We reached Ambato quickly. It felt like a dusty outpost. We wandered trying to understand where we could encounter a Guayaquil bus. Finally, we realized we were a good distance from town center and the bus depot. We caught a taxi to take us directly to the Guayaquil terminal.
As we entered Ambato I realized it's a real live city! We had just missed the fruit & flowers festival. Ambato is another mountain town with many varied micro-climates. Within the city limits a plethora of edibles & bright bounty grow. Happily, we found our bus depot and boarded.
Riding buses in Ecuador can feel like a roller coaster. Within the Andes, highways generally hug the edge of the mountain & no one slows around the switchbacks. Kevin read & blocked out our peril. I kept an eye on what was beautiful & sometimes pressed my eyes tightly closed when we narrowly missed another semi.
The ride from Ambato to Guayaquil was somewhat otherwordly. We descended and climbed mountains. We skirted volcanoes. Ultimately, we crept into jungle and then coastline. I wanted months to repeat the journey, stopping along the way.
Outside of Ambato the landscape became truly impressive. The Andes opened up to several valleys. Most of the land was farmed & often by Indigenous practices of terracing. As we rounded one valley I saw a woman standing at the edge of a cliff, wearing a magenta scarf. There was no one else.
We slid into another valley where the highway created a C-curve framing out a raised soccer field. As we rode around the field we saw a spirited and muddy game played between two goals fashioned out of naked sticks. On the other side of the highway, to my right, an elderly Indigenous couple sat at a cliff over-hang to watch the match.
We saw signs for Riobamba and skirted the edge of Ecuador's tallest Volcano, Chimborazo. The volcano is covered by glacial ice despite the temperate climate of the valley below.
Andes grasses gave way to orchids and the density of Jungle greenery. Gradually this opened and the air became softer. We entered coastal Guayaquil to a ocean-front thunderstorm. The highway quickly accumulated a few inches of water while the humid air was cooled. In Guayaquil we found a well-rated hostal and a Chinese restaurant for dinner.
Culturally, Guayaquil is distinct from the rest of Ecuador. There are differences between speech and customs when you travel from Andes to Amazon, but none so profound as entering the Pacific coast. It's so interesting to me that the coast always sets itself apart. Coastal culture is always slower from the interior (though nowhere in Ecuador is fast-paced!), there's a thicker pattern of speech, colorful phrasing, and spicier food. People look a little different, they walk with a more pronounced sway.
We didn't have long to experience coastal Ecuador because our flight to the Galapagos left the following morning. I was somewhat wary of Guayaquil after all the trash talk we heard in Quito. There is a HUGE rivalry between the two cities. Politically, Quito has always been more conservative whereas Guayaquil has been a hotbed of Left-y politics & union organizing. I had hoped to catch a Guayaquil v. Quito soccer game in Quito before we flew back to the States. I shared my plan with a Quito taxi driver. He advised, "Watch out for those Guayaquil fans! They're crazy!"
Dude, I'm from Philly.
We wound up extending our time in the Galapagos and flying directly back to Quito to connect with our U.S. bound flight, so the soccer game never materialized. Before leaving Guayaquil I popped open Kurt Vonnegut's dystopian satire, Galapagos. The novel begins as the world ends. The story starts in Guayaquil, where the protagonists anxiously fend off starving masses and a police state before seeking safety in the Galapagos. I read hungrily in the airport waiting for our plane. As I boarded, I really felt like this was the Apocalypse.
From jungle to mountains to sea to islands that feel on the verge of nothing. Ecuador winds you through the landscape of human experience. As I think back to my time on the equator I certainly remember people and food and the various flavors of travel. But more than anything, I think of the land. More than anywhere else, I feel like that land crawled inside of me. The mountains and valleys and plants have an undeniably vibrant life. They affected me. They affect.
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