Ecuador-able Adventures: your recommendations

Last week, we asked you for tips on a visit to Ecuador…and to be perfectly honest, wonderful Detour readers, you’ve absolutely outdone yourselves.

We’ve had to trim down the number of recommendations just to fit them all in, but here are some of our favourites. Thank you all so much to all of our travel experts!

Quito and Guayaquil

“A few recommendations in Quito - make sure to go up on the Teleferico, the city's cable car for great views of the city, although best not to do in the first two days for acclimatisation.

"The Itiñan museum on the Equator is also a must visit! There are a lot of fun sciency activities to try on the equator line, and you can even get a stamp in your passport!

“We had short stays in both Quito (Casona de la Ronda Hotel) and Guayaquil (Oro Verde Hotel) as well and felt safe in each. Sticking to the main tourist areas and the hotels was great, easy to walk safely to and from. People everywhere were welcoming, friendly and very tolerant of our super-limited Spanish!”

Mindo Cloud Forest

“El Monte Lodge in Mindo Cloud Forest was OUT OF THIS WORLD - spectacular location (you cross the river on a pulley seat!), beautiful gardens, forest and just 6 lodges, it's a Jurassic oasis with orchids, birds and butterfies. And the food is superb!

"Don't miss the El Quetzal chocolate tour in Mindo town, fascinating and delicious. Enjoy the cable cars up into the mountains too, the views!”

Jack’s notes: Oh, El Monte is exactly the kind of awesome, inventive eco-lodge that we love to see! The hotel owners even founded a biological research station in 2001 to help Ecuadorian scientists investigate the cloud forest’s unique wildlife.
Galápagos Islands

“We opted for a four-night cruise on a 16-passenger catamaran PLUS 4 nights to relax on Santa Cruz island.

"Winning combo: a catamaran is more stable, these smaller boats are cheaper than the big ones, you get plenty of space, max. time on all excursions due to the small group size and the Seaman Journey crew is AMAZING.

"On Santa Cruz, we stayed at the Ikala Hotel, in Puerto Ayora town. Not pricey, huge room, good brekkie, nice pool and perfect for strolling round town and port, to the Charles Darwin centre, or walking to the stunning Tortuga Bay.

"Take a water taxi across to Isla Grill (dinner with sharks beneath you as entertainment = a fun evening!) Don't miss the fish market, the Fair Trade shop Exotico and the Galápagos Deli.”

Cuenca

“For colonial beauty, try Cuenca, Ecuador's third city, in the south - it's a cultural hub and is easier to travel around, prettier, sunnier and safer than Quito. It's also right next to El Cajas National Park where you can take in the Andean scenery with llamas (for added zest).”

“My main suggestion is to visit Cuenca, even if it means sacrificing time in Quito. It's another stunning colonial-era city and UNESCO world heritage site, but is much safer and more relaxed than Quito. It's got great restaurants and lots to do.”

Baños

“As well as visiting the Devil's Nose and hot springs here, you must also visit the famous Swing at the End of the World to get some good snaps for the Gram!”

Jack’s notes: Located in the Casa de Arbol public gardens and earthquake-monitoring station outside of Baños, the Swing at the End of the World offers…well, the chance to swing back and forth out over the dizzying heights of the canyon below.

Sort of midway between 'aaaargh!' and 'wheee!'

Tena

“If they want somewhere hot, the city of Tena is a great place to get a taste of the Amazon without trekking out the reserves in the far northeast. Nearby Puerto Misahuallí has jungle boat tours and a river beach with a lively population of monkeys.

"We stayed in lovely eco-lodges in the middle of the Tena forest which was scary at nighttime because you can hear everything outside due to there being no windows in the cabins, but during the day it was great! Selina Tena Cabins gave us a great glamping Amazon experience."

Puerto Lopez

"Try Puerto Lopez just north of Ayampe for a more authentic Ecuadoran vibe and gentler waves, also a gritty-but-real fish market on the beach that gets mobbed by giant pelicans when the boats arrive.

"If they're self-catering in Puerto Lopez, prepare to pig out on the best, freshest and cheapest seafood anywhere in the country (restaurants are probably affordable too).

"Watch out for the strength of the sun down on the coast, it's quite literally blistering. Sun block all the way, especially on the Isla de la Plata day trip (which is spectacular! I don't mind not going to the Galápagos after seeing this place!)"

Jack’s notes: Sun block is certainly a great recommendation all around! If our travelling family heads to Puerto Lopez, I’d be really interested to hear if they run into Winston Churchill.

He’s a well-known fisherman and local character who regularly pops up in travellers’ stories - he runs day trips and fishing expeditions, often preparing fresh ceviche for his guests from the day’s catches.

Thank you so much again for all your recommendations, readers! If you'd like to see us cover a particular trip or destination in a future issue of The Detour, just let us know.

Our Pick of the Clicks

All the important (or silly, or strange) travel news from across the web this week.

Tokyo’s oddest building - the cube-filled Farewell Capsule Tower - is sadly set to be demolished.

• In the USA, United Airlines is finally allowing economy travellers to cancel their tickets.
• One BBC travel reporter, who has one of those jobs we can only dream of, has travelled out to the ‘most remote inhabited island on earth’ - Rodrigues, 600km north-east of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.
• These are the world’s most ridiculously over-the-top cruise ship cabins.
• Perhaps anticipating those April showers and painful blisters, Backpacker Magazine has written a great column about how to make hiking fun when the hiking is terrible.
• The Pudding (yes, it’s a real magazine) has done a cool deep-dive into the historical figures who are featured on banknotes all around the world.

Ten-Second Trivia: Malta

For this week’s ten-second trivia, the Random Country Generator threw up tiny Mediterranean Malta. So here we go, with another 'did you know?'

You’ve probably forgotten all about 1980’s live-action Popeye movie, starring Robin Williams, if you even knew it existed in the first place. (The New Yorker called it “cluttered, squawky and eerily unfunny.")

The people of Malta will be less likely to forget the film, however - since the Hollywood crew used a good chunk of their $20 million budget to construct a cartoonish but extremely pretty wooden village set along the island’s western coastline, and then promptly abandoned it.

This forget-to-clean-up-after-yourself attitude isn’t rare when it comes to movie productions - you can still visit the desert sets of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace in Tunisia, most famously.

But what is genuinely unusual is what happened next. The Maltese government decided not to tear down the abandoned set, and instead converted it into a miniature and extremely single-minded theme park.

Head to Popeye Village today and you can watch Maltese actors recreating, um, “iconic” scenes from the movie throughout the village streets. You can head to the village’s tiny cinema, which plays clips from the film over and over again. (We’ve found no evidence of anyone selling spinach-based street food, but surely that’s a missed opportunity.)

We poke gentle fun, but the village is eccentric, charming and well-received by visitors every year: AirBnB magazine described it as “ad hoc and cheesy and low-budget in a way that, at least for me, was almost sublime.”

You can even get married there, though no word on whether Popeye himself is licenced to officiate.

We don’t understand why this toilet-themed restaurant in Taiwan exists, but now that we’ve been forced to see it, we’re sharing it with you as well.

Thanks for reading!