Our taxicab seemed forever frozen in one-lane Quito gridlock as uniformed schoolchildren swarmed the street in a whir of blue, interrupted occasionally by an errant bicyclist or fearless fruit-hawking native weaving in and out of cars.
Between snapping photos of the scene, I eavesdropped on a congenial conversation between the driver and my boyfriend, Daniel, a native Ecuadorian. Held up in the Francisco de Orellana district, the driver started to complain about overpopulation and traffic congestion. He seemed to be on the verge of an irate-cabbie rant when I asked his name and braced for a golden quote to land on my notepad.
Alas, taxista Marcelo Aguirre didn’t have one gripe about the capital city of Ecuador or Ecuador, for that matter. He praised the country’s improved services for the poor, the decrease in unemployment, and Quito’s new subway system, which is under construction and scheduled to be up and running in 2016.
As an American living with a different sort of gridlock, I wasn’t used to positive talk about the government — especially from taxi drivers — but optimism became a recurring theme during my first visit to Ecuador this past May. Over and over again, middle-class Ecuadorians were surprisingly upbeat, and as Marcelo indicated, the working poor are seeing improvements as well.
The nation that gained independence from Spain in 1830 and has been honored by UNESCO as a “World Heritage Site” gets its name from “equator” in Spanish. The equator divides the country unequally, putting most of Ecuador in the Southern Hemisphere.
“It may be the smallest Andean country, but it has four distinct and contrasting regions,” National Geographic’s fact sheet says: the Costa, or coastal plain, where bananas grow (Ecuador is the world’s largest provider); the Sierra, or Andean uplands; the Oriente, jungles east of the Andes that are rich in oil; and the anthropologically fascinating Galapagos Islands.
Throughout history, Ecuador has dealt with one corrupted dictatorship after another, reaching an economic meltdown in the 1980s that led to a U.S. buyout of its currency. In fact, the country still uses the U.S. dollar, one of its many interesting contradictions considering President Rafael Correa’s criticism of American foreign policy.
Since its low point in the ’80s, Ecuador has been rebuilding. It is now an internationally, socially conscious nation, where human rights aren’t just relegated to memes about Edward Snowden or Julian Assange on Facebook. Citizens get first-class treatment in medical facilities, which are subsidized by the government, and enjoy a number of other services, from low-cost auto insurance to cheap gas to scholarships for high school grads to study IT abroad. Visit Ecuador and you’ll get a sense of why the WikiLeaks founder sought asylum in the republic’s London embassy.
That said, the country has a long way to go. Crime is always on its citzens' minds. Homes are protected by security walls, sometimes topped with tacked-on broken glass if more high-tech protection is too costly. There's a pervasive paranoia of muggings, and most major stores enforce strict bag check-ins.
The distribution of wealth is still lopsided, but GE’s Healthy Nations reports life expectancy in Ecuador (75.3 years in 2009) as relatively high and the rate of child mortality has declined steadily.
President Correa, 50, grew up with his share of poverty in the beach mecca of Guayaquil and worked with the poor before going into politics. U.S.-educated in economics, he often incorporates native dress with his business attire to show pride in his indigenous roots.
Correa’s ardent, outspoken and unconventional leftist persona has earned admiration from the majority, who voted him back into office in February for a third term, and vilification by his opposition — made up in large part of free market enthusiasts who criticize the administration’s economic regulations. Their alleged smear tactics led to controversial restrictions that cramp the style of some and boost more independent enterprises.
Daniel is just a couple of degrees separated from the president of Ecuador. While staying with his family, I learned that his 13-year-old brother Gabriel attends La Condamine French school, where President Correa’s wife, Anne Malherbe, teaches. Daniel’s stepfather, Germanico Pinto (pronounced “Hermanico”), worked for Correa and is now CEO of the public-funded Metropolitan Enterprise for Mobility and Civil Works in Quito, known as EPMMOP (Empresa Pública Metropolitana de Movilidad y Obras Públicas).
Perpetually grinning, placid and multilingual, Pinto has thrived in national and city politics — even at one time serving as president of OPEC for a short stint in early 2010.
In his urban role, Pinto has not only overseen the construction of Quito’s new international airport but is converting the old airport into a city park and is currently leading the construction of two multimillion-dollar highways connecting the city to the outlying suburban valley and Mitad del Mundo (middle of the world) tourist attraction, where visitors walk a painted line representing the equator. Plus, Pinto’s been in charge of that subway project touted by our taxi driver.
He is also pioneering a “smart cities” concept in Quito, creating pedestrian-friendly zones for recreation and commerce, and installing new surveillance technology to improve safety and lessen traffic enforcement (which he reassures will be used for traffic purposes only).
Pinto helped draft Ecuador Constitución 2008. “[It was] one of the most interesting processes of social mobilization, to rebuild our country from its foundations,” he said.
His list of goals and accomplishments was a lot to take in for this Tampa citizen, who lives in a city that has far fewer challenges but can't figure its way around a bus system.
“This is Ecuador’s best time in history,” effused Arabel Torske of the communication department in Ecuador’s ministry of tourism, who, while visiting the Pinto household, shared she’s been working overtime to revamp the brochures, signage and other information services around tourism in Ecuador.
There’s a wide expanse to cover — several volcanic mountains, majestic cathedrals, and museums of Quito’s colonial district (the largest, least altered of its kind in the Americas, according to UNESCO), the Galapagos Islands and all the towns, rainforests and coastal communities in between.
International Living magazine recently gave Ecuador’s tourism industry a boost for the third year in a row, naming the Colorado-sized nation the best country for retirees, citing its affordability. The typical cab ride or mom-and-pop meal of meat and rice, fresh ceviche or locro (gold potato soup) costs less than $5, and mild climate factored in the magazine’s determination: There are only two seasons, one rainy, one dry (fairly similar to the Pacific Northwest), and temperatures usually hover around 75 during the day and 45 at night. The magazine also reported that a couple could live on $1,000 a month in Ecuador. Visitors often contend with altitude sickness. For me, it was an issue of exertion more than queasiness.
Visiting Quito for less than two weeks, it was quite a challenge to take in even a small portion of the city’s sights and nearby wonders. We didn’t make it to the Yasuni rainforest or Cotopaxi or Chimborazo, the highest summit in Ecuador, but we did take an exhilarating ride 10,000 to 13,000 feet up in an aerial lift called the Teleferico. We arrived at a plateau just beneath the “baby” and “old” Pichincha summits. A couple days later we participated in a nature study at the panoramic Cayambe Coca mountain reserve, followed by a dip in spring-fed pools. That memorable afternoon was capped off with a ride back to Quito in the bed of a farmer’s pickup truck.
Colonial Old Town, a virtually untouched four-century-plus-old district comprises white and pastel stucco row structures adorned with wrought-iron balconies, sandwiching a slew of massive old churches and cathedrals — the gilded La Compania de Jesus along with La Merced, San Augustin and many others — along quaint narrow cobblestone streets. A handful of worthwhile museums, the seat of Ecuador’s government and plazas of Independence and San Francisco are also in Quito’s historic district. At night, the streets of the historic La Ronda offer salsa dancing and wind empanadas — enormous, fluffy elephant-ear-like pastries that get their name from the huge air pockets inside.
Hangout time in La Mariscal (aka “Gringolandia”) and Guapulo neighborhoods gave us glimpses of Quito’s nightlife. A charming European-like village abutting the edge of a hill, Guapulo has a few counter-culture spots, like Café Guapulo, which is festooned wall to wall with fliers and customer-drawn illustrations. At the café, we drank canelazo, a hot toddy of cinnamon and moonshine. Posters touted concerts by bands like Manu Chao, who’ve performed there over the past few decades, in addition to countless spoken word and film nights.
Besides the virgin statue looking down from the Panecillo hill, Quito’s other signature landmark would be the cathedral and plaza of San Francisco. Once a pre-Columbian town center that the Spaniards converted into a monastery, the complex has a church built by sun-worshipping Incans, who designed an upper window to cast a perfect glow on the altar at dawn, along with several galleries displaying the paintings and sculptures of hundreds of monks.
Several statues have a signature halo of flames, as seen on the head of the Virgin of Panecillo and other statues representing saints and Virgin Mary apparitions, revered for bestowing miracles. Alarmingly realistic depictions of the crucifixion await in rooms around San Francisco’s beautifully arched atrium.
The works highlight a mix of indigenous mysticism and European tradition. Ecuador has evolved by bringing out the best of both.
This article appears in Jul 11-17, 2013.