Cuenca and Parque Nacional Cajas

The New Cathedral and Main Square

I arrived in Cuenca from Macas by bus. The distance between towns and passing back over the Andes made continuing this direction by bicycle appear quite difficult.

Cuenca

Once in Cuenca, the first thing I did was jump on a tour bus to get familiar with the city. Cuenca from an infrastructure standpoint seems to be one of the nicer cities in Ecuador. The roads and sidewalks are good. Buildings seemed to be well maintained. The architecture seems to be a mix of colonial along with up-to-date standards based buildings. It seems quite safe (although so does most of Ecuador). There is a nice selection of restaurants. The weather is moderately warm and from what I understand very consistent throughout the year.

If I had one word to describe Cuenca, it would be comfortable. Apparently, a number of ex-pats would agree as Cuenca is a top destination for retirees. I can completely understand this. A retiree with limited language skills could move here and lead a comfortable life while spending quite reasonably. I myself could see spending more time here.

Cuenca Main Square

Overlooking Cuenca

New Cathedral at Night

A Local Government Building

 Parque Nacional Cajas

View from Main Hiking Entrance to Parque Nacional Cajas

Cajas is the number 1 recommendation on trip advisor. Even so, I was not convinced I wanted to visit Cajas as I have been to a number of other paramo locations in the upper Andes already. However, I started talking to a few people where I was staying about options for what to do in Cuenca and pretty soon we had a group going to Cajas.

It was easy to get to Cajas; just grab a bus from the bus terminal to Cajas directly or to Guayaquil and get off at the Cajas stop. It is about 1 hour from Cuenca.

Cajas has a number of hiking options ranging from 2 to 3 hour hikes to multi day hikes. We chose a 4 hour hike that took us about 3 hours. The hiking trails sit at about 4,000 meters or 13,000 feet in altitude, so thin air can be an issue.

Puyo to Macas: No Amazon Tour for Me

Rio Pastaza at mid-point between Puyo and Macas from seldom used mini-resort. Rio Pastaza empties into the Amazon.

As I was leaving Baños, the scenery began to change. Baños has a cool dry wind. As I approached Puyo, the wind seemed to gain warmth and moisture. There were a lot more broad-leaf tropical plants. I stayed the night in Puyo. I had intended to reach a small town outside Puyo called Veracruz where there is a nice hosteria, but I was not sure I would arrive before sundown.

No Tour for Me

I had hoped to do a jungle tour. How often am I in the Amazon? I found a place on-line which seemed like a good possibility. It was midway between Puyo and Macas, which was good as I was not sure I could do the entire distance to Macas (130km) in one day. According to the web site, they offered a number of different tours; from caving to jungle tours.

As I rode, I realized it would be very difficult for me to make it the entire distance. The road between Puyo and Macas is all hills. They are small hills with low grade inclines, but hills nonetheless. When I arrived at the midway point, however, I found the place to be somewhat rundown. Apparently, it is too far off the beaten path to get the visitors to keep it well maintained.

There was no one there. I just happened to talk to the grounds keeper on the way to the lodge as he was working at a nearby farm. He showed me to a musty room, swept the room as it was pretty dusty and got me bed clothes. It is pretty weird being the only person in a rundown mini-resort.

The place has a lot of potential. I can see why the owners tried to do what they did. The resort sits at a juncture between two rivers. It has pools that are fed from one of the rivers, so there is constantly fresh water. There are lots of birds. It is surrounded by jungle scenery. I do not think there are any other hotels in the area. There just aren't people here.

Pond with fish. It has a balance rope thing that you can walk across. I think it would be good training for slacklining.

Empty bar area, I presume

River fed pools with some changing rooms.

Rio Pastaza from the resort.

Continuing on to Macas

I continued the next morning on to Macas. I was glad I stayed at the rundown resort as I certainly would have had difficulty making the distance. The part from Rio Pastaza to Macas was the same with low hills, but more of an uphill than downhill. Additionally there were virtually no other places to stay until I got pretty close to Macas.

Once in Macas, I found a cheap, but pretty nice hotel not too far from the bus station. I decided I would check in Macas to see if I could find any jungle tours. I walked around and talked to a few tour operators. It seemed it would be a bigger deal than I thought to get to the jungle areas. Since getting back across the Andes would not be so easy without backtracking, I decided to catch the bus the next day to Cuenca.

I am not certain this was the wisest decision. How often do I get this close to the Amazon? I have to balance that with the thought, "I cannot climb every mountain."

Baños and the Route to the Amazon

Overlooking Baños

Baños is a town that sits in a valley that cuts Andes on an East/West route. The town itself is a nice town catering to tourists; a comfortable town. It has a number of shops, a good selection of restaurants, lots of hotels for a very reasonable price. It sits beneath the Tungurahua volcano, which is active; but unfortunately, has not displayed an eruption since June of 2014. I was hoping to see one, as I have never seen an eruption before.

View of Tungurahua from my hike

 There are a number of things to do in Baños. Some of the other items that are available: hiking, mountain climbing, white water rafting, ziplining, biking and jungle tours.

I hiked from the town to a spot called the Tree House and then back down. This was a pretty difficult hike as it has you going straight up the mountain. I actually think it might have been more difficult to climb down the way I went up as it was pretty steep at times. I very much enjoyed it. The Tree House has a very good view of Tungurahua. I saw smoke, but no lava. I walked/ran down the road from there, which was a pretty long ways. I would guess about 7km to the small commercial area that overlooks Baños. There, I ate at Cafe del Cielo, which I would recommend to anyone going to Baños. I then hiked the rest of the way down from there.

Cow Chilling at the Tree House

This hike took most of the day, but afterwards I was ready to partake in one of the thermal baths that are the namesake for Baños. These baths are fed from waters coming from a mix of the waterfalls coming from the mountain and volcanically heated waters from underground. The baths have a number of different pools with varying degrees of heat from very cold to so hot that it is difficult to get in. I started with the very hot one, but then moved to the middle grade one. At first it felt too cold, since I had started with the very hot one; but after a bit, it felt pretty good.

One of the offerings in Baños is biking through the Avenue of the Waterfalls. The Avenue of the Waterfalls is also the route to Amazon region. Most tourists rent a bike in Baños and then ride to largest waterfall, El Paillon del Diablo, then ride a bus back to Baños. I was heading to the Amazon, so I did the waterfall route. From a biking stand point, it was a very nice ride.

Waterfall with zipline across gorge

Vertical of same waterfall above

When the road goes through tunnels, this is the bike route

Another waterfall

Looking down the valley

Watefall El Paillon del Diablo

Water flowing from El Paillon del Diablo

A view towards the Amazon

Baños was nice. It would not be a reason for me to travel to Ecuador. If I were already here or was planning to visit Ecuador, I might make it one of my stops. I could see myself coming back here some day.

Avenue of the Volcanoes; Cotopaxi and Laguna Quilitoa

At Laguna Quilotoa

The last few days seemed like a chain of events; each leading to another with quite positive results. It started off in a manner that seemed like things were not quite going right. I spent a couple of days in Quito after my visit to the Galapagos taking care of things like laundry. I also spent some time unsuccessfully trying to resolve my failed hard drive situation. I then left southward through an area nicknamed Avenue of the Volcanoes.

Getting out of Quito, just like every other city, sucked. There is a lot of traffic and exhaust. Finally, on the outskirts, I encountered a steep downhill followed by a very long slow upgrade through to Machachi. I felt pretty good from an altitude standpoint, but the muscle around my left hamstring tendon started hurting. I reached Machachi where there were options for staying, but I wanted to continue to a hotel that looked pretty cool, Hotel Papagayo. It was situated between two Volcanoes; Illiniza and Cotopaxi. Before I reached it, my muscle started to really hurt. I ended up walking the last few miles.

Illiniza from the pasture next to Papagayo

Cotopaxi No Show

Hotel Papagayo was a very nice place. It had a nice rustic feel with a nice outdoor dining area. It had farm animals. My room had a wood stove for heating. There were walking paths. It had views of the volcanoes, except Cotopaxi was hidden behind the clouds. It was more expensive than most of the places that I stay, but I felt it was worth it. The next day, I woke to a beautiful view, but Cotopaxi was still hidden by clouds. My leg felt much better, so I decided to continue down the road. I also decided that since I did not get a good view of Cotopaxi, I would make it a point to visit Chimborazo when I was in Riobamba.

Cotopaxi Hiding

Cotopaxi and Chimborazo are two of Ecuador's most famous mountains. Cotopaxi is a classic volcano shaped mountain that reaches a height of 19,347' (5,897 m). Chimborazo is a mountain that reaches 20,564' (6,268 m). Due to the bulge of the earth at the equator, Chimborazo's peak is technically the furthest point from the center of the earth; including Mount Everest.

Continued Leg Pain

On my ride south towards Latacunga, my leg muscle started hurting again. I was questioning whether I would even be able to reach Latacunga even though it was a short ride. Fortunately, I reached a point that had a very long downhill into Latacunga (something like 20 km of nothing but downhill). Clearly, I needed to stay off the bike the following day. So, I decided I would stay in Latacunga and do a day trip to Laguna Quilotoa. I limped into Latacunga. I asked a few people and received some good advice to stay at the Hotel Cotopaxi, which is located at Parque Vincente Leon.

Parque Vincente Leon at night during Christmas season

Upon reaching the park, I met another biker. Dominic was a biker from Manchester, England who had been on the road for 4 years  (that is not a typo). We compared some biker notes. I told him that I was going to be staying in Latacunga for at least a two nights and that I was going to do a day trip to Quilotoa. Dominic was also interested in seeing Quilotoa. We had difficulties communicating via email and via phone calls, but we met up on the bus the next morning.

Quilotoa was Awesome

Had my leg not been hurting, I might not have decided to do the day trip to Quilotoa. It is a two hour drive from Latacunga. I had recently seen a volcanic lake at Laguna Cuicocha. I am happy that my leg hurt, because Quilotoa was so worthwhile.

Quilotoa is a dormant volcano that reaches a peak height of 3,914 m (12,841 ft). The center is a classic crater that contains a lake. Quilotoa presents a number of options. You can hike the outskirts of the volcano. You can do longer three day hiking journey that includes a number of other villages. You can do as we did; hike down to the bottom and back up again. Given the altitude, this is not an easy hike. Many people hike down and hire horses to bring them back to the top.

Quilotoa Left

Quilotoa Right

Quilotoa Lake Level

Quilotoa View of Hike to the Top

On the way back, I was talking with Dominic and Mads (another traveler from Denmark that we met on the trip) about ways of handling my hard drive situation. Dominic told me that his host had a computer repair store and that it might be worth my time to talk to him.

Dominic's Host

The chance meeting with Dominic led me to meet his host Javier Cobo and his wife Rosa. They owned a computer sales and repair shop, Compu Venta, in Latacunga not far from my hotel. Javier and Rosa decided to host cyclists through warm showers after a cyclist stopped at his shop some years ago. Warm showers is a site that helps traveling cyclists find places to stay for cheap or free; and more importantly get a warm shower after a long day of biking. Javier is also a cyclist who does week long journeys.

Javier booted my laptop with a Linux DVD. We were not able to resolve the failed hard drive issue, but we determined that we could create two partitions on my second hard drive: load one with Linux and the other with a temporary version of Windows.  Even though I would not have all of my applications, this would get me back in business. I was pretty happy about this. This would take most of a day to get this done.

Since I would have to wait, I decided I would try to make another trip to Cotopaxi; but the next morning, Cotopaxi was again hidden from view. So instead, I got my laundry done and worked on instructions for the Geek Squad to hopefully be able to create a replacement hard drive from the backup that I left with my sister in Tampa. That left my time pretty free.

Change of Plans

Javier invited me to dinner. At dinner, he showed me pictures from one of his bike trips. He thought it might be a good route for me to take. I was already planning to go to Baños. He suggested that instead of continuing down Avenue of the Volcanoes towards Riobamba, I should head east from Baños toward the Amazon. I could then head south from there to Cuenca.

I really liked this plan, but it had one drawback. I would not get a good look at either Cotopaxi or Chimborazo. Nonetheless, I left Javier's home with the idea that I was going to follow that plan. I would leave the next morning to Baños and continue to the Amazon region.

Cotopaxi Shows Herself

The next morning, I woke up fully planning to leave for Baños. I walked outside and there was Cotopaxi without a single cloud. So instead of going to Javier's store to get my laptop, I went to Cotopaxi and it was amazing.

Cotopaxi comes out of hiding

 It was easy to do. I took a bus to the entrance to Cotopaxi. There I found taxis that wanted to charge the gringo price to take me up ($60). This was a complete gouging, so I decided to walk towards Cotopaxi and look for another ride. A little while after, I found one with a different guide. I paid $15, which was actually still a gouging, but I was not going to argue at that point.

The taxi took us directly up to the base of the mountain. We then hiked upwards to the refuge point. I believe this is where climbers that are going to the summit sleep for the night. They then get up at 1:00 am to hike to the summit. I reached an altitude of 16,000 feet. I felt good doing it. The views from Cotopaxi were amazing. It actually started snowing just as we were heading down the mountain.

Cotopaxi view from the base

Me at just under 16,000 feet

View of Volcano Rumiñahui from Cotopaxi

View Northeast from Cotopaxi

Getting close to the glaciers

The landscape here looks like it is from another planet

Lake that sits in plane between Cotopaxi and Rumiñahui

Everything just seemed to fall in place; including my laptop, which I used to write this using the new Linux partition. What is also amazing is that it was just yesterday that I was on Cotopaxi. Today, I arrived in Baños, which looks like another great destination.

Galapagos Islands - a worthy bucket list destination

Galapagos has been one of those places that I have always wanted to visit since hearing the stories of Charles Darwin. In reality though, I never knew much about it. I only expected that I would see unique species, but I did not know much about the islands other than that.

Galapagos wins. From the history to the diving to the relaxing atmosphere, I very much enjoyed the Galapagos. In my opinion, the best part of the Galapagos, lies underwater. So if you are not a diver or snorkeler, you may not enjoy it as much as I did.

My Fascination with Darwins Finches

After visiting, I realized that I did not know that much about Darwin's theory. I had always assumed he came up with the theory due to seeing the different turtles on the different islands or possibly the iguanas. The concept that Darwin based his theory on was that finches with an obvious similar ancestry developed into separate species based upon the island where they lived.

What I find absolutely fascinating is how Darwin identified this. He observed differences in their beaks and eating behaviors. On the surface, that may not sound like a big deal, but it sure impresses me. This means that he had to have been taking detailed observations of multiple animals as he visited each island. Of these multiple animals that he observed, he had to notice this detailed difference on these finches. To me that shows that he was truly a professional in his profession. I may need to actually read his book, On the Origin of Species.

I assumed these were Darwin's clues to species:

Land Based versus Live-Aboard

When deciding to go to the Galapagos, I kept hearing about the need to do live-aboard cruises as the best way to see the Galapagos. This, however, would require more planning time than I had available. Instead, I simply booked a flight two days before arriving from Quito into San Cristobal and leaving from Baltra to return to Quito eight days later. I did absolutely no planning other than this. I read the guide book on the way over.

On San Cristobal, I stayed two nights. I was able to check the area out. I did some snorkeling which was pretty good in the bay Tijeras (I think) on the path from the Centro de Interpretacion. I saw lots of sea lions. I saw turtles, blue footed boobies, sea iguanas and others. I took the ferry to Santa Cruz where I stayed for the rest of the trip. I did day/dive trips from there.

I am certain that I did not see as many sites as I could have if I had booked a cruise, but I feel I got a pretty good look at some of the islands. This way, I still have a few things to see should I return. Also, I prefer to sleep on solid ground. View from my hotel on Santa Cruz:

Galapagos is Super Chill

If you have blood pressure problems, I recommend you stay in the Galapagos for month. I arrived feeling pretty relaxed only to find that I was able to get more relaxed.

Galapagos diving is some of the best that I have done

I did one two tank dive trip. On this dive, I saw schools of hammerheads and manta rays. I saw white tipped reef and galapagos sharks. I saw giant sea turtles, sea lions, a marble ray, a green eel and lots of fish. This is the most big wild life that I have seen on any one dive so far.

I snorkeled in multiple locations. I snorkeled where blue footed boobies and brown pelicans were diving for food.

I snorkeled with sea lions. They were playful, but I did not get too close as they say the number one injury in the Galapagos are due to encounters with sea lions. Note: some sea lions were playful, while some were very territorial. This guy was territorial:

I snorkeled with penguins and giant sea turtles on Floreana Island.

I saw baby hammerheads, white tip and black tip reef sharks.

Dolphins often traveled with us on the day trips.

Galapagos can be done cheaply and easily

For me, I spent $330 flight from Quito, $20 per night for hotels for $160. My hotel in San Cristobal was so/so. My hotel on Santa Cruz was pretty good (Estrella del Mar). $330 for dive/day tours. A total of $820 without meals. Food was not too expensive, although certainly more expensive than on the main land in Ecuador. So, if you are trying to do Galapagos on a budget, it definitely can be done.

Next time, I will likely do a cruise so that I can visit the remote islands of Darwin and Wolf, which are supposed to be some of the best dive locations in the world.


Pics from San Cristobal:

Pics from Santa Cruz:

Pics from Floreana: