Ecuador Adventures in the Andes

Some friends and I recently visited the delightful country of Ecuador, which lies on the planet’s equator in South America. Here are a lot of photos and a bit of commentary about my Ecuador adventures in the Andes. (Coming soon: a companion post about the Galápagos Islands.)

Maps of Ecuador and More

Quito

Quito, the capital of Ecuador and the second-largest city, is in a volcanic valley in the Andes Mountains, the longest continental range in the world. Some Ecuadorian volcanoes are still active, though those near Quito are sleeping.

The vast majority of Ecuadorians are Catholic, though with a few twists. Notably, depictions of Mary, mother of Jesus, often include wings, a chain, and a dragon. This tall statue, the Virgen del Panecillo, sits on a hill in the middle of Quito. Wikipedia says it’s the tallest aluminum statue in the world.

Nearly every city in Ecuador has at least one Catholic church, a legacy of the Spanish colonial period. Various Catholic orders were given permission to build churches. In Quito, the Jesuits took 160 years to build their church (“La Compañía“) and applied gold leaf to the very detailed interior decoration.

Ecuador is the center of the world, at least the way most world maps are oriented, with the poles on top and bottom. Therefore, Quito is the center of the center of the world at Latitude 0º00’00”. The lovely and very popular Intañan Museum in Quito explained it and showed fun demonstrations to prove the claim. By the way, the indigenous peoples figured it out long before French scientists came along in the mid-1700s to make detailed observations.

However, the lesser-known Museo Solar Cayambe Quitsato begs to differ. You see, modern GPS data (e.g., as shown on an Apple phone) shows the more famous Intañan museum is at Lat. 0º00’03”, while the smaller Solar Museum in the foothills of the Andes shows a latitude of 0º00’00”. To be honest, I liked the little museum better because it was less commercial and more scientific.

On the other hand, Intañan had fun statues for silly tourists to take pictures with.

The Andes Highlands

Ecuador has four distinct ecosystems: the Andes highlands, the lowland coastal region, the Amazon river basin, and the Galápagos Islands. We spent most of our time in the first and last (one overnight stop in Guayaquil doesn’t count as visiting the coast).

Birds Small and Large

Ecuador is home to an amazing number of bird species. Mindo is a cloud forest area about 2 hours north-ish of Quito. Hummingbirds abound, from tiny little flitters to “giant” varieties. At a small roadside attraction our clever guides knew about, we saw easily 6 or 8 species of hummingbirds, from tiny little flitters to larger varieties. Plus finches, tanagers, and others I didn’t recognize.

In an extra bit of luck, a visitor came by. This is a tayra (pronounced “TYE-ruh”), a member of the weasel family. Tayras are common throughout the forested areas of Central and South America. They’ll eat pretty much anything, including a plantain meant to attract the birds. I was thrilled to see one in person because in Galactic Search and Rescue, one of my space opera books, the futuristic genetic engineers used DNA from a tayra and a few others in the weasel family to create one of the heroic pets in that story. Real tayras look something like a smaller, sleeker wolverine.

El Condor National Park near Otavalo, Ecuador is a wildlife refuge for raptors, including the Andean Condor (which is actually a vulture), considered the largest flying bird in the world. The park houses hawks, falcons, owls, and occasional exotics, none of which were taken from the wild. They even have fabulous harpy eagles, with their fascinating faces. Here is a photo of me and a patient Variable Sparrowhawk.

Cotacachi and Otavalo

We stayed in the delightful town of Cotacachi for a few days, in part to visit veterinarian friends who retired there. However, “retired” is a relative word. They lasted about 10 minutes before they saw needs in the community that they could meet. This included a training program for veterinary technicians, setting up a clinic, providing free care for the town dogs, and designing an education program for children on how to be kind to animals. Their latest venture is building a nonprofit veterinary hospital in Cotacachi that will serve the surrounding indigenous communities and offer more training programs. Shameless plug: Please make a charitable donation to the Amici Cannis building fund, even if it’s just a few dollars. They are making a far-reaching difference in the social fabric of Ecuador.

Otavalo is one of the larger towns in the area, and famous for its claim of hosting the largest outdoor poncho market in South America. I can’t verify that, but the town has a concentration of textile businesses, from people doing handwork at home to factories that produce industrial fabrics. Otavalo is definitely an arts town. The photos below are of one of its several murals, and of tapestries sold in the outdoor market. If I’d had more room in my luggage, several would have been coming home with me.

This last photo from the Andes was taken at Laguna Cuicocha, a large volcanic crater lake. The terrace is a lunar calendar.

According to our guide, almost every indigenous community of any size has similar terrace-like features for both the solar and lunar calendars. They’re a clever blend of the ceremonial and the practical. Since Ecuador is at the equator, it doesn’t have distinct seasons like the northern and southern hemispheres do. Also, day lengths are 12 hours at any time of the year. Therefore, the indigenous peoples found it useful to track the movements of the sun and moon to tell them when to plant, when to harvest, and when to expect the rainy period to start and stop. In Ecuador, the solstices are marked with two-week-long festivals that start with parades and usually end with many nights of partying (see this article on Inti Raymi).

Coming soon: A companion post about our visit to the incomparable Galápagos Islands.