Into Ecuador

Before we left San Agustin, we had planned to drive towards Popayan and then south to Ecuador from there.  Manuel convinced us, however, to take a “shortcut,” and drive south from San Agustin and cross into Ecuador further east.  It’s a good road, he said, and much shorter.

BIG MISTAKE.

It may have been shorter distance-wise, but the road was so bad -- muddy, steep, and filled with huge holes – that it ended up taking us a day and a half just to get Cubby to the Ecuador border!  Our friends Linda and Dario, who we met in San Agustin, were along with us…and the four of us were cursing Manuel the whole time!  Never rely on the local’s “shortcuts”, we’ve learned…at least with a camper!

On the drive, we did have some pretty awesome scenery, though.  It began looking more and more wet and jungly as we drove.  We were getting close to the Amazon!

We entered into Ecuador at a point called San Miguel.  Country number 13 for us!

 

We drove straight to the next town, called Lago Agrio.  It was dark already by the time we arrived.  Some locals recommended that we park at the plaza, so we pulled in, made ourselves comfortable by setting up the table and chairs on the sidewalk, and drank some boxes of Chilean wine.  A little too much wine maybe!

Cubby by the plaza in Lago Agrio

The next day we headed toward a park called Cayambe-Coca.  On the way, we noticed green slime coming out of Pichula... a hole in the radiator.  There was a town nearby, but it was Sunday, of course, just our luck, so nothing was open.  Luckily, one guy agreed to open up his shop to help us.

 

On a trip like this, some entire days are spent on unexpected things like car repair… you get used to it!

We got the radiator all fixed and started the beautiful drive toward the Cayambe-Coca reserve, passing farms, gorges, rivers, and waterfalls.  Everything is so green!  The roads on the Ecuador side were perfect, by the way.

 

With such good roads, we got there in no time, and stopped at the San Rafael falls.

It was too late to hike down to the falls that day, so found a spot for Cubby and spent the night.

 

beautiful river near our campsite

 

In Ecuador, you also find oil pipelines running through the National Parks.  I guess that cheap gas has a price…

oil pipeline, also near our campsite

 

The next morning, we hiked down to the San Rafael falls.  You pass many smaller falls on the way down.  What a beautiful hike.

on the way to San Rafael falls

We spotted some beautiful birds.

This is a huge toucan just hanging out above us.  Unfortunately, the zoom on my camera is not very good…

toucan

The first view we got of the San Rafael falls was breathtaking…we had no idea how big these falls actually are.  From the first viewpoint:

 

 

We heading down further to the second (and last) viewpoint, where you could see the falls even closer.  There was so much mist created by the falling water that at some points you could not even see the waterfall.  But as we watched, the mist would disappear, revealing the water crashing into the river down below.

 

We didn’t know it at the time, but Ecuador building a dam on the river farther upstream.  In a few months (maybe even already), this powerful waterfall will be reduced to only 20% its original volume. So sad that this beautiful sight will be destroyed…

 

We left the park and drove on toward Quito.  We watched the scenery gradually change as we left rainforest and entered the Andes region...

The vegetation begins to be less dense,

and the mountain peaks start becoming sharper.

Awesome views!

We passed through Quito on our way to a town called Mindo, where we would visit friends of Ricardo’s mom at their amazing home.  But don’t worry, we came back to visit Quito as well!  Stay tuned for the next post…

Looking out over a section of Quito from a small mountain we climbed...we'll be back Quito!