Ecuador – Feb 2010

A curious sea lion I saw while diving

Slightly bigger than the UK yet more diversity than you can shake a stick at! 

I was in my element in Ecuador. Diving in the Galapagos, midnight climbing to Volcano summits, staying in hippy Eco Lodges, soaking in hot thermal pools – Ecuador really has it all as far as I´m concerned. 

Quito, 2880 metres 

If you ask me altitude has two effects; the first is the sheer inability to climb any form of staircase, even for incredibly short periods. So much so that you´re embarissingly overtaken by a local man in his 80s carrying 30kg of potatoes on his back. The second is the increased propensity for flatulence. I have never farted so much in my life. Locals say it´s cleansing, pharmacists say it´s the effect of changes to your digestive system. I don´t really care – all I know is you have to be very very careful. 

Quito is a nice place to spend a couple of days. I stayed in the Old city, a place of nice looking plazas lined with colonial buildings. One of these was the presidential palace and I decided to pop in. When I say pop in, that´s quite literally what I did. I went to the front gate, asked the armed guard if I could see the Presidential Palace (I actually asked him if I could see the President by accident, apparently) and he pointed me to the entrance. I walked through the main gate, offered my bag for scanning and the second guard pointed  me in the direction of the scanning machine. I walked through, setting the thing off like a bloody fire alarm but the guard was too busy chatting up some Senoritas and waved me through. I was then at my liberty to walk to the President´s office pretty much (where there was a third guard) and have a look around the place. If you were James Bond and you needed for whatever reason to attack the President of Ecuador, you would only have to immobilise (or otherwise) 3 people. Imagine that at Downing Street! 

Galapagos Islands 

If God created a place of beauty, then this is it. I´ve never in my life fallen in love with a place so quickly in my life. I spent my first 8 days on a cruise around the central and southern islands (Santa Cruz, Santa Fe, Espaniola, Floreana, Santiago, Rubben, Bartolome and North Seymour). The wildlife is sublime. You simply can´t get away from it an it feels as if it genuinely doesn´t want to get away from you! I spent hours taking photos using my SLR with full zoom, only to realise by day two that I simply didn´t need it. You can get that close to the sea lions, land and marine iguanas, finches, turtles etc. that it was embarrassing. 

Seal pup looking to mum

The days would pass in a similar fashion: 

- Get up around 6 (the average age on my boat was around 65 so they were all early risers!), have brekkie and watch the sunrise from the boat. 

- We´d then have a morning trip to one of the islands to see the indigenous flora and fauna there. I would then go for a snorkel while the seniors had a nap.. 

A Galapgos Land Iguana

- Lunch would be followed by another boat landing to another island followed by more snorkelling. 

- Final boat landing and snorkelling session followed by dinner. We would then cruise overnight to another island chain. 

The snorkelling was ridiculous. I never in my life thought I´d say I´d be bored of seeing Pacific green turtles but after the 6th one on my very first snorkel I genuinely thought it couldn´t get better, but it did! Schools of white tip sharks, black tips, thousands of yellow tail surgeon fish, moray eels, penguins(tiny little beggars!), schools of eagle and sting rays, not to mention lots of playful sea lions accompanied pretty much every snorkel session. I couldn´t stay out of the water! 

Galapagos penguins swimming in formation!

►

Some of my favourite pictures! 

A swallowtail gull about to take flight

A little cute stowaway I found on deck in the morning. The little fellow was too tired to fly overnight so hitched a ride with us!

Swallowtail gull with dramatic surf in background

Marine iguana eyeing up some lunch

A beautiful pink flamingo resting

A giant Galapagos tortoise in the wild on Santa Cruz island

Volcan Cotopaxi 

Now I love climbing stuff like the next man but this was a bloody joke. You had to get up at 12am, have some brekkie at 4800m and then kit up (three layers, ice axe, crampons, harness, rope and bud the duck) before heading off after 1am. 

Mike in his climbing gear ready to hit the glacier!

 My climbing partner Conor, the guide Jaime and bud the duck climbed steadily for a few hours before hitting the glacier that marks 5000m. We were then roped together and had to endure another 5 hours of climbing by torchlight. Half way through we had to cross a series of crevasses (narrow ledges with drops of several hundred feet either side!). One particular hairy one (see below) involved tip toeing across a narrow ice ledge which shrinks later in the day, hence the early morning ascent.. 

The Crevasse of Doom..

The altitude got to me a fair amount and I felt pretty sick. About an hour from the top I asked the guide for a break and some motivation. He turns around and says ‘Mike, you’re healthy, you no have altitude sickness and you’re happy, no worry’. At this point I informed him that I’d been feeling the effects of altitude sickness for the past hour and a half, I felt like I was going to pass out and I was pretty fed up. To his credit he turned to me, smiled and said ‘ excellent, we keep climbing’ and that was that.. The last section was an hour’s worth of scrambling on a 70 degree incline (seriously steep!) 

Steep ascent! Jaime the guide and me.

But it was worth every step as we hit the summit around half 8 and were surrounded by one of the most incredible views I’ve ever witnessed. During our ten minutes on the summit we saw a huge eruption of a neighbouring volcano. The plume reached the lower atmosphere. 

Volcano erupting in Banos, some 100mi away!

Another view from the summit! 

Conor and me at the top woohoo!

Conor, my travelling mate, Bud the duck and me take a break on the summit. Bloody shattered! 

View from the top!

6 and a half hours up and it only took us an hour and forty minutes to get down! 

Luckily the night after we were staying in a beautiful eco lodge in the middle of nowhere with a cracking view of the volcano. 

Volcan Cotopaxi

No electricity at the lodge so dinner by candlelight! Nothing but good food, a few beers and lots of hammock time. No wonder we stayed for a few days! 

Waiting for dinner at the Secret Garden eco lodge, Cotopaxi

The Quilotoa Loop 

  

Banos 

The people of Banos love their volcanoes. In fact they´ve got an active one right on their doorstep which periodically erupts. However I love the way one tour operator is so seismologically in touch, he guarantees nightly eruptions haha 

 

In Banos Conor and I decided to hire a quad bike and see some waterfalls. All sounds pretty simple and fun in principle. However, out quad bike guy forgot to tell us about the gorge separating us and the waterfalls. Anyhow the ingenious people of Banos have come up with a fine solution; a home made cable car system powered by old lorry engines. 

Note what looks like a well established cable car system below: 

 

Then note the sorry excuse for a cable car.. 

  

and the lorry that literally pulls you up. In fact the chap hits reverse gear to bring you back! 

 

  

Otavallo 

Stayed in Quito for a night and then headed to the Otavallo region, famed for its twice weekly indigenous market. Bought a cool hat (at least I think so!) and a blanket that you wear with a hood – bit like a poncho. Figured I would look like an idiot but at least be warm when I head south to Patagonia! 

The new hat!

Also did a spot of horseriding to some extinct volcano lakes. The horse and me got on like a house on fire although he did fart a fair amount.