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arrives atop a bed of creamed corn. And for dessert, I’m served a
chocolate bonbon filled with coffee and a halved achotillo (rambu-
tan) crowned with honeycomb.
More Ecuadorian chocolate awaits me the next day in La Floresta,
the city’s bohemian neighborhood. I’m here to join a free three-hour
walking tour with Quito Street Tours, which takes in historic haci-
enda houses, artists’ workshops, and a profusion of street art. Our
guide, Martín, leads the group past intersections where turquoise-
painted zones function as open spaces for graffiti artists from
around South America and the world to leave their mark. “For the
people who live here, it’s a way for them to design their own neigh-
borhoods,” Martín says.
Circuiting La Floresta we discover an unending array of murals
as diverse and vibrant as the city itself. At the entrance to Ocho y
Medio, a local arts cinema, is a psychedelic floral pattern by artist
Ana Fernández. Against residential walls the animated, geometric
characters of Apitatán come to life. There’s even a work by renowned
New York street artist Daze.
We also make time to taste organic “tree-to-bar” chocolates at
Pacari. Operations for the Ecuadorian chocolatier are based in La
Floresta, with a shop and tasting room across the street from its
production facility. We sample bars flavored with sweet fig, Andean
mint, and Peruvian pink salt, all of it made with rich, earthy dark
chocolate from the coastal province of Manabí.
ON MY FOURTH MORNING in town, a shuttle bus is waiting at Casa
Gangotena to transport me and half a dozen other trekking-clothed
passengers on the 3.5-hour journey to the mainland’s premier eco-
tourism destination, Mashpi Lodge. As we follow the highway north
through the city limits, I can’t help but picture the azure blue skies
rolling like inverted waves over the hilltops, pastel-hued colonial
edifices cresting the waves. Quito, if nothing else, is bewitching.
Fifty minutes later we cross the equator and continue northwest
as secondary highland forest gradually morphs into mist-enveloped
primary. The big hand-shaped leaves of the cecropia trees remind
me of nothing so much as a Bob Ross painting, the “happy little
trees” splashed across the forest canopy in gossamer strokes.
“Do you see those white trees?” asks our transfer guide Luis Pu-
ente, pointing to white dots across an open ravine. “It’s a trick of the
light. When there’s too much sun, they give it right back.”
The last hour’s descent takes us into the Chocó Rainforest on a
spine-jolting road that Puente euphemistically describes as “just a
little bumpy.” Amazingly, we’re still within the limits of Quito’s vast
metropolitan area.
Arriving at Mashpi Lodge is an experience unto itself: massive
perimeter gates swing open like the entrance to Jurassic Park. The
hotel sits on 1,300 hectares of pristine conservation land on the di-
viding line between the Chocó Rainforest and the tropical zone of
the Andes. It’s a region of incredible biodiversity, with more than
400 bird species (35 of which are endemic), 50 types of mammals,
and a staggering array of amphibians and reptiles calling it home.
The brainchild of former Quito mayor Roque Sevilla, the angular,From far left: Chef
Wilson Alpala of
Zazu; Mashpi Lodge’s
Dragonfly cable car.
Opposite, clockwise
from left: Mashpi
Lodge; one of the
lodge’s 18 guest
rooms; a Chocó
rain frog spotted
on a night hike at
Mashpi; the Pacari
Chocolate shop and
tasting room in La
Floresta; guaguas
flatbread and a salad
of avocado, radish,
cherry tomatoes,
and passion fruit
vinaigrette at Somos.QuitoECUADORPERUCOLOMBIAMashpi Lodge