Riding the Rolling Green Hills of the Ecuador Highlands

We left Quito by Taxis Lagos for Otavalo - a far better option than having to take a taxi to the northern bus station and then a bus because it provides door to door service for the very reasonable fee of $8 per passenger plus $2 a bag, particuarly since I am only 5 days out of a hip operation.

Mountains near Quito

But it is still no panacea. It turned up a bit late and proceeded to drive all over Quito's gridlock picking up passengers until there was no room to move. Overshadowing us everywhere we drove were the tall green hills of the tropical Andes.

Quito ascending to the green hills

The Andes in Ecuador are perched right on the equator, so what can appear as just rolling green hills can be very high mountains and the road crossing valleys can snake around on a simply vast scale. For example a couple of hills near Otavalo, where we are now staying are nearly 5,000 m high or over 16,000 feet.

A view of the hills above Quito as we left for Otavalo

When we finally got going we cut off at a wild pace trying to overtake everything in sight, which is difficult on the Pan-American because it is full of heavily-laden fuel tankers. Actually the driver was careful although impatient The strata - hills, valleys and table lands are on imply huge scale you can only appreciate by seeing them.

In this season some of the views are absolutely verdant.

The route turned off the Pan-American to a short-cut by Lago San Pablo.

Even the huge volcanoes further south in Ecuador, such as recently erupting 16,000 foot Tungurahua or throat of fire are shaded with tropical green, although in some seasons they may become snow capped.

Banos, which we missed, because of my operation for the broken hip, is nestled between green hills below the throat of fire. The eruption has scared off most of the tourists, so the tourist trade is currently struggling to stay alive, according to a girl we met in Otavalo, because the tourists have been frightened by the news reports even though the volcano has died down again, just as led to the Banos 'rebellion' in the compulsory evacuation of 1999 (see earlier blog) when they led tourists back despite warnings from vulcanologists. Certainly the backpacker we booked with was absolutely insistent all was fine in Banos although the mountain was rumbling above.

Dec 2010 Tungurahua has just re-erupted. When we were there it had been erupting but had settled down somewhat in the week before we arrived.

Tungurahua re-erupting from the high country, with Banos glowing below.
Banos is one of the towns being evacuated. In 1999, its 15,000 inhabitants
were forced to evacuate when the Tungurahua had its last major eruption.
Residents were not able to return to their homes for a year.

We had planned to make a loop from Quito over the Andes to Tena and then south to Puyo ( both small muddy Amazonian towns with some nature walks and river views) before heading west to Banos and back up to Quito in the highlands via Ambato. Here are a few images of these places from the internet, so you can see the contrasts.

Views of the mountains on the road over to Tena

The Amazon basin near Tena

A view of the throat of fire from near Puyo

Banos church

Banos does have a variety of tourist diversions, from the quaint thermal mineral baths to nature and mountain walks and the volcano itself.

We are let out of our shared taxi at Otavalo

Finally we are released from our confinement in Otavalo where we have had a delightful stay to recuperate which will be the subject of the next blog.


Here is the green mountain looking over Otavalo from the rooftop of our Hostel.

Riding High at the Colombia Ecuador Border

Tulcan with the Florida Hostel

We are in Tulcan at 3000 m, or 9750 ft, perched 6 km off the Colombian border. This is the first evening we have had to have all our cold weather gears on from long johns to padded jackets, because we are holed up in the ground floor Hostel Florida for $12 a night for the two of us and its really pretty chilly in here. Of course there is no wi-fi so we are out of contact.

Yesterday we nearly traded our flight from Cali for one from Quito to avoid the hazards of land travel over Colombia with a broken hip, however, after vacant seat appearing and disappearing and reappearing again on their web site we got a very unsatisfactory response in which they wanted an effective $500 US penalty over the increased fare, for expanding the flight and then promptly hung up on us.

We then went to the pharmacy and got additional Celebrex which seems to be helping Christine's somewhat clotted varicose veins and packed up to set off for Tulcan a 3 hour bus ride from Otavalo.

Denis the proprietor of the Vincon del Riajero drove us out to the edge of Otavalo, where the Pan-American passes through. There is a small bus stop there where the frequent buses passing through stop if you hail them. After missing the first bus for Tulcan we caught the second and I nearly stuffed up my leg trying to climb in using the hand rails rather than my crutches because the bus started to take off as soon as I was in the first step. I had to quickly bend my knee to take off the uncomfortable feeling that the barely setting break was under strain. The bus was absolutely crowded and on man kindly offered me a seat and eventually Christine and I managed to squeeze into a front seat with almost no view with me nursing my slightly strained hip. Things continued this was for three hours stopping anywhere to pick up or drop off passengers. When we arrived I sent Christine out first to grab the bags and waited for everyone to get off before very carefully descending the curling bus steps using my crutches.

The one great advantage of this arrangement was that it completely eliminated having to change buses at the Ibarra bus station which is the only option if you take a bus from Otavalo bus station or Taxis Lagos from your hostel.


The road took off into the highlands slowly climbing through rolling country and entering an ascending valley which took us up and up finally arriving at Tulcan as a kind of ribbon development as the highway arrives at the border. We had then to take a taxi from the bus station on the outskirts into the centre of town.


Tulcan is a pleasant enough border town although not what you would call a tourist hot spot. Described by the Florida desk clerk as tranquillo it seems like Otavalo to be a safe and friendly regional town at least in the centre.

The Old World Pleasures of Otavalo

Otavalo is a town famous, both for its weaving and other crafts, and for the variety of Andean Native American peoples for which the town is a local centre.


These peoples have fared far better than many other ethnic groups in Ecuador combining their skills with a sense of cultural affirmation so that they are supposed to be one of the most well appointed ethnic communities in Ecuador.


This cultural strength according to Denis the proprietor of the Rincon del Viajero where wee have been staying also say this results in Otavalo being one of the safest places in Ecuador, not least because anyone who rips off or injures one of the tribal people is likely to find themselves facing a code of silent vigilante justice in which they may simply be eliminated.



Most of the women and many of the men pride themselves in wearing clothing signifying their tribal identity. Thus you can see in the town women wearing a variety of 'national dress' a few with top hats, others with black towel scarves or bright blue ones. They also wear white blouses embroidered with flowers , a woven hair ribbon and a skirt belt.


Otavlo is famous for its Saturday craft market but the town is much quieter and more pleasant on the days just after the market has been finished. By late mid week the hostels rapidly fill up with gringos waiting for Saturday's event. But there is a 'poncho market' selling all the variety of tourist crafts every day of the week, and strangely among the bizarre variety of wrist bands, ponchos, Panama hats blankets and jewelry, none of the stalls have any of the raditional belts or hair ties and really only cheap junk for the gringo tourists to buy to say they got it in Otavalo.


Otavalo gave me my first chance to get out of the hotel and have some exercise and to try to get my pinned hip working and the blood flowing. I discovered on the internet that although it looks like a solid engineering reconstruction of the thight joint screwed right through into the ball joint, actually it is a sliding construction that is designed to impact the two bone faces together in parallel when you walk on it with about 25% of your body weight. This ensures bones are able and encouraged to actually knit together again through the forces and electric feilds generated by light walking in crutches.


The first day I managed to very slowly do a 15 block tour of the town taking asome photos and watching the people, but it was excruciatingly slow for Christine. I have mastered the angels to heaven devils to hell rule about stairs (good foot first going up bad first going down with the crutches on the lower step at each stage).


The second day we changed my dressings (none of the pharmacias had any useful dressing not even packets of band aids). By the third day I suddenly learned a new way f walking which is 1-2 good-(bad+crutches) rather than the unstable 1 3 2 walking putting the crutches down before the bad foot. Suddenly I am able to walk nearly as fast as Christine. There is a supermarket called Aki a few blocks further out from the Rincon but its not a regular supermarket and most people seem to shop at the traditional government run fruit and grocery market called Commisariat or Copacabana. This means that many normal supermarket items are completely unavailable in Otavalo.


The third day we finally tried to go out and get some form of good quality traditional textile for Christine's collection. We had seen a woven skirt belt for $85 in a shop bu t there seemed to be nothing at all in the poncho market.


Eventually we saw a fine skirt band poling out from one of the women sellers skirts as she sat and asked her where we could find them. There than ensued a long tortuous bargaining session in which she gradually came down from $100 gradually to $60 but then after we had hobbled back to the hostel turned out to be $70. We nearly gave up but we could be leaving the next day so we decided to get it so we at least had something.


Then they made us wait 10 minutes while they went to get a coloured woven hair tie but we insisted in the blue shaded belt and finally departed on good terms taking a photo of her and her esposo together. She rally liked her belt and it matched her blue embroidered blouse so even if it was overpriced it is a kind of treasure and the only thing we have bought.

Closing the Circles

The Chile-Argentine Circuit

The last ten days have been spent closing the circles by making internet bookings for transport and accommodation favouring chic budget backpackers who have good internet access. In the first loop around the lakes district of Chile and Argentina, we fly Sky Airlines from Santiago and plan staying at Casa Margouya in Puerto Varas, advanced booking on Andesmar to Villa la Angostura where we have beds at Hostel la Angostura, and Puma Youth Hostal in San Martin de los Andes, where we hope to take either the Tromen or the Hua Hum Pass back to Chile, hopefully reaching the Tree House in Pucon before returning north via a flight back from Temuco. San Martin has a very complete multi-lingual site with all these passes.

Green Accommodation

We have also booked for accommodation in the cities we fly into at night, Hostal Forestal in Santiago, the chic artistic Hostal Casa Verde Limon in Valparaiso, l’Auberge-Inn in Quito and the quaintly traditional Hospedaje Casco Viejo in Panama City.

The Ecuador-Colombia Circuit

After this we decided to explore bookings in the Ecuador-Colombia circuit because we have it to make through to Cali to catch the COPA linking flight to Panama and found some racy backpackers with internet or e-mail reservation and booked Hostal Transilvania in Banos, Hostal Rincon del Viajero in Otavalo, HostelTrail in Popayan and are waiting for e-mail replies from A Welcome Break in Tena and Hotel San Sebastian in Pasto.

Please also note that the old main bus terminal in central Quito has been replaced by two new ones on the outskirts, one serving north to the border with Colombia and the other south and most other areas, including Amazonas. We found it very difficult to find bus schedules and companies going the north route to Tena until we found this site, listing the bus company contacts and departure times for Quito-Tena via Baeza. Note that by October 2010 the old Mariscal Sucre airport will be replaced by a new one ten times the size 18 kms out.

The new Quito terminals (blue and red) and the abandoned central terminal (gray)
with local bus/trole links, showing Mariscal Sucre airport mid right.

We also clinched a few key bookings for a Budget rental car at midnight in SF airport, to add to those we have on arrival in Dublin, Rome and Avis Amman because they have an office at the Allenby Bridge. We also booked some further afield accommodation close to times we have to make a plane or ferry connection - Chicago Getaway Hostel, Camping Tiber in Rome, Solfataria in a geothermal field near Naples and several gypsy stops en route to a night at Carpe Diem in Brindisi before we catch the ferry to Corfu. There we have a choice of Dionysus Camping on Corfu and Elena and Kalami Beach at Igoumenitsa, depending on where the ferry stops first in the evening, and on via Delphi (Apollon) and Athens (Camping Athens or Hostel Aphrodite) to Crete.


We also did a rather ingenious thing using Google Earth, prompted by a neat camper van free camping web site called Green Archipelago - Arcipelago Verde - which had a Google Earth file showing the locations of free parks across Italy and neighbouring countries. This led to our own aerial search using street view for discrete free camping hideaways where we could park the car and put up a small tent on small side roads adjacent to wilderness areas while driving across Italy.

Now all we have to do is gather our medicines, international drivers licences, and some foreign currencies and pack! No just kidding there is heaps to do!