The Trip

I figure I'd better start with an overview of our recent Ecuador-plus-Galapagos trip. As I get around to it, I'll write more detailed blog entries on various places we went and things we saw. Our college student travel companions had to turn in journals and photographs as part of their grade -- I think of this blog as a kind of after-the-fact journal for Tom and me.

First of all, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to our friend Dr. Douglas Rayner for inviting us to go! Doug is a professor in the Biology Department of Wofford College in Spartanburg, and this was an interim course he taught for twelve lucky students. Doug and Sociology Prof Dr. Gerald Thurmond led the trip, and Tom and I were fortunate enough to be the extra adults who went along to fill out the group.

We spent our first week high in the Andes of Ecuador after arriving in Quito on the evening of January 13, 2010. Our itinerary crammed an amazing number of activities into a small stretch of time! The adventure began on the 14th when we boarded our bus with guide Santiago and driver Ivan, and headed for the town of Otavalo. Even the bathroom pit-stops were exciting, as the stunning scenery of picturesque towns and farmland, and volcano after volcano unfolded around us. In the next few days, we shopped for handicrafts at the Otavalo market, spent an afternoon and night with an indigenous family, rode horses to a village in the hills, and spent a day and a half exploring the pristine cloud forest on the wet western slope of the Andes. After getting thoroughly sore from hiking up and down the steep slopes, we crossed over the valley to the eastern range and soaked our tired limbs in the hotsprings of the cushy resort at Papallacta. Then came a beautiful drive south through the Avenue of the Volcanoes to our next resting place at La Cienega, a 400 year old Hacienda-turned-hotel. From La Cienega it was a short drive to the amazing Parque Nacional Cotopaxi, where we hiked around glacial Laguna de Limpiopungo, and then climbed to the Cotopaxi base camp at 15,000 ft. Our last day in Quito was a free day, and Tom and I used it to visit our old friend Leonardo at his beautiful family farm just outside the town of Pifo.



The next chapter of our trip took us to the Galapagos Islands where we experienced the dream-come-true of any naturalist, an eight-day cruise on our own chartered boat, the Amigo I. We snorkeled almost every day, and visited the islands of Bartolome, Santiago, Sombrero Chino, Santa Cruz, Floreana, Espanola, San Cristobal, and Seymour North. After a morning flight back from the airport in Baltra, we spent our last afternoon in Ecuador visiting the old historic district of Quito before our mid-night flight back home to Charlotte. It was an amazing journey!