Before we leave just a quick picture blog about our adventures in Ecuador. It already seems so long ago….
The black marker line indicates how we traveled clockwise through Ecuador. From Bahia on the far left (circle) to Quito then on to Banos. In Banos we took the bus to Lago Agrio to do our trip in the Amazone. From their back to Banos, then Alausi, Cuenca (where we felt the earthquake), then to Guayaquil, Manta en by taxi back to Bahia.
After leaving Quito (without Stefan’s IPhone) we went to Banos.
The market in Otavalo, just outside Quito. She only agreed to have her picture taken because I bought a scarve. This is a typical Ecuadorian outfit, white blouse with embroiderie, gold necklaces, colored bracelet, long wool skirt and scarve draped around the shoulders.Eating 2$ lunch in the mercado at Ottavalo.We did a mountainbike ride in Banos, the easy way. It was all downhill and we came back in the back of a truck with our bicycles šLots of waterfalls around Banos.Coming back from school….On our way to the hot water baths we passed this huge cemetary, in a beautiful location, surrounded by mountains. (Stefan says: some crypts have electric lighting inside, see wire)Going for the calories before our camping trip to the Amazone…
The boat in which we traveled in the Amazone. We traveled through the Cuyabeno wildlife reserve.Camping was very basic and good it did not rain the whole time ! I was happy this was only for 3 nights !Stefan together with Barry (Australia) and Raoul (Honduras), our companions on the trip.One of the many monkey species in the Amazone. It is one of the animals you definitely see the most.The Toucan ! You do not see them very often up close but you can hear them a lot. This was the best picture I could take.Lots of turtles that are now being bred in captivity to increase their population.There are many macaws in the Amazone but you can never come very close. This was one living with local indians.
The Capybara, the largest rodent in the world. This is a baby.A sad monkey captivated by an indigenous family. They keep it as a pet.Nobody home, they were probably gone fishing. This is a hut on the side of the river.Typical hut along the Cuyabeno river.Another type of monkey.More bird wildlife but I could not figure out what kind it was…Small village along the Cuyabeno river.Upon our return, we spent half a day in the warm water baths in Banos. It felt great after our camping days in the Amazone !!!Train ride in the Andes, El nariz del diablo.In front of El nariz del diablo…The train ride only lasted one hour each way but the views were beautiful. We did have a lot of fog going but on our return the clouds had lifted somewhat.Finally some blue skies in Cuenca.Ā The Catedral Metropolitana de la Inmaculada ConcepciĆ³n was only finished in 1885.Typical street in Cuenca. Cuenca is a UNESCO world heritage site and lies at an altitude of 2500M.The blue and white domes from the New Cathedral are a landmark for Cuenca. At its inauguration in 1885, the newly constructed Cathedral could accommodate 9,000 out of Cuenca’s 10,000 inhabitants at that time. Today there are about 500.000 people living in Cuenca.Lots of beautiful churches in Cuenca to visit…Church of Santo Domingo.Belgian cafe in Cuenca…In the corner of the square I had a localy brewed beer made by a Belgian from Ghent šIngapirca, just outside Cuenca. These are the largest known Inca ruins in Ecuador.
We found some good restaurants in Cuenca and even tasted a roasted cavia (Cuy in Spanish), it was yummi. After the earthquake we wanted to go as quickly as possible back to our boat since we had no news and Bahia was close to the epicentre of the earthquake. We took the bus to Guyaquil, stayed their for one night and then took a bus to Manta from where we had to take a taxi since there were no buses due to the earthquake. The devastation in Bahia was enormous but we were lucky there had not been a tsunami and thus nothing happened to the boat.
We decided to leave asap to the Galapagos as there was nothing for us left to do in Bahia without internet.
Sunday, April 3rd, La Mitad del mundo. We arrived on the equator around 10.30 AM and hardly any tourist was there. It was cloudy but no rain. Zero degrees latitude is the line designating the Equator and divides the Earth into two equal hemispheres (north and south) as defined by Wikipedia. Gent latitude is 51.0543Ā° N. I never used to care about latitude and longitude but now that we are sailing we have to record the position of the boat in our log book and so when we left Panama I could follow how we were slowly but surely creeping to the zero degrees latitude. I remember we crossed the equator at 4.19 AM (do not remember the day and I have the logbook not at hand)on my shift, the sea was flat as a lake and it was a little foggy, it was an eerie feeling and we were only crossing an imaginary line.
Low clouds over the surrounding mountains.0 latitude was first measured in 1736 on a geodesic mission to the equator. The mission was lead by the French (together with Spanish) who left in May 1735 and arrived in Ecuador in June 1736! They completed the measurements in 1739. They were real adventurers and incredible scientists.The method used to measure the circumference of the earth at the equator is triangulation. Triangulation is a surveying technique in which a region is divided into a series of triangles based on a line of known length so that accurate measurements of distances and directions may be made with trigonometry. If you ever wondered what cosinus and sinus were used for…
After enjoying the different pavillions we enjoyed the performance of some folk dances in traditional clothing.
Traditional folk dancing.
We had fun watching and listening to the Andean tunes.
