We took a whale watching excursion, and we're still not sure why but we wound up on top of the motor cruiser spotting the whales for everyone else below; we had the best position possible on the boat.  Within 20 minutes we saw our first whales - three Humboldt Whales, which surfaced and dived lazily for about half an hour.  For the next hour or so we moved steadily out to sea, but although we saw whales blowing and broaching on the horizon, we never quite managed to catch them up.  So I was feeling just a tad disappointed as we turned back towards Puerto Lopez.  However, when no more than a mile or so from the coast, three other whales appeared and for half an hour we were treated to a wonderful display of broaches, splashes and fins waving about as the whales turned in the water and generally played about.  It was awesome, considering that they were about twice the size of our motor cruiser!

From Puerto Lopez we travelled via Xipixapa and Portoviejo to Santo Domingo de los Colorados, which we had been told was lovely.  The countryside was incredibly flat and very fertile, which led me to believe that it had, at some time in the past, been a lake of some sort.  However, on arrival in Santo Domingo we saw nothing to excite us, and left the next morning for Quito, the bus steadily climbing the western face of the Andes.  Our first view of Quito, from a col between two hills, was stunning.  The break between city and country was as sharp as a knife; here, closely packed building; there a green expanse of hillside.

The old city was extremely interesting, with its several churches.  I attended Mass in the Iglesia del Compañia de Jesus, the Jesuit church which allegedly has over seven tons of gold on its walls.  The whole interior glowed with a subdued, golden light, yet there was a sense of tranquility and spirituality which I'd found lacking in the basilica at Santiago de Compostela.  We also visited the churches of Santo Domingo and San Francisco, each in its own way very beautiful, still stuffed full with gold.

One of the main reasons we'd come to Quito was that I wanted to go to a textile exhibition at the university, for which I had seen a poster in Cuenca.  It was entitled Abya Yala Awaykuna or Textiles of America, and showed woven textiles from both Central and South America.  These were mostly woven, but there were some lovely ikats from Guatamala and southern Ecuador, together with examples of the traditional dress of a number of Ecuadorian ethnic groups.  I also met the lady from Riobamba who had curated the exhibition and who worked with indigenous groups from the Riobamba area, keeping the crafts alive.  It was superb. Andy said it was OK, but he would rather see some sort of engineering or science museum, if they had one.

From there we went to Mitad del Mundo, the museum on the equator.  However, we first went to the little museum next door, the Museo de Sitio Intiñan, which was much better than Mitad del Mundo itself.   It was an outdoor museum, and we joined with an Ecuadorian group: by this time our Spanish is good enough to understand most of what is said, although our active vocabularies are somewhat limited.  He showed us the various artefacts which show the effects the Equator has on different objects - all good fun. The guide demonstrated the Coriolis force affecting the way water goes down the plughole only a couple of metres each side of the line,  Andy spotted how he did the trick straight away, but it was still good fun to watch people believing the trick was real. The museum also showed a variety of indigenous homes, and we were shown how blowpipes were used.  Andy had a go and was accurate enough to hit the target twice.  The Shaman is the village medicine man, and practices not only divination but also healing.  All in all, a good couple of hours fun.

Mitad del Mundo itself was something of a letdown after Intiñan; one had to pay to enter the complex itself, and then pay again to get into the museum.  This showed the traditional dress and artefacts of the indigenous groups which make up the population of Ecuador and was most interesting, especially as I finally got to photograph the production of ikat.

We got vaguely lost on the way back to our hotel in the old city of Quito, not realising that one of the trolleybuses simply went in a loop until we saw the same building for the second time!  We then collared a local policeman who pointed us in the right direction.

From Quito we travelled by bus to the city of Otavalo, some two hours away and down the eastern flank of the Andes.  The road first went through some very arid landscapes, with deep canyons cut into the volcanic dust of the valley floors, before coming into a more gently undulating, greener scenery as we approached Otavalo.  This city is regarded as the craft centre of Ecuador, and its Mercado Artesanal is the best in the country. The women of Otavalo wear a most beautiful costume; a dark, ankle-length skirt girded around the waist with a woven cintra or belt and a white or light-coloured blouse, richly embroidered around the neck and with short sleeves with deep lace edges.  They also wear many-stranded necklaces of beads.  Even the school uniforms of the little girls follows the same pattern.  Both men and women wear their hair long and plaited down the back, the plaits of the women bound with narrower woven bands.

Needless to say, we had a buying frenzy!  I was particularly interested in the embroidered and woven items - see the Textile page on the website - whilst Andy was more interested in buying gifts for his family that he could get back through customs.  The bows and arrows, knifes, blowpipes and axes looked nice but he didn't think all the members of his family would appreciate them.  There were also rugs, wallhangings, cushion covers, bags galore, jewellery, ceramics, tablelinen, shirts, blouses, trousers and scarves.  The variety of colours and textures was incredible.

Wanting a rest from all this, we took a stroll to the Cascada de Peguche, some 30 minutes walk from the centre of Otavalo.  The path took us first through the village of Peguche, the site of a workshop of some sort in years past, then into the market square.  Sadly, although a lot of money had been spent on this square, it was empty, and we both wondered whether a little more advertising would attract more people there.  However, with the wide variety of goods on offer in Otavalo itself, it seemed to me to be an enterprise doomed from the start.  There was a small information centre just off the square, from where a path wound through a grove of eucalyptus and other trees to the waterfall itself.  It was interesting to note that two leats conducted water from above the falls down towards the village.  One was for drinking water, the other had powered a mill in the past, but we couldn't work out what sort of mill.  It was a very peaceful location, and the walk refreshed us.

From Otavalo we made our way to Latacunga, south of Quito, as we wanted to see the crater lake at Quilatoa.  The journey from Latacunga to Quilatoa went through some spectacular countryside, at times reminding Andy of the Yorkshire Dales.  Even at the elevation of 4000 metres, there were little farms, the hillsides intensively cultivated, the farmsteads tiny, thatched houses, with the roofs almost touching the ground.  At the village of Tigua we stopped to look at the paintings done by the people of this village.  These are done with acrylic paints on sheepskin and are delightfully naïve in quality.  They depict scenes from everyday life, like the one I bought, as well as Ecuadorian legends, such as The Condor who Fell in Love.  Andy bought an illustrated book about this legend, which is in Kichwa, Spanish and English.  

Just before Quilatoa we went through an area where volcanic dust had evidently filled the valley in the past.  The valley floor was absolutely level, but deep gorges had been cut into the floor - a fascinating landscape.  Even this, though, did not prepare us for the magnificent view of the Laguna Quilatoa, a thousand feet below the crater rim.  The water was a deep green in colour, and we slowly made our way down the dusty track to the lake itself.  From a viewpoint above the lake, I saw what looked like gas bubbles breaking the surface, so we went to have a look at these before spending some time marvelling at the scenery.

The walk back to the top took about an hour, as opposed to the twenty minutes down, but it gave me time to look at the rocks - at least that was my excuse for stopping every now and then.  Although we chose to walk, other people took rides on the mules which the locals proffered as transport.  One little boy was hanging on to the tail of the mule he was accompanying back to the rim.  We've noticed that the children here all seem to have jobs within the family, and three were having a merry old time collecting dry twigs.

From Latacunga, we decided to try and make it all the way back to La Libertad in one day.  We managed by taking buses from Latacunga to Ambato, Ambato to Guayaquil and Guayaquil to La Libertad, some 10 hours of travelling.  The bus from Ambato to Guayaquil was the most terrifying one I've taken in Ecuador, the driver trying to emulate Nigel Mansell whenever he saw another bus.  When roads have no crash barriers above thousand feet drops, this is not reassuring, and I was enormously glad when we reached the flat lands of the Costa again.  By contrast, the luxury coach from Guayaquil to La Libertad was a model of decorous driving, and we were back on Coromandel by 1900: home at last!

Two Humboldt Whales

Whale Broaching

At the Basílica del Voto Nacional, Quito

On the Equator at Intiñan

Demonstration on the Equator

Cascada de Peguche

Mercado Artesanal in Otavalo

Above Laguna Quilatoa

Gas Bubbles in Laguna Quilatoa

Local Women in Quilatoa

Tigua Painting