The Occidente of Ecuador: A Journey from Quito to the Pacific

Resumen

A PART from the almost unknown and as yet little explored Oriente, or eastern region of the great Andes of Ecuador, where the headwaters of many famous rivers take their origin, there still remain several vast areas, inhabited only by remnants of Indian tribes, which are but rarely trodden by the foot of the stranger. The following description is of one of these lesser-known parts of the country to the west of the Cordillera, which was recently traversed by the writer from Quito, through Santo Domingo de los Colorados, to the Pacific Coast. To the north-west of this belt, practically a never-ending wilderness of virgin tropical forest, the northerly flowing waterways which enter the ocean near the seaport of Esmeraldas are more travelled and better known, and Pizarro himself, when he made his first attempt to conquer the Inca in the early part of the sixteenth century, was probably familiar with the same natural highways. To the south of Santo Domingo we have the immense region drained by the numerous tributaries of the Guayas river system, the low-lying lands through which these rivers flow supporting, in normal times, a fairly prosperous race of agriculturalists, who float their produce such as cocoa, coffee, rubber, sugar, tobacco, and fruits of all kinds down to Guayaquil, the chief port of Ecuador, where they are marketed and thence exported to other countries.