Destination: Ecuador
Given the Dire Economy, Should I Travel Overseas This Year?
by Rolf Potts | 04.20.09 | 10:12 AM ET
Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel and the world
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Yahoo! BuzzAnd the Eco-Vacation Oscar Goes to ...
by Joanna Kakissis | 02.20.09 | 11:33 AM ET
Host Hugh Jackman and the losers! As part of a sweet “Everybody Wins at the Oscars!” deal, tour operator Lindblad Expeditions will host Jackman, all the non-winning acting nominees and best director nominees on a 10-day trip to the Galapagos, National Geographic Adventure reports.
I’m dying of jealousy, and not because I want to hang with Brangelina and the rest of the glitterati—but with the ancient tortoises and Galapagos penguins! Hope, too, that this announcement doesn’t mean a crush of paparazzi and crazed fans trampling on these fragile enchanted islands.
How about if Lindblad just sends me and my little footprints instead?
Happy 200th Birthday, Charles Darwin
by Eva Holland | 02.13.09 | 11:00 AM ET
From "HMS Beagle at Tierra del Fuego" by Conrad Martens (via Wikipedia) Charles Darwin, author of the classic travel memoir The Voyage of the Beagle (oh, and that other book, too), would have turned 200 years old yesterday. To celebrate, the BBC’s David Shukman visited the Galapagos Islands, armed with a small Darwin library, and filed a series of compelling dispatches on how Darwin’s observations are holding up today.
A quick sample: “A giant frigate bird circles in the dusk sky. A lurid depiction of Charles Darwin adorns an arch outside our hotel. Once again, there’s a sea lion snoozing beside our table. It’s no longer a surprise. I must be evolving too.”
Video: How to Use a Machete
by World Hum | 01.22.09 | 9:18 AM ET
Far flung travel sometimes requires a little bushwhacking. Rowan Doff explains.
Video: How to Sleep in a Hammock
by World Hum | 01.06.09 | 9:01 AM ET
Daniel Beck explains the ins and outs of taking a snooze in a swinging bed
The Quichua Cacao Farmers Behind Kallari Chocolate
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.12.08 | 9:33 AM ET
The $5.95 bars of rich, smooth Kallari artisan chocolate sold at Whole Foods come from an island on the Napo River in Ecuador’s rain forest. The Quichua people have been farming cacao for generations and then selling it, but now they’ve cut out the middleman and are making and marketing the chocolate themselves. The New York Times reports that they may be the only cacao farmers in the world who make and market their own chocolate.
Threatened Galapagos Considers Limiting Visitors
by Jim Benning | 10.10.08 | 12:26 PM ET
We noted last year that UNESCO added the Galapagos to a list of endangered places, citing a sharp rise in tourists, as well as migrants seeking work in tourism. Now, the Los Angeles Times reports that the Ecuadorian government has begun sending migrants back to the mainland, and it’s considering a management plan that could limit the number of visitors to the islands “with strategies such as raising the entrance fee for foreigners to $300 or more from $100.”
Attachment and Loss at 10,000 Feet
by Leigh Ann Henion | 06.05.08 | 3:09 PM ET
Leigh Ann Henion often fears losing her past. When she met up with an 8-year-old girl at a festival in Cuenca, Ecuador, the last thing she expected was a lesson in living in the present.
We Just Can’t Quit You, Quito
by Jim Benning | 05.19.08 | 11:08 AM ET
Last May, we noted that a $200 million renovation project in Ecuador’s capital was bearing fruit: crime was down, beauty was up and, according to some, old colonial Quito was worth more than a stopover en route to the Galapagos or Amazon. Today, the Los Angeles Times also reports on the city’s revitalization-in-progress. “Helped by foreign donors, the city now spends nearly $70 million a year restoring downtown landmarks,” Chris Kraul writes. “Recent projects include the centuries-old Jesuit La Compania, La Merced and San Francisco churches.”
Related on World Hum:
* In Cuenca, Ecuador, a ‘Spare, Unhurried, Bohemian Life’
Photo by L.Marcio_Ramalho via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
I Plan to Take My 9-Year-Old Daughter to Ecuador. Is it Safe? Any Tips?
by Rolf Potts | 04.08.08 | 11:55 AM ET
Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel
Dark Days on Galapagos
by Julia Ross | 02.04.08 | 10:33 AM ET
Unsettling news out of the Galapagos Islands: The BBC reports on the mysterious killing of 53 sea lions in the islands’ nature reserve. While poachers have been known to target the animals for their skin and teeth—prized ingredients in Chinese medicine—that doesn’t seem to be the case here, and park officials are at a loss to explain the slaughter. The tragedy hits the Galapagos at an uncertain time, with green groups warning that the islands’ unique ecosystem is suffering under a sharp increase in tourism.
Where the Roads Diverged
by Catherine Watson | 10.08.07 | 12:23 PM ET
After searching all her life, Catherine Watson felt she'd found home on Easter Island. Then she heard a whisper in her ear: Be careful what you wish for.
Ecuadorian Airline Unveils In-Flight Lingerie Shows
by Michael Yessis | 07.10.07 | 11:43 AM ET
And they say the glamour is gone from air travel. In the tradition of the Singapore Girls and Hooters Air, Ecuador’s Icaro Airlines has been parading beautiful women as in-flight entertainment via 10-minute lingerie shows on selected flights. “It was a surprise, really. A very nice surprise,” one passenger on a flight from Quito to Guayaquil told Reuters. “Before the trip was short, now it feels really short.” Reuters has the original video that features, among other things, leering men and at least one visibly uncomfortable woman. Not surprisingly, the video has multiplied across the Internet. (Via The Perrin Post.)
Related on World Hum:
* Singapore Girl: Icon, Anachronism, Winged Geisha and Pretty Young Thing
* The New Hot Job in India: Flight Attendant
* Lesson No. 1 of Hooters Air: It Is Awfully Difficult to Make Buffalo Wings at 33,000 Feet
Photo by abogada samoana, via Flickr (Creative Commons).
UNESCO Adds Three Sites to Danger List, Names Next World Book Capital
by Michael Yessis | 07.10.07 | 11:14 AM ET
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has had a busy few weeks. Not only was it busy issuing a press release claiming no affiliation with the new seven wonders, during meetings in Christchurch, New Zealand, the group added the Galapagos and their surrounding marine reserve; Samarra, Iraq; and Senegal’s Niokolo-Koba National Park to its list of endangered World Heritage sites. Two more sites—the Royal Palaces of Abomey, Benin and Kathmandu Valley, Nepal—were removed from the Danger List.
Quito: No Longer Just Stopover Country
by Jim Benning | 05.21.07 | 3:42 PM ET
For years now, many travelers have stopped in Quito only briefly while on the way to the Amazon or Galapagos Islands, due in part to concerns over crime, writes Danny Palmerlee in the San Francisco Chronicle. But thanks to a $200 million restoration project in the city’s historic center, crime is down, beauty is up and, according to Palmerlee, Ecuador’s capital is now worth a visit in its own right: “Architects and restoration crews have completed more than 200 separate works, including the city’s cathedral; three historic theaters; the narrow, postcard-perfect street known as ‘La Ronda’; plazas; monasteries; churches; and entire blocks of colonial homes whose wooden balconies make Quito’s streets so picturesque.”
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