"Ecuador, so tiny on the map
of the world, has always possessed
the grandeur of a great country to
those who know her well."
- Albert B. Franklin,
Ecuador:
Portrait of a People
Sitting on the equator between
Colombia and Peru, Ecuador is
the smallest of the Andean nations,
covering an area no bigger than
Nevada. For all its diminutive size,
however, the country is packed with
the most startling contrasts of
scenery, taking in steaming tropical
rainforests, windswept highlands,
ice-capped volcanoes and
palm-fringed beaches, all within
easy reach of the capital, Quito.
It's a land of bold contours and
heightened colours, where you can
find yourself beneath a canopy of
dripping vegetation amongst clouds
of neon-coloured butterflies one
day, and in a highland market,
mixing with scarlet-ponchoed indígenas
the next. It's also a country of
astounding biodiversity, boasting
1600 species of bird (more per area
than any other South American
country), 4500 species of butterfly
and over 3500 species of orchid, to
cite just a few examples. Add to
this the country's stunning colonial
architecture and diverse indigenous
groups, and it becomes clear why
Ecuador is regarded by many as a
sort of South America in miniature,
offering a pocket-sized microcosm of
almost everything travellers hope to
find on this bewitching continent.
As if more were called for, its
attractions are triumphantly capped
off by the Galápagos Islands, whose
extraordinary wildlife has gone down
in history for its pivotal role in
shaping Charles Darwin's theories on
evolution.
Geographically, Ecuador's
mainland divides neatly into three
distinct regions running the length
of the country in parallel strips.
In the middle is the sierra ,
formed by the eastern and western
chains of the Andes that surge
abruptly into the clouds from the
lowlands either side. Punctuated by
over thirty volcanoes, the two
chains are joined by a series of
high plateaux at around 2800m above
sea level, separated by gentle
transverse ridges, or nudos
("knots" of hills). This
is the agricultural and indigenous
heartland of Ecuador, a region of
patchwork fields crawling up the
mountainsides, of stately haciendas
and dozens of remote communities.
The sierra is also home to many of
the country's oldest and most
important cities, including Quito.
East of the sierra is the Oriente
, a large, sparsely populated area
extending into the upper Amazon
basin, much of it covered by dense
tropical rainforest - an
exhilarating, exotic region, though
under increasing threat from
oil-production and colonization.
West of the sierra, the coastal
region is formed by a fertile
alluvial plain, used for growing
tropical crops such as bananas,
sugar, coffee and cacao, and
bordered on its Pacific seaboard by
a string of beaches, mangrove
swamps, shrimp farms and ports.
Almost a thousand kilometres of
ocean separate the coastline from
the Galápagos archipelago,
annexed by Ecuador in 1832.
All this provides a home to some
fourteen million people, the
majority of whom live on the coast
and in the sierra. They are
descendants, for the most part, of
the various indigenous
populations that first inhabited
Ecuador's territory, of the Incas
who colonized these lands in the
late fifteenth century, of the Spaniards
who conquered the Inca empire in the
1530s and of the African slaves
brought by the Spanish colonists.
Although the mixing of blood over
many centuries has resulted in a
largely mestizo (mixed)
population, the indigenous component
remains very strong, particularly
among the Quichua-speaking
communities of the rural sierra, and
the various ethnic groups of the
Oriente such as the Shuar, the
Achuar, the Huaorani and Secoya,
while on the north coast there's a
significant black population. As in
many parts of Latin America, social
and economic divisions between indígenas
, blacks, mestizos and an
elite class of whites remain deeply
entrenched, exacerbated here by a
slew of recent economic and
political crises. And yet, even as
poverty and unemployment increase,
as their national currency is lost
to the US dollar and their political
leaders continually fail to tackle
the country's problems, the
overwhelming majority of Ecuadorians
remain resilient, remarkably
cheerful, and extremely courteous
and welcoming towards visitors.
