Garden of Eden
Travels in Ecador and Galapagos
While on the 32,000km Pangea One World Expedition from Arctic to Antarctic, the celebrated explorer and author, Akhil Bakshi, traversed Ecuador from north to south - making a side trip to Galapagos.
Extracted from Arctic to Antarctic: A Journey Across the Americas, the principal book on the expedition, Garden of Eden is a delightful travelogue narrating the author's adventures in Ecuador and Galapagos with his trademark wit and humour.
Entering Ecuador from the Rumichaca border in southern Colombia, he is detained twice in quick succession, suspected for smuggling antiques. In Otavalo, he captures the spirit of the lively Saturday market where he weaves through "the shuffling masses, all of them sun-baked and deeply wrinkled and attired in their traditional costumes of centuries ago - and containing enough dust to show for it."
A scintillating drive through the High Andes brings him to Quito's urban sprawl endangered by a host of volcanoes "venting their wrath". Admiring the artistic energy of Quito churches that is "an unabashed ode to opulence", he keeps the reader enlightened and entertained with tales of the rise and fall of the great Inca Empire; the quest of Spanish conquistadors to find El Dorado and its mountains of gold; of the continuing fight between Peru and Ecuador since 500 years - making it the longest war in history; the divide between the jealous monarchy and Jesuits; the search for the hidden mummy of President Moreno; and astonishing escapades of President Rafael Correa, "always keen to tweak Uncle Sam's nose".
Bakshi climbs the snow-laden Cotopaxi volcano to view from above the "spectacular moonscape of Andean highlands formed by mudflows, scorching rock and boiling gas, sweeping down the volcano at 700 kmph and pouring into the Pacific ocean, 100km away".
At Cayambe Coco Ecological Reserve, on the road to the Amazonian jungles, he reflects on nature’s sublime beauty and wonder. At the equator, the reader is provided with dismal details on the art of scalping and shrinking heads.
In Galapagos he meets with the island's resident birds, reptiles and marine life and provides an amusing peep into their life - and speculates if Charles Darwin had plagiarised his grandfather's writings and theories.
After shopping for Panama hat in Cuenca and discovering the town's architectural gems, he crosses the country's southern border into Peru.
An engaging read that may have you packing your bags for Ecuador and Galapagos.
