After the wildlife extravaganza of the Galapagos we have come on another nature trip. We are visiting the cloud forest or, to give it its proper title, pre-montane subtropical rain forest. Cloud forest exists between 900 and 2,500 metres on the steep western facing slopes of the Andes. As its name suggests for much of the time it is shrouded in mist and this makes for an area of high bio-diversity, second only to the tropical rain-forest (but without almost al...

The title of today's blog is a quote from Charles Darwin's account of his visit to the Galapagos in 1835 and it illustrates the uniqueness of these isalnds. As Darwin discovered the best way to see the Galapagos is to take a cruise. Whilst it is possible to stay on a couple of the islands and take day trips to some of the others a cruise enables you to get to places that are otherwise virtually inaccessible. Now I freely admit to being prejudiced about cruises...

We have come to go on a week-long cruise around a small group of islands of the coast of Ecuador. On the map they look pretty insignificant but they are intimately associated with the name of one man and the development of one of the most important of all scientific theories. The islands are the Galapagos, the man is Darwin and the theory is of evolution by natural selection. Flying into the islands they look like unlikely candidates for such an important role. T...

The Quilotoa Loop is described as one of the best hikes in South America, a walk through some of the more remote parts of the central Andes of Ecuador. It isn't very long, only about 36 kilometres, but it is mostly at an altitude of between 3,000 and 4,000 metres so it takes most people 3 days to do it. It starts in a small town called Sigchos, which has nothing particular to recommend it apart from being easily accessible by public transport from Quito. The f...

One of the things I find fascinating about South America is the way that the indigenous pre-Columbian cultures have survived and absorbed elements of Western culture, Catholicism in particular. Unlike the British who seemed to have a generally laissez-faire attitude towards the cultures of the countries they conquered, preferring to concentrate on their economic exploitation, the Spanish sought to impose Catholicism on the people of South America and destroy w...