Butterfly Farm, Mindo

Ecuador is famous for its incredible diversity of microclimates. One of these is the cloud forest, where the mountains trap the clouds at lower levels, resulting in incredible jungles in areas that are often quite cool. We journeyed to Mindo, only a couple of hours away from Quito yet seemingly a totally different world.

Mindo has butterfly farms, white water rafting, ziplining, hiking and some of the best bird watching in the world. It’s been described as a “little Switzerland” in some guidebooks but that’s pushing it – yes, it’s more attractive than the big city, but the town still looks typically Ecuadorian. It only comes alive on weekends apparently, and we were there midweek, so it was really very quiet.

Our first stop was the butterfly farm, which Gal absolutely loved. The place literally farms butterflies – they collect the eggs, incubate them, and then when the butterflies are born they are let out to fly free around a big aviary – the cycle goes on and on.

We wanted to go tubing - riding in huge inner tubes down the river, but the river level in December was too low and the water was freezing, so we opted instead for ziplining, which was amazing. Gal was quite calm- she’d been ziplining before, but this was my first time, and I found it exhilarating, yet simple – you don’t do anything, just sit back and enjoy the ride – zigzagging around fifteen times across a canyon at various heights and at various speeds. We were accompanied by two extremely helpful and efficient employees of the zipline company.

Ziplining

To end the day we took a short hike down a canyon to a river. What is really interesting is that many of the nature reserves in the region are privately run – so each has its own entry fee and rules. At “our” river the owner had built a couple of little swimming pools into the rocks which looked like a lot of fun – but the water was really cold so we didn’t last more than a few minutes.

Our stop for the night was at Bellavista, one of the cloud forest lodges set high up above the valleys. Often shrouded in mist and fog, it was hugely atmospheric. Hummingbird feeders were placed everywhere and we saw hundred of birds feeding, both late in the afternoon and the following day.

The following morning we went for a hike through the cloud forest. It is real jungle – bromeliads and other  exotic jungle trees were everywhere, and Gal and our guide managed to see some very unusual birds – antpittas, Cock of the Rock, toucans, parrots – but I managed to miss most of them somehow. I loved watching the hummingbirds – they are right there in front of you, and so many different varieties. The hike we took was fairly gruelling – up and down the mountainside, wading through the river – but real fun!

Our time in Mindo was great – a mix of fun activities and lots of great nature – yet so near the big city.

This was our last stop in Ecuador. The following morning we were on the 6am flight to the USA.

Our Ecuadorian summary:

A natural jungle swing.

Gal fell in love with Ecuador. We both agreed that the Galapagos was the greatest safari /animal adventure we’ve  ever been on, and that includes safaris in Africa and India. The Mainland was great too – nice people, beautiful sights and packed with exotic nature. Our time on the mainland was just way too short – I’d love to go back to spend time on a hacienda, hike near a volcano, explore the Amazon…

I’m planning great trips to the Galapagos and Ecuador. Click here for more info.

Hummingbirds

Balancing an egg on a nail at the equator - don't try this at home!

Ecuador is names after the equator, which in Ecuador is simple to reach and a real money spinner. Sure you can also visit it in countries such as Uganda, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Brazil, Gabon and Sao Tome & Principe but  it’s often well off the beaten path while in Ecuador, it’s about 20km  from Quito on a good highway.  It is a huge tourist attraction and we had a choice of three spots where we could stand on the actual line.

We actually chose to miss the best known monument called the Middle of the World,  because it’s actually not on the equator!  The original surveyors got it wrong, and only with GPS in the last few decades was the equatorial line established exactly. So this monument is a few hundred meters off. We went instead to the fascinating Inti Nan monument which claims to be located exactly on the equator. Here we saw an interesting museum including a huge blowpipe from the Amazon, anaconda skins and other exotica,  and we did various experiments that can only be done on the equator, like balancing an egg on a nail, seeing water swirl down a plughole in one direction on the north side and then in the opposite direction on the south side and so on. A great spot for kids.

Later we visited another site at Guachala – so, really tourism has staked its claim to the Equator!

Other great day trip stops included Calderon, where figures as hard as ceramics are made out of bread dough – we bought some figures for Daniel and Eitan and they could not believe that something so strong could be made of bread , and we visited Otavalo, site of one of the biggest outdoor markets in South America. We missed the main market day which is Saturday and went midweek instead – and we loved it. Apparently it is very busy on the weekend, but we had it all to ourself, so we could browse and bargain as we wished. I was definitely ripped off by the first leather belt seller I met, but by the end of our stay I was far wiser, while Gal was very happy with her rings and great alpaca blanket that she bought. The produce market was very non touristy and fun.

Shopping for mangoes in Otavalo - they cost about 15c each. In Canada the same mango costs $1.

By now we felt pretty much at home in Quito – we found a branch of Crepes and Waffles – an unlikely sounding name for a popular Colombian chain , and we absolutely loved it! We explored a supermarket and bought Aji to take home – aji is the local spicy sauce (we are big lovers of any hot sauce) and people told us that every family has its own aji recipe. The bottle we bought was made with chiles and tree tomatoes – no relative to tomatoes at all, and a fruit we had never seen before.

Xmas figurines - made of bread dough but hard as ceramic.

Of course, the fact that the official currency is the US Dollar makes Ecuador seem so much less foreign. The country produces its own coins, but all bills are American.

Quito is a great place to hang out for a few days – the city itself is really interesting, and the surrounding areas can keep you very busy. We didn’t get to the Cotopaxi volcano, where one can hike and horse ride, or stay in a real hacienda – we’ll have to keep that for next time. We did go to Mindo, where the cloud forest can be found, as well as butterflies, hummingbirds and more. I’ll be covering that in the next blog post.

I now plan great trips to Ecuador. For more info, click here.

We discovered Crepes and Waffles, a Colombian chain of cafes.

But Roasted guinea pigs just weren't our thing

Crazy animal sculptures in a colonial monastery - old Quito

While the Galapagos was the main reason for our trip to Ecuador, we decided  to spend a few days exploring part of the mainland. Often, the Ecuadorian mainland is missed by many visitors making a beeline for the Galapagos, yet it is an amazing country – compact, but full of different habitats and climate zones – in the same day you can travel from tropical beaches to cloud forests to alpine peaks to the Amazon jungle – it’s hard to believe!

Quito is the second highest city in the world at close to 3000 meters – while we did feel a bit breathless on our first day, the altitude didn’t bother us too much, though Gal struggled to sleep the first night.

Quito has a long history – founded by indigenous peoples, it was incorporated into the Inca empire, only to be conquered by the Spanish during the conquests of the 1500′s. The city, high as it is, is surrounded by even higher mountains and volcanoes, and despite being almost on the equator, the temperature isn’t warm – the altitude ensures that it’s always pretty cool or “spring like” but it is a comfortable temperature for touring.

The core is the small old colonial city – a city of cobblestones and squares, with museums and churches dotted around. It is a particularly photogenic area. Modern Quito envelopes the old city and stretches far to the North and the South. The modern city is not very attractive although the setting is quite spectacular.

On our first day we took it easy. We were staying near the Mariscal neighborhood, a section of modern Quito that has longed been ground zero for foreigners – it’s filled with hotels, restaurants and pubs and is a good place to base yourself. The only proviso was that we were warned about walking around at night. So while it felt safe, apparently it wasn’t all that safe at night. The center of the Mariscal is a large square and it’s a fun place to hang out – we were there during a major soccer match and the square was thronged with supporters waving flags, and police were in evidence everywhere which made it feel completely safe.

On our first full day we walked the old city with our guide. Like so many Latin American cities, Quito has a huge statue of the Virgin Mary on a hill overlooking the city,, and after enjoying the view we were soon wandering through the old streets. It is a very atmospheric place – with incredibly ornate colonial churches, and lots going on everywhere.  It was the Xmas holidays and kids were everywhere, and the city was in a very festive mood. We visited the excellent City Museum, where we saw highly original displays by local artists, and we climbed up to the bell towers of the Cathedral – not for vertigo sufferers!

Old Quito

We visited one of the main produce markets – we were told that Ecuador produces all its own food, and the varieties of fruit and vegetable at the market was astounding. We didn’t even recognise many of the fruits on display and Gal found it fascinating.

Later, we visited the Guaysamin Museum – Oswaldo Guaysamin was an Ecuadorean painter who made it his life’s career to portray the suffering that the native people of South America suffered at the hands of foreigners. It is a harrowing place – and we found, a bit belatedly, not really for kids at all. The nearby Chapel of Humankind, which was his project to universal peace, is a wonderful building and definitely worth visiting.

Our first day in Quito was really busy – and really fascinating. For dinner we went to an authentic Ecuadorian restaurant and ate some interesting dishes, including the local soup with chunks of cheese and avocado. Guinea pig is a national delicacy, but we just could not bring ourselves to order it!

Was this really Santa?

Fruit stand - some familiar, some VERY unfamiliar!

Tortoises - super kid friendly wildlife!

For most of us,  the Galapagos are synonymous with one land  animal – the Giant Tortoise.

We spent the last couple of days of our explorations visiting some of the final refuges of these strange creatures. I had read some amazing facts about the tortoises here – it seems like they could have arrived on rafts of foliage from the Amazon jungles hundreds of thousands of years ago, and due to the lack of predators they then  spread across the major islands in huge numbers. I learned that they probably live longer than any other animal in the world – perhaps as old as 150 or maybe even 200 years. And I discovered that in a very short space of time – a hundred years at most, they had almost become extinct at the hands of us humans.

It seems that tortoises make excellent eating. And since they live so long they last long. And, when tuned on their backs, they can live for up to a year without food or water. All this made them the ideal protein source for whalers in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Galapagos was a fuelling station for whale boats at the time, and apparently each boat would take up to 600 tortoises from the islands, turn them upside down in the hold and over time they would be eaten. It is estimated that over 200 000 tortoises were removed from the Galapagos.

What this meant is that by the time the National Park was established by the government of Ecuador, the giant tortoise was almost extinct. Today, one still finds them, but they are now limited to protected areas. We went to two of these – on Isabela and on Santa Cruz.

Despite what they have suffered at the hands of humans, they spend a lot of time with their heads out of their shells. We were amazed by how long their necks were, and we saw them eating, fighting with each other and more. When you get really close up, they look a lot like ET from the Spielberg movie – I wouldn’t be surprised if ET was based on them.

Messy Eater!

Gal loved the tortoises – they really look like a throwback to much more ancient times – in fact, if you look at the incredible reptiles of the islands – the marine and land iguanas and the tortoises, one quickly realises that the world was a very different place in the Age of the Reptiles.

Our Galapagos trip had sped by too fast – it was without a doubt one of the greatest trips we had ever been on – like setting foot in another world completely. The National Park authority has stepped up efforts to maintain the pristine nature of the islands – a new system that begins in 2012 ensures that the itineraries of boats are controlled by a master plan so that not too many boats visit each island every day. The fact is, we never saw more than about 20 other visitors on any island we visited , apart from the main inhabited islands such as Santa Cruz.

The Galapagos really is a destination built  for families. The animals are not scary, and it felt 100% safe at all times – and I have never come so close to so many wild animals as in the Galapagos.

Before we knew it, we were saying good bye to our new friends amongst the passengers and crew, and boarded the flight to Quito, where our Ecuadorian adventure would continue.

NEXT: Ecuador with Kids!

I am now planning family trips to the Galapagos. For more details, click here.

Goodbye Galapagos!

Camillo - crew member and new friend.

Did you know...the tortoise cannot live without its shell - the spine is an integral part of it.

Such long necks - who would have guessed?

Blue footed Boobies

The blue footed boobie is the iconic Galapagos symbol. They are found on t-shirts, mugs, all over the souvenir stands but the souvenires don’t match up to the real thing – they are amazingly funny birds to see and we saw them in spades along the south-west coast of Isabela. We loved watching the boobies dive for food – they fly high and then, like a dive bomber, plunge into the ocean – when they do it as a group, it ‘s as if the ocean is being peppered by small bombs.

On land, we explored the volcanic environment and were constantly amazed by the strange vegetation we saw everywhere.

During our snorkeling we saw tons of turtles – everywhere, as well as all kinds of fish and myriads of penguins.

We also saw a couple of elusive land iguanas – much bigger than marine iguanas, these sand colored reptiles are not that easy to spot.

Galapagos cactus

Turtles

What do you think this is? An alien hand?

Watch out - Land Iguana!

Making pide - Turkish Pizza

Announcing a unique Culinary Group Tour especially for Families  - Turkey 2012!

Turkey is one of the most interesting countries in the world, and is fantastically family friendly. In my opinion nothing can beat the food, and in July/August  we will be running a special group trip for foodie families!

It’s an in-depth culinary tour designed especially for kids’participation – we are including hands-on cooking lessons, lots of opportunities to taste the best of Turkish food, visits to produce markets, behind-the-scenes visits to restaurants,  pastry shops and Turkish Delight stores and much more. Of course we’ll also visit the best sights of Turkey – incredible Istanbul, captivating Cappadocia, the ancient Roman town of Ephesus and one of the most popular beach resorts as well.

Learn how to make...Turkish Delight

This is a unique opportunity for parents and kids who love to cook.

The full itinerary is available over here!

We''ll explore the markets!

We'll be learning from the experts themselves!

Gal and the iguanas.

Every day something new awaited us to amaze us. It was simply impossible to be bored. The morning of day 5 we boarded the zodiacs for our landing point on Fernandina Island.

Fernandina is the westernmost island in the Galapagos and it’s the youngest island as well. It’s really just a huge volcano. It’s also home to fantastic animals, notably one of the largest colonies of marine iguanas. The amazing thing about these animals is that they are everywhere on Fernandina – all over the beach, covering the rocks, everywhere! They blend in so well with the landscape that sometimes you are almost upon them before you realise that the “rock” is moving and living – as it ‘s home to literally hundreds of iguanas.

Walking along the beach we saw a little sea-lion pup walking to his mother – we were amazed – it never occurred to me that sea lions could actually walk, but they do! Other sights included seeing a whole dolphin skeleton, examining a hermit crab – which don’t own their own shells but “steal” other shells to live in, and we spent a good half hour watching huge pink turtles in a river.

There was no doubt that we were on safari – the best safari I had ever been for sure!

After our hike we went snorkeling, and once again we were joined by a playful sea-lion – it was hard not to keep laughing from pure joy as the animal literally played games with us for the whole time we were in the water.

PS I plan great trips to the Galapagos for families. Click here for more info.

Playtime with sealions (2)

Playtime with sealions (1)

Lavafield hike

This little pup was on his way to mom.

A giant turtle swims next to us

Later that same day we went snorkeling at an incredible site of cliff faces and sea caves. As we jumped in we had no choice but to gasp from the shock as we hit the freezing cold water – by far the coldest water we’d snorkeled in so far.

The west side of Isabela  is well-known for its cold water, but it’s much better known for its incredible sea life. We saw turtles swimming all around us, as well as seals and penguins on the rocks. We also saw flightless cormorants swimming, but best of all were the sea lions. A couple of sea lions decided that they wanted to play with us, and the game consisted mainly of them zooming out of nowhere almost into our faces,  then gliding past and disappearing into the murky depths only to appear once again, out of nowhere,  about a foot from our face! This game went on and on, and it was amazing. In Vancouver we have a great aquarium and the kids love to go – but this was something from a different world – the sea lions were in their own habitat, and they were making the rules. Photography wasn’t easy – the sea lions moved so fast!

Exploring a sea cave

Eventually it began to be too cold as our wetsuits were too thin to keep us comfortable so we  clambered up onto the zodiacs. Later we saw another boat’s passengers set off for their snorkeling, and we could only empathise with them, knowing fully well the initial freezing moments that they were about to experience!

Penguins - the Galapagos is the most northerly point they reach.

Hiking on the lava field - Isabela

For the next few days we sailed along the western coastline of Isabela, the largest Island in the Galapagos. Isabela is huge (it’s the only island that actually shows up on most maps), and our days were were filled with magic.

We woke up on the morning of the 4th day to see a pod of dolphins cruising alongside our boat. We changed into our wetsuits as quickly as we could and jumped into the ocean, but the dolphins immediately swam away. We really were hoping to swim with them, but they had other ideas.

Our first landing on Isabela was really interesting. We hiked to a point that had been a US military base  in the second world war, but all that remains are concrete platforms and some gun emplacements, minus the guns. Nature has totally taken over the place – we saw huge colonies of marine iguanas,  remarkable reptiles that are completely at home swimming and hunting in the ocean. We watched them jump off the rocks, and then climb back afterwards to get warm. These are such ugly creatures, as reptilian as you can possibly imagine, and they cluster in large groups, often on top of each other, on the rocks to get warm. They are fantastically camouflaged. The rocks are volcanic and black, and the iguanas are black too. From a distance, a rock can look plain and bare, but once you get up close to it, it’s often swarming with hundreds of iguanas. I don’t expect many, if any, make good pets. The sight of one is likely to terrify any little child!  We also saw the flightless cormorant. Here is a species of bird that basically forgot how to fly. It’s very different from other flightless birds such as the ostrich – they never flew, but cormorants fly everywhere, except on the Galapagos, where the lack of predators has meant that the bird has evolved into something that swims fantastically well, diving far beneath the waves in search of its prey, but its wings have shrivelled up and are useless. They aren’t that exotic to see on land, but seeing them swimming under water is incredible.

Marine Iguana

So Close! Bryde's Whale - you can clearly see the jaw, but the eye is under the surface.

But our biggest adventure by far was on our way back to the boat in the zodiac. Suddenly, the sea around us bubbled and we heard a huge rush of air right next to us – and a huge Bryde’s whale surfaced, almost touching the zodiac – we weren’t more than 3 meters away.   It was scary, but incredible. For the next thirty minutes the whale played games with us – it dived, and then resurfaced  - sometimes close to us, sometimes further away, and every time in a different direction, so that we had to guess where it was going to be. It’s amazing how something so huge can just disappear, giving you no idea at all where it is. And then out of nowhere it’s back!  The other zodiac missed the first twenty minutes of this “game” and went back to the boat, not realising why we had been delayed. But after a minute on board with binoculars they figured it out very quickly and came to join us. Bryde’s whales can weigh up to 25,000 kg (55,000 pounds). We didn’t think of jumping into the water with it – imagine what a flick of its tail can do to a person! They can dive 300 meters (1000 feet) deep, so really, we had no chance of figuring out where it would resurface each time. You don’t see its outline underwater when its diving!

That afternoon we crossed the equator heading South. On the way we saw a sunfish, one of the largest and strangest fish in the sea. They weigh over 1000 kg and eat jellyfish, but from the surface they don’t look like much – one sees a fin that could be a shark. Underneath is one of the weirdest looking fish in the world – kind of looks like half  a fish, with the rest cut off.

(PS I am planning great family trips to the Galapagos. Click here for more info).

Ocean Sunfish - impossible to imagine that there could be 1000kg of fish underneath there

Equator - 0 degrees South

Equator - 0 degrees North

There it is! Playing games with us!

Fish everywhere we looked

Our second night on board was much more comfortable than the first. The reason – we set sail before sunset, and by late evening were safely anchored off our destination – so no sailing at all during sleep time!

We woke up to find ourselves anchored just offshore from Marchena Island, an island that sees very few visitors.

Our morning activity was snorkeling. Setting off in the pangas, we were soon at the jump off point. As we jumped into the water our guide shouted “Hammerheads!” Far below us on the ocean floor I could make out four or five hammerhead sharks swimming lazily along. Gal and I felt fine – we were in a large group,, and we had been assured that shark attacks on snorkelers in the Galapagos are extremely rare, though shark sightings are extremely common. There are islands further north where sightings of up to four hundred!! hammerheads at one time are common. We also saw the ubiquitous white-tipped Galapagos shark. The sharks, if they noticed us, were clearly not interested at all.

The ocean was packed with large schools of fish, and the snorkeling was great. We returned to the panga which motored in much closer to the shore, and we dived in again. The currents were much stronger here and soon Gal was in some trouble – she was swept near a rocky point jutting out of the land and in fact heaved out of the water onto a rock by the waves. Not a terribly dangerous situation as it turned out – she was actually sitting on a rock and she’s tough and a strong swimmer, but she is prone to panic sometimes (rare – mainly seen when skiing a steep run for the first time) and she was close to panic now – so I grabbed her and we quickly pushed off from the rocks –  and within a minute or so she was hauling herself back on to the waiting panga about 30 meters away. The pangas always follow the snorkelers just in case they are needed. Our underwater camera did get smashed into the rocks though, but continued to work just fine. Pentax call it “adventure proof” and perhaps it really is!

We made landfall for a quick exploration of the beach – the island seemed basically to be one big lava flow, and has no fresh water. In fact, there are historical accounts of people being stranded and dying there. Certainly the beach was littered with the white bones and skulls of animals that had for whatever reason been washed up and couldn’t escape – we saw sea-lion skulls, dolphin skulls and more.

Our hawk - about a foot away from me, and I didn't notice it!

While walking along the beach I noticed a great shell and took a photo. I walked on, and looking back I saw our whole group standing exactly where I had been moments before, all snapping away. I went back and asked what the big deal was about the shell? “What shell” they said – “we’re checking out the hawk”. About a foot away from where I had been, perched on a bush, was a Galapagos hawk, but I had been looking down, not up.  Luckily, the others were more aware than me! Anywhere else in the world, I very much doubt that a bird of prey would let you approach it, never mind let a group of people come to within almost touching distance. This hawk did just that – an incredible moment.

Back on board, life had really settled down. We had all made friends by now, and the food continued to amaze us daily – what the chef produced was simply incredible. Gal was fully part of the team, no matter that she was so much younger than the rest. Our cabin, though small, was now home, and the trip was proving to be more exciting than we could ever have imagined. Our best moments, on Isabela Island, were still to come!

PS I’m now planning great trips to tht Galapagos. Click here for more details.

Gal (at center), fully at home on board!

Galapagos Sunset

Silhouette