Antecedentes penales are the two words that made me rush through Ecuador because without that piece of paper the only visa I could have obtained was a 10 days one. So there was my challenge. North to south, about 1000km in only ten days, hard but doable. I took it as a challenge and I decided to built my itinerary from there. I opted for four stops: Ibarra, a quick lunch on my way to Quito in Otavalo where the street markets on Friday are a colorful masterpiece (go for hornado, you won't be wrong), Quito, Cuenca and Vilcabamba.
In Ibarra I stayed in a small location outside the city called la Esperanza, because I wanted to visit Emerson and stay at his place, since I had that place recommended from a friend. The town is surrounded by vulcanos and so is the whole country and during my time there I did nothing but walking up to those beautiful lagunas that used to be vulcanos in fact, while the neblina was surrounding me and slightly making my hike chiller. A special mention goes to a place called Casa Aida, a place that according to the legend has seen celebrities like Bob Dylan, the Floyd and Manu Chao coming in. Dona Aida is still up there in a great shape, always willing to help you whatever thing you might need before your hike and the place it is certainly a must-seen for its great past.
Quito is one of the most beautiful cities I have seen in Latin America. The city lies in the middle of the mountain with its great rooftops, its colonial historical center and a church that looks like Notre-Dame de Paris. I wasn't there for long unfortunately (10 days...remember?), but I had the chance to visit the monument that was built on the equator line in a place called Midad del Mundo and take a cable cab up to cerro Pichincha (4776 mt. above sea level) together with an American girl I met in Quito.
The following days were mostly routinary days. I spent sometime in Cuenca, working and hanging round in a beautiful and expensive city half empty. Probably the ban that the government put on those who wanted to enter the country by land also had an impact on the number of tourist inside the country. Afterwards I took a bus down to Vilcabamba and spent some days there mostly hiking, a closing bracket before moving to Perú and finally being able to chill a bit more. Vilcabamba is a nice little town, where I could do even more hikes (this time the goal was cerro Mandango) and attending a street festival the night before leaving. In this city there seem to be a little more of a european presence (french in particularly) and so I treated myself with a nice little french breakfast with french croissants that I haven't done in a while.
There is an old, very old ethnic group in Ecuador, one of the last remaining of pre-Inca native people that nowadays represents the major native group in the country and still manage to live like they did over thousand years ago, before the Inca empire was built and before the Spanish came and imposed the western way of living on most of the continent. These people are the Kichwa and include between 10.000 and 15.000 members. They are mostly located in nowadays Ecuador, around the area of the rivers Napo, Putumayo and Aguarico. They lead a simple life and focus mostly on wellness, enjoying the benefits that plants like Couroupita guianensis can give, in regards of wound healing and reducing inflammations. The concept of Chakra as a sort of household garden is also important for the Kichwa in terms of both food security and cultural heritage. Long live the Kichwa, despite all the petrol companies that are trying to move them out of their native lands, they seem to resist for the moment, still giving Ecuador a glimpse of authenticity, wellness and spirituality.
In the Inca cosmovision, there is a bird that flies all over the majority of central and south America and it has a very specific connotation, especially between native Americans. The bird I am talking about is the condor of the selva also known as the Rey de los gallinazos which means something like "king of the birds". The condor has a specific meaning, together with the puma and the snake. It represents the Hanan Pacha (superior world), one of the three interconnected worlds, together with Kay Pacha (present world) and Ukhu Pacha (inferior world). It is a symbol of transcendence, for its peculiarity of keeping the environment in order by feeding itself mostly on carcasses. It's association with the superior world as an enlighten and wise animal that shows the way to the next world comes with the fact that condors fly above everyone, between terrestrial and the divine world.