10. Ecuador

Talking about a country, one should probably have seen more than only two cities...

Well, at least one of the two cities we have visited was the capital Quito. The capital (altitude 2850m!) has for the tourist at least two different faces – on the one side there is the old town with old colonial buildings. It is a must-do for tourists and definitely worth going there. On the other side, there is Mariscal (Quito’s “Gringolandia”), this is the part of town where 80% of the backpackers sleep in one of the countless hostels and hang out in one of the countless western style bars and restaurants. In Mariscal, we also had our first guinea pig (in German: “Meerschweinchen”) – it looks like a chicken when it’s on your plate and tastes like a mix of chicken and pork. Not too bad, but a little greasy.

Guinea Pig a la Quito

One of the newest attractions of Quito is a cable car that takes you up to 4000m, from where you have a fabulous view – if there are no clouds…

Up to the view over Quito...

...into the clouds!

Cuenca in the South of Ecuador is a true beauty. It is built along a river and has well maintained colonial buildings. Besides that, it’s a lot safer than Quito, and the traffic is bad, but not as bad as in the capital. The traffic is by the view a problem of all bigger cities in South America. An increasing economy means that people have money to buy cars, which does not mean that the cities are prepared for so much traffic. Public transportation is in almost all cases limited to busses.


Typical Cuenca people

A short note about the political situation in Ecuador as it has just been on the news lately (fyi: President Correa had been hold prisoner in a hospital by the police). It sounded very scary, but according to what we have heard, it was not that bad. The police was on strike due to salary cuts, so some idiots took advantage of the situation looting. The president also used the situation to his advantage, playing the poor victim and regaining popularity among his voters. Whether he was really hold prisoner or not is not clear, there is no freedom of press in Ecuador…

And as we did not have the money and time this time, a visit of the Galapagos Islands is on the list of my next visit to Ecuador!

09. Colombia

Colombia – what to expect from a country with such a miserable reputation (violence, drugs, rebels)? Well, not too much!

What we experienced then was the opposite of our expectations. Colombia has to offer a lot and is far safer than we thought! We were lucky that we did not have any problems with criminals, which are despite our good experiences of course around, trying in most cases only to steal the tourists’ belongings, so we can fortunately not report any exciting stories about this, but only tell boring stories about nice places and people! ;)

We landed in the beautiful colonial city of Cartagena and headed to Santa Marta further up north. In the wonderful national park Tayrona you can stay overnight in a hammock at the beach, quite close to paradise I would say.

Cartagena

Hammock tower in Tayrona National Park

The big cities Medellin and Bogota have well developed areas with shopping malls and expensive shops and everything one could ask for, but also the “normal” life in the centers with good food (typical southamerican with meat, rice and beans) and a lot of life going on the streets! I felt very safe, probably also due to the presence of so much police and security all over the busy streets.

Snails for sale - good for your skin!

The flipside of the economically strong areas and the increasing tourism are around too, though not visible to tourists of course. In Popayan, a nice colonial city in the south of Colombia, a friend of mine is working for an organization supporting deprived parts of the society, especially in the country side. These people profit little by increasing tourism and economy in general. They are in many cases literally in the line of fire of the different “interest groups” – FARC rebels, Colombian army, paramilitary groups… It was good to get to know about this as well.

Overall, there are a lot more reasons to visit Colombia than not to visit it, the beauty of the country and the hospitality of the Colombians are definitely outstanding! Oh, one more thing - avoid the rainy season, when you visit Colombia! It was not as bad as it sounds, but it sure rains a lot once it rains... ;)

And it did not rain as much as on other days...