Across Ecuador

From Piura, Perú, we drove into Ecuador:

Cuenca was our first stop in Ecuador. It was build in the mid 1500’s by the Spanish invaders, and it is packed full of churches. They say that it has one church for every Sunday of the year. The cathedral in Plaza de Armas is incredible big – one may suspect the availability of cheap labor – while many other churches called our attention by their simplicity and bright colors. 

The local archeological museum was a complete disappointment, showing a great collection of artefacts but without proper order or explanations. Just a waist of time.

We went once again to the Cajas National Park. An older post called “Down from Riobamba”, from 4 March 2012, includes a description of the park and good pictures that we took in our previous trip through Ecuador.

Ecuador is divided along three east-west main areas: the western Pacific coast, the highlands, and the east lowlands, called ‘El Oriente’. One way to go from the mountain area to El Oriente is to take route 46 from Guamote to Macas, crossing the Sangay National Park.

A common landscape along the highlands

Climbing across the clouds

Within the park there are two active and one inactive volcanoes, being the main atraction for tourism. There were many tourists visiting the area just to take a look at the volcanoes, however, with our luck, the sky was overcast and rainy so the volcanoes were out of sight. 

At the park the altitude is about 11500 feet, with many high altitude lagoons, and the mountains are covered with low shrubs proper of the cold wheather. The odd landscape makes it a unique place to visit. 

A view of Sangay National Park

Some lagoons at the park

Laguna Negra

The second aspect of the trip was the abrupt change in the landscape once we started our descend on the oriental side of the mountains. Being part of the Amazon Basin the vegetation is completely different than on the western side. Now the mountains were covered with a jungle of the most diverse tall trees, each fighting to get some sun, with noisy rivers running down the mountains and an occasional cascade feeding the torrents.

The eastward slope of the National Park, going down to the Amazon Basin

The fantastic Pastazas River

After an overnight stop in Macas we continued northbound towards Ambato, back in the highlands. The road is littered with small towns growing all sort of tropical stuff, showing not only a change in the landscape but also a change in the local population. Let’s remember that Ecuador is home to a large variety of indigenous people, and each place is unique as much for their dresses, colors, and hats, as for their languages and customs.

Finally we continued passing Ambato and Quito arriving to Ibarra late at night. Here we made a long stop to wash the car and fix a problem with the engine starter. Our next step will be to cross into Colombia by the Tulcan/Ipiales border pass.