Christmas was just around the corner when we embarked on our last stretch through Colombia towards the border in Ipiales. After having finished the regular paperwork Ecuador welcomed us and we headed straight to Ibarra, more precisely to Finca Sommerwind, a beautiful camp site with small guest houses located above lake Yahuarcocha. Kara and Jason (the Everlanders) were waiting for us and when we arrived dinner was ready and we spent the evening at the campfire exchanging stories since we last met.
Finca Sommerwind is a a special place. Hans, the owner, built this place around his German restaurant and it became one of the rare overlander “must-stops” on the Panamericana. While we typically avoid concentrations of overlanders, Finca Sommerwind offered everything we needed for our electrical project. Small and beautiful houses for rent, Ibarra as a small city with all you need in short driving distance, a lot of green for hikes with our doggies and with Hans a super helpful camp host that knows his way around.
Once settled in in our small house we finally unpacked our new electrical equipment that should have reached us already in Panama and the work started. With the great help of Jason (thanks again!!) we ripped out our old batteries, electrical equipment and installations and started preparing the new ones. Not everything worked as planned but with the help of local metal workers we made everything fit and work nicely.
The days passed, with Corina and Rafa more friends arrived and we celebrated Christmas and New Year with lots of Aperol and Prosecco. Most evenings ended with dinner on the terrace of our small house and after almost four weeks of work (including fixing some mechanical issues one Rouletout) we were ready to move with our new state-of-the-art electrical system.
Our next destination was Quito. We passed through famous Otovalo and stopped at the equator. Rouletout made it to the southern hemisphere for the first time. In Quito we found an amazing spot for our home high above the city with views on Cotopaxi that allowed us to explore this beautiful colonial town with its dozens of churches over several days. We enjoyed delicious food, most notably amazing Ceviche, visited some of the many churches in the city center and strolled through the markets. We also had planned to visit Galapagos and started collecting information from the many agencies in town and online.
Baños was next on our list. Nestled between active volcanoes Baños is famous for its hiking and as a gateway to the Amazon basin. We enjoyed our time climbing, visiting hot springs and the many waterfalls with our motorbike but after a few days it was time for our next high altitude destination: San Juan, a climbing area just next to Ecuador’s highest mountain, Chimborazo (6263m ASL) where we also had planned to meet Rosa & Adam again.
Climbing at 3800m above sea level takes its toll but the great basaltic rock and the views made up for the sometimes cool and humid weather. In the evenings local Canelazo (a hot alcoholic beverage made of cinnamon, naranjilla juice, and aguardiente) warmed us up but after a good week of climbing and hiking it was time to move on. Our Galapagos plans were almost fixed and we had to move back north but not without a stop at famous lake Quilotoa, a breathtaking crater lake with a beautiful circular hiking trail.
Finca Sommerwind kindly volunteered to look after our doggies while we were going to Galapagos, so we drove back to Ibarra, prepared Rouletout for the time without us and introduced Mutlu and Posh to Melanie, the girl looking after them. The next morning we woke up at 4 o’clock to take the taxi to Quito airport and begin our journey to the famous Galapagos islands.
A short three hours flight with a stop in Guayaquil brought us to Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on the island of San Cristobal. We hadn’t booked anything for our first night so it took a while to find a decent accommodation but we still had plenty of time to explore the surroundings on foot. Sea lions and all sorts of iguanas lying in the streets, crabs and birds gave a first impression of the wildlife around these remote islands, visited by Charles Darwin in 1835.
One of the best ways to visit the spread out islands is by boat. Berna had spent an incredible amount of time to find boats with decent comfort and an itinerary to our liking. In the end we booked ourselves on two different cruises to get the most out of our time on the islands. While there are few bigger boats, we opted for ones with 16 passengers. There are many boats of that size as this is the limit of passengers per guide and allows everyone to go on land at the same time, yes, there are strict rules on Galapagos to protect nature and the animals.
Our first cruise started on San Cristobal after a short visit to the giant land turtles and first brought us to Española, the small south eastern most island of the archipelago. Initially we were worried that we might get bored on the cruise but we were quickly taught otherwise. One to two snorkelling sessions per day and typically two shore excursions, all with the support of the nature guide, were interspersed with excellent food and short day time journeys with great views and wildlife to the next destination. Long distances were typically travelled at night so that at sunrise we were ready to visit the next highlight. We were surprised about the intensity of the activities and typically fell to sleep early and exhausted, no wonder that some of the older passengers often skipped one or the other excursion :-).
While the team on the first cruise was rather young, the second cruise consisted of “more typical” Galapgos visitors, meaning people of higher age. Our guide said that it was not an exception to loose someone or that passengers die in their cabin and he considered us being the exception and not the ones that need endless reminders and still show up late or with the wrong equipment for an excursion. We found it pretty entertaining, especially during the dinners and even more so when we celebrated Berna’s birthday and our guide performed an impromptu serenade for her.
Time passed quickly and we never regretted our choice of itinerary and boats but soon it was time to fly back to Quito and take the taxi to Ibarra where our doggies were waiting for us.
We finished a few final repairs and improvements, had our clutch fixed that haunted us since Costa Rica (or so we thought at least) and headed south in direction of Cuenca. We visited the beautiful historical town, enjoyed the food and met up with our friends Rosella and Adam before driving up into Cajas national park with its breathtaking scenery. We had some rain but still found enough time to enjoy some hiking in this landscape full of small lakes and paramo vegetation, mostly and more than 4000m ASL.
The road down to the coast was heavily damaged by recent rains, so it took quite a bit longer than planned. The last stretch along the coast brought us to the border with Peru but as always, more on that in our next blog entry.
Thank you Ecuador for the amazing time and thank you to all our friends that helped us getting our new electrical equipment to Ibarra and for all the help installing it. Rouletout is now ready for even more adventures…