New Year. After spending a day exploring the coastal towns we decided to escape the heat and the mosquitoes and head inland, up into the mountains. As we climbed we passed through lush green hills. We also passed the town where one of Lola’s protectors is from, Cisne, for the Virgen de Cisne. She was a gift from Juan and his family, Alex’s brother-in-law, at the start of our trip. We felt pretty fortunate that she has protected us all this way and that we were returning to her place of reverence.
We ended up spending New Year’s parked at the edge of an airport outside of the town of Catamayo. It was great. Ecuadorians (and at least Peruvians in the north) create or buy paper mache effigies and bring in the new year by burning them. These effigies are meant to represent the old year and the negative from the past. From the airport we could see and hear the the town’s firework displays and walk to the nearby neighborhoods to see people’s burning effigies. It was a really great night reflecting on this past year and being thankful for all that we have today and what we have to look forward to.
The next morning we continued our drive inland. We headed into the town of Vilcabamba. This quaint town is known for the coffee and it’s massive expat population. We had a meal and a nice wander around the town.
From Vilcabamba we continued a bit further east to Zamora and National Park Podocarpus, named after Ecuador’s only native conifer tree, but this tree has been logged extensively and barely survives today. We turned up unannounced at a wonderful bird reserve and asked if we could camp in their parking lot. An American couple who were volunteering at the site welcomed us in and shared their love of birds with us. We spend the afternoon with them and a bunch of folks on a birding tour watching birds right from the parking lot. Tons of birds visited. It was a great education about the incredible diversity of birds in Ecuador.
After spending several days in this area it was time to head north to Cuenca. It’s an architecturally beautiful, quiet, and culturally rich city. It’s also the center of Paja Toquilla (toquilla reed) hat finishing and selling. These hats are widely known as Panama Hats, but in fact they come from Ecuador. They became famous in the mid 1800’s for being lightweight and flexible. The Paja Toquilla is a fan shaped palm that grows near the coast in Ecuador. The hats became known as Panama Hats because they were initially shipped to Panama so that they could brought across the Isthmus of Panama for resale into the European and US market. They received their name based on where they were sold for the international trade. We had a lot of fun going around to several hat shops to compare the quality of the hats and all the varieties.
We spent several days in Cuenca, it was very hard to leave. Although our campsite wasn’t very glamorous (just a busy fenced parking lot with a bathroom), but we were a 5 min walk away from the city center. This allowed Alex to have lots of food outings, WIFI at fancy cafes, craft beer tastings, and NY style pizza! We did manage to squeeze in some well developed cultural museums and archeological collections.
From Cuenca we headed down to Guayaquil for our Galapagos adventures. You’ve already seen this post. But stay tuned for our travels in northern Ecuador.
We traveled in southern Ecuador from December 31, 2017 to January 11, 2018.
Bet your Mom giggled at the title on the dragonfly and pen photo
Yes, I did! 🙂
Until I figured out that it wasn’t referring to a piece of male anatomy, but actually said “pen is for scale.”
I’m slow, but I get there eventually.
Nice post, Todd. Tell me about the picture of the man in the crazy headdress playing a guitar and sitting on top of a box with the moon in the background.
Is that Alex looking up at him?
I don’t know anything about it, other than it was just on the street in the the old town of Cuenca. That is Alex. It just really caught our eye. I like that they used a real door as part of the mural. There is a lot of great street art in Cuenca, and many other big cities down here too. But Valparaiso is still probably has the best. What do you think about it?