Ecuador – Part 1 | Quito & Around

Part 1: Quito & Around

Ecuador, a country in the north-western part of South America between Colombia and Peru, is slightly smaller than Germany however it inhabits more species of animals than Europe and the United States combined due to its biodiversity. Reason enough for a nature-lover to visit.

Being part of the northern zone of the Andean Volcanic Belt, Ecuador is split right in in the middle creating roughly three different types of landscapes. The western coastal plains “Costa”, the mountains of the low and high sierra in the middle and the “Oriente” in the east which is covered by huge rain forests of the Amazon basin. It’s biggest attraction however is the Galápagos Islands roughly 2000 km west of the mainland.

From Germany it’s best to take a flight to the capital of Quito which lies within the Andes on 2850 m. Also a good place to get used to the altitude for later hikes at some of the volcanoes. The flights from Germany start in Frankfurt with a stopover in Madrid and take roughly 15h. We booked a hostel in advance (Blue Door Housing Quito) for roughly 26 USD per night. After arrival the owner César was very kind and helpful and started explaining all the sights in Quito and the surrounding Sierra the next day. Unfortunately our baggage was lost when stopping in Madrid. Foolishly i was only carrying a t-shirt and a rain jacket which is not enough to go to the mountains so we started to look around in Quito first.

The city is quiet beautiful with it’s colonial architecture and steep hills. It stretches out over 35 km from north to south in between the mountain range. On our first walk in the city we found the “traditional” breakfast you get on the streets something to get used to. The juices are incredible though. On every corner you can listen to merchant ladys offering everything from razor blades, fruits, cookies, lottery tickets and even shoe soles. Everything for “un dolaaar” which is offered in a funny singsong.

Cerro Guagua Pichincha

After a few unsuccessful attempts to claim our lost baggage online (with Iberia) it took an hour in the waiting line to claim our baggage which was supposed to be delivered to us within the next 72h. Afterwards we spoke to César about our plans going for some hikes. He was so kind to borrow myself a jacket so we could take the city’s teleférico (8$) which leads up to Quito’s volcano Cerro Guagua Pichincha which offers some great views over the city.

During the wait at the mountain railway we met Sarah from Switzerland. We spoke about our travels and also about Ecuador’s volcanoes and she mentioned that there’s an extremely active one called Reventador also known as “the burster”. Located east of Quito and only a 3,5 h drive away there was no doubt to go there together some time on this trip.

We hung around in Quito the next day renting a small car. The prices are rather high. For a super small car you’ll have to pay at least 35$ per day. Finally we got our luggage back in the evening. Before checking out the mighty Reventador we decided to check out the bird paradise Mindo in the cloud forest 2h north east of Quito.