The Team Sherpa Blog

I recently guided a trip to Ecuador. It was a geographic excursion to one of the most interesting countries of South America. I first visited the country in 1996 as backpacker and climbing beginner. With the ascents to Cotopaxi and Chimborazo I started my climbing career and dedicated my self to high altitude areasJ
Later on I managed to climb in various parts of the Andes but it was only in 2007 that I visited Ecuador again with the students of Department of Geography, University of Ljubljana. I adjusted the trip program to the geographic features of the country which means that my goal was to explore all the 4 main geographic regions of the country - Costa, Sierra and Selva - Oriente as well as Galapagos Islands. Since there was a great interest for the trip also among the profs we went again at the end of January. In 18 days we were trekking in the Sierra, exploring the indigenous highland markets, waiting for Tungurahua (the Mama Volcano) to erupt, then cycling, walking and rafting in the Selva/Oriente region. Heading back to highlands we experienced the unique city atmosphere in the city of Cuenca, we walked in the Cajas National park and then took the thrilling road to the coast - from 4200 m a.s.l. till the sea level in 2 hours!
The last 4 days of the trip we visited Galapagos Islands - one of the most well known protected areas of the Earth. Exploring the wildlife and (in some parts only!!!) preserved landscape enchanted us all but we also left the islands with a bit bitter taste - the negative environmental impacts of tourism as well as permanent settlements in the archipelago are very obvious and we were adding to that… Hmmm, we all like to travel to unique, “untouched” places and tourism became one of the most important but also polluting world industries… Another issue to solve… How? …I just know that is needs to be solved very soon…