Finishing our trip to Ecuador

Radka and I visited Ecuador between the 13th October and 24th November 2021. And I started writing about our Ecuadorian adventures on 3rd January 2022. Well, I’m finally up to the last place. Probably means that I’ll never make it as a professional blogger but I still think that you’re more likely to read about the end of our year away than to get to the end of Game of Thrones (the books rather than the cop-out TV series)…

We spent our last few days in Ecuador in the southern city of Cuenca. It is funny how when travelling in South America, you start to spot similarities between places in different countries. The biggest one, that we still get mixed up between all this time later, is Mindo in Ecuador and Minca in Colombia (you’re going to have to wait a while to hear about that one). They are both small towns up in the forested mountains that are very famous for their birdwatching opportunities and waterfalls. Their names are even quite similar. Well, Cuenca is Ecuador’s answer to Arequipa in Peru. It is one of the country’s bigger cities (but no where near the actual biggest in terms of population) and is situated in the south of the country; it has a more European cultural feel to it; its atmosphere is a bit more relaxed and it is safe to wander around; and it looks to be a bit more affluent than on average (at least in the centre).

We were not in Cuenca for very long and a fair amount of time was spent preparing for the first few days in our next destination. Having said that, we still managed to explore a bit. I’ve added photos below from the highlights, but if you’re interested in reading about the activities in more detail, then please click here.

Whilst Cuenca was the last place we stayed, it was not from where we actually left Ecuador. The airport itself is in Guayaquil. We met one tourist who had been to Guayaquil and said that he had a nice few days but everyone else we spoke to (especially the locals) told us to stay away from it. And for good reason. During the six weeks we spent in Ecuador, just in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s greatest ever sprinter was shot dead and there was a deadly prison riot, probably caused by rising tensions between drug cartels.

Needless to say, we had no interest in visiting Guayaquil and luckily you do not really need to go into the city to access the airport. There is a bus that goes directly from Cuenca to the bus station next to the airport, which is on the outskirts of the city. The journey was actually quite interesting, as you pass by mile after mile of banana plantations – the lack of natural diversity during this time was just astounding! When we made it to the bus station, there were armed police and a line of official taxis waiting at the door. We asked a guard how we should get to the airport and, whilst it would probably have taken less than 10 minutes to walk to the airport, he recommended that we should take a taxi and that it was not safe to walk. So that’s what we did.

So, whilst we got to the airport with absolutely no problems, and this happened a couple of years ago, I would still recommend avoiding Guayaquil if at all possible. When we were there, the issues seemed to be getting worse rather than better and it can take many years to address this. We learnt about this process when we visited Medellin in our next destination, Colombia…

The last issue we had was of our own making. We hadn’t decided exactly when we would leave Colombia. Hence, we had forgotten that we did not have an onwards flight. We remembered as we were getting to the airport but thought that they wouldn’t check it, maybe at all but at least until just before we were getting on the plane, when they would check all of our documents related to COVID and where we were first staying in Ecuador. That would give us a couple of hours after getting through security to sort it. Unfortunately, they asked when we were at the check-in counter. Not only did we have to leave the line to go and sort it but because they had already started inputting our details, they insisted on keeping our passports there. It was a stressful situation, so we just got on with it but in hind-sight, we should never have let that happen.

We then had issues accessing the wifi and had to make a very quick decision on what we were going to do. We had heard about a trick from other passengers in that American airlines had to, by law, allow free cancellation within 24 hours of booking a ticket. So we found the cheapest flight departing from Colombia on an American airline and booked it. Even then, we waited ages for the confirmation and it would not come – they probably do it on purpose to stop people doing exactly what we were trying to do! In the end, we tried just using the preliminary confirmation that came up on the screen when we actually booked the tickets. They did accept this, but I wonder whether that was because they shouldn’t have started inputting our details until they had checked everything and didn’t want to bring attention to their own mistake. The confirmation still hadn’t come when it was time to get on the plane, but thankfully we weren’t asked for it and therefore were able to board. We presumed by the time we got to Bogota that the conformation would have been sent, but again we were wrong. This meant a very stressful wait as we queued at border control, constantly checking our email for the conformation that did not come. Luckily, they didn’t ask us for an onward journey and we made it into Colombia. Once we were through, we cancelled the flight and were not charged, apart from a very small booking fee (about $1). Whilst, in the end, it worked out fine, this was a situation we should never have let ourselves get into. It just goes to show that even after doing quite a lot in our three months of travelling, we still had to make sure we thought things through so as to not make stupid mistakes. However, it also showed us that we could work things out when issues did arise. So, overall we just focused on the fact that it was definitely a learning experience!

And now, onwards to Colombia…