In Ecuador’s
Guayas Province near Salitre, a teenage cowboy can’t resist
a dip into the warm Vince River as a canoe just brought him across it.
Most travelers visiting
Ecuador limit themselves, no doubt for lack of enough time, to its Andean
region. The reasons are its spectacular snow-capped volcanoes, its picturesque
indigenous villages and markets, and its capital Quito, a UNESCO World Heritage
Site.
But Ecuador’s western lowlands
and coast hide equally wonderful sights and culture. They include, from north
to south, jungle villages of Indians and Afro-Americans, a colorful fishing
activity, a Panama-hat-weaving industry, cattle ranches and cowboys, banana
plantations, beaches and surf, and a net of rivers that periodically floods the
surrounding country, transforming its whole landscape.
There, too, is Guayaquil,
Ecuador’s largest city and, under its palm trees, a world apart from Quito in
appearance and culture. But it has its own charms, including the stunning
four-kilometer long malecòn, or promenade, and Las Peñas, an area of the city built on a hill (Cerro Santa Ana) whose
400-year-old wooden houses have been artistically remodeled. The top of the
hill gives a panoramic view of the city and Guayas River.
The
wonderful thing about Ecuador is that it’s small enough, by South American
standards, to allow you to drive from Quito to the Amazon, to its most impressive
Andean mountains and markets, and to the coast in only a few hours.
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