Ecuador and the Galapagos – Day 18

Ecuador and the Galapagos – Day 17 can be found here.

Yesterday was a long day, but we’re glad to have the chance to sleep in until 7:30 am with breakfast at 8 am.

We start with fruit, yoghurt and muesli and then move on to bacon, eggs, toast, and pancakes. My wife had avocado and eggs on English muffins.

(I didn’t have my phone with me the first day, so you’ll need to wait til tomorrow for some breakfast photos.)

We then went off for a hike to the Condor Huasi (Rescue Centre), joined by Tango the Resort Dog:

There’s one dog who knows that he is a Good Boy

The Hacienda covers more than 5,000 acres, so there is ample room to explore.

Our route will take us up the main cobble path, and then back down past the ramp pyramids built by the Caranqui long before the Inca conquest.

But first, cows – some of the 1,200 at the Zuleta farm

And a trout farm!

We reach the Condor Huasi after about an hour’s hike, where biologist Yann Potaufeu is waiting for us. He shows us around the condor enclosure, where they have two pairs of reproductive condors – the only two in captivity – along with a 7-month-old female condor that was born at the Huasi.

The condor enclosure with the only two Ecuadorian breeding pairs in captivity

Though one day the Huasi hopes to be able to release newly-born condors into the wild, they are being kept in captivity to ensure conservation, and to assist with future breeding efforts – there are a mere 150 condors in Ecuador, and it takes a long time for new condors to be bred. Condors mate for life and only produce one egg every two years, so it can take a long time to breed new condors.

One of the older males, as taken from a distance – visitors aren’t allowed to get too close to the enclosure

And new breeding is needed. Ecuador has lost more than 22 birds over the past few years. Sometimes this is due to hunting – which is illegal in Ecuador – but mostly it’s due to the consumption of poisoned meat, which is often targeted instead at feral dog packs.

Unfortunately, there are limited government resources available to address the dog problem – so this ends up falling to a patchwork of non-government organizations instead, with limited results.

They’ve made a great deal progress with education to help counter some of the myths around condors – that they kill cows, carry off young girls, and that they represent bad omens.

After, we went inside to learn more about the condors and the spectacle bear – the only species of bear in South America. The markings on their face are as unique as fingerprints.

It’s rare to spot these bears, so we’re not holding out much hope of seeing them this visit. They are mostly herbivores and try to avoid people if possible.

After, we hiked down through the fields that led through the pyramids:

And the pyramid itself

Unfortunately, the paths here are not very well defined so we ended up having to duck under some barbed wire and crawl through some bushes before we finally found a path across the small river that separates these fields from the main cobblestone road. It cost us an extra 20 minutes, but I feel like it was still worthwhile.

Back to Zuleta, where we sat down for a lunch of creamy potato soup:

And crispy lime chicken:

There was dessert too, but I instead left to grab a quick power nap before we went horseback riding:

The stables at Zuleta are absolutely top-notch, and are one of the main reasons that people come from around the world to stay at this Hacienda. They even have their own breed of horse – the Zuleteño, a unique mixture of Spanish Andalusian, Thoroughbred and American Quarter Horse.

My wife and daughter particularly want to go on longer trips, but they asked that we start off with a brief visit to the waterfall before committing to anything further.

They provided the helmets and chaps (if we wanted them), though we elected to just use the helmets. We mostly walked but there was a bit of trotting too.

It was a lovely trip – very scenic:

We stopped about 100 metres short of the waterfall, and carried on the rest of the way on foot.

Then back to the horses, and back to Zuleta. We took a slightly more circular route on the return trip, which allowed for a change of scenery. The trip took roughly 2 hours in total.

My wife and daughter scheduled a longer ride for the next day, while my son and I are going to try mountain biking – they’ll drive us up the mountain, and we’ll bike back down from there.

We returned to our rooms for another bit of downtime, then went to the Zuleta living room at 6 pm for a cheese tasting and drinks.