Animal
KiNGDOM EcuADOR
Words by MARIA ALAFOUZOU Photos by CLAUDIA LEGGE
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SUITCASE MAGAZINE
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t 283,000 sq km, Ecuador is tiny in comparison to its neighbours Colombia and Peru, but its biodiversity more than makes up for its size. As one of 17 countries in the world classified as ‘megadiverse’, Ecuador is home to a beautiful coastline, the Andes mountain range, the Amazon rainforest, cloud forests, historical cities and, of course, the Galapagos Islands. The country’s main export is petroleum, but Ecuador has done well to leverage its natural assets for tourism over the past few decades – ensuring the country has a resource that if managed responsibly, won’t run dry.
After two weeks, Claudia and I had seen life regenerate in the most inspiring ways – a volcano exploding, a decaying piece of wood glowing with bacteria in the pitch black of night and giant tortoise hatchlings leaving their eggshells behind. But as we sat in the dimmed cabin on our flight home, we felt that we had only seen a tiny fraction of what this country has to offer.
I flew to Ecuador, along with the underwater photographer Claudia Legge, to capture the natural beauty of this South American country. In Quito we walked for hours through the cobbled streets of the Old Town, exploring markets and speaking to locals as volcanoes loomed around us. In the Andes, home to the spectacled bear and the Andean fox, we encountered a group of llamas who begged us for carrots, but then spat on us indignantly when we refused to give them any more. In the Galapagos we spent five days discovering species we had never dreamed of seeing – jet black iguanas that sprayed salt water from their noses and flightless cormorants who had traded in the ability to fly to swim in the ocean. At the end of our trip we found ourselves high in the cloud forest hiking to waterfalls and skybiking hundreds of feet across a canopy filled with toucans and hummingbirds.
SUITCASE MAGAZINE
95