ECUADOR REAL ESTATE
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Ecuador Real Estate: Cotacachi,
San Clemente, and Mindo, Ecuador
Ecuador Airlines
Ecuador airlines give you great
scope to get around this State of Colorado sized country which is just as well when you consider hw many
obstacles there are to traveling by land.
The Amazon jungle makes up 40% of the terrain and the imposing Andes
mountains, rising to nearly 21,000 feet make up another 20% of the surface area.
What this means is that despite good quality main highways, six lanes in
places, if you’re in a hurry and want to get from the highland cities to the coast or jump over the Andes
and down to the exotic Amazon then you’d best fly.
I’m a nervous flyer and the idea of taking flights on airlines of
developing countries is not something that’s terrifically appealing to me but I’ve now taken dozens of
internal flights on all 4 Ecuadorian airlines without the slightest incident. In fact the un-crowded skies
and professionalism of the crews and ground-staff have only gone to further re-assure as I make more
flights.
Ecuador only has two international airports at present, Quito and
Guayaquil. Consequently these two airports are hubs for domestic routes. Quito is the capital with a 1.8
million population and situated in the Northern Andes at 9,300 feet. Guayaquil is the main port with a 2.6
million population and at ground level.
You could catch one of hundreds of buses that travel between these two
cities every day. That’s if you wanted to be on a bus for 8-9 hours. This is a good option if you are on an
extremely tight budget as the cost is only $8. On the other hand there are roughly 15-20 flights every day
that take half an hour and cost about $60 one way. Go figure!
The four Ecuador Airlines are Tame, Aerogal, Icaro and
VIP. Tame is the
state airline and flies to the most destinations. Next comes Aerogal which is actually an abbreviation of
Galapagos Airways so they of course fly Quito to the Galapagos as well as many other routes. Icaro is the
3rd airline and just flies between the 3 main cities of Quito, Guayaquil and Manta.
VIP started out as a private airline for
executives but now additionally it flies to some of the smaller cities and some of its small aircraft are
sub-contracted by Aerogal.
Tame flies to the following cities:
Quito - Guayaquil - 13 flights
a day
Quito - Cuenca (third city in
Ecuador - in southern Andes)
Quito - Esmeraldas - (northern
port city near beaches)
Quito - Manta - (central coast
port city - near beaches of Manabí & near our project at
San Clemente)
Quito - Portoviejo - (capital
of Manabi province and near our San Clemente project)
Quito - Machala - (southern
port city - near to Peruvian border)
Quito - Loja - ( in the far
south of Andes - jumping off point to go to Vilcabamba)
Quito - Tulcan - (town on
northern frontier with Colombia)
Quito - San Cristobal Island -(
fly to one of 2 main Galapagos islands 600 miles offshore)
Quito - Baltra Island - ( fly
to another of 2 main Galapagos islands 600 miles offshore)
Quito - Coca - (fly to the
Amazon town - a jumping off point for Amazon adventure)
Quito - Lago Agrio - (another
Amazon town. An oil town and also adventures town)
Quito - Macas - ( a pretty town
in the Amazon but at slightly higher elevation - cooler)
Guayaquil -
Cuenca
Guayaquil -
Loja
Guayaquil - San
Cristobal
Guayaquil -
Baltra
The only international flight
that Tame operates is Esmeraldas - Cali. Cali is a 2 million plus population in southern Colombia and is
famous for formerly being a capital of drug cartels and also for the beauty of its women (one has to suppose
the men must be fairly handsome too but you never hear abut that). To travel from Quito to Cali by bus would
take 24 hours but a Quito-Esmeraldas-Cali flight connection would see you arrive in 2 hours 15 minutes.
Since it started operations in
1962 Tame has flown 700,000 flights and now flies brand new Embraer 170 and 190 planes (Brazilian), Airbus
A320 A319 and Boeing 727-200.
Tame’s website is at
http://www3.tame.com.ec/eng/index.htm
Aerogal is giving Tame some
serious competition as they have expanded the number routes they cover as well as introducing an
international flight from Miami to Quito and Guayaquil to Miami. So if you are flying from Miami to Ecuador
be sure to check out for the best deal available from American Airlines, LAN or Aerogal.
Aerogal flies from
Quito -
Guayaquil
Quito -
Cuenca
Quito - Manta ( close to san
Clemente - just 40 minutes drive)
Quito - San Cristobal
(Galapagos)
Quito - Baltra
(Galapagos)
Quito - Bogota (capital of
Colombia)
Quito - Medellin (large city in
northern Andes of Colombia)
Guayaquil -
Cuenca
Guayaquil - San
Cristobal
Guayaquil -
Baltra
Guayaquil -
Bogota
Aerogal’s fleet is all Boeing.
Nine Boeing 737-200 Advance and 1 Boeing 727-200 Advance. There website is at https://www.aerogal.com.ec/website/index.php?idioma=1
.
Icaro is Ecuador’s third
airline. They fly just two routes and my sense is that they are being driven out of business by Tame and
Aerogal. For example they used to fly Quito - Cuenca but now no longer do so. Still, they are generally
cheaper by $10 or so per one-way flight and also offer an alternative on busy weekends when its often real
difficult to get a flight.
They fly
just
Quito -
Guayaguil
Quito -
Manta
There fly with Boeing 737-200 s
and their website is http://www.icaro.aero
You’ll sometimes find these
websites are down or running slowly or only partially working but my experience is that they are getting
better.
Most times its not necessary to
make reservations in advance. The exceptions are holiday weekends - Christmas/New Year/ Carnival and Easter.
Also some of the routes with less flights such as Quito - Loja or Quito - Cuenca can fill up on Friday
evenings and Monday mornings when people are coming back to the big cities after spending weekends at home
with the families.
All the Ecuador airlines charge between $55 and $70 per one way flight.
The difference depends on the airline and the route. The exceptions maybe Loja ($75) and the international
destinations, Cali, Bogota, Medellin and Miami. Also flights to the Galapagos are usually around $400-500
return due to the longer distance and some extra taxes.
Lastly VIP
VIP is a small airline aimed at executives who want quick boarding and comfort. They do have
nice bucket seats. They fly from Quito to the jungle towns of Lago Agrio and Coca flying oil workers and
executives out to Amazon and they also fly Quito - Salinas.
VIP flies latest generation Dornier 328 - 100 Turboprops and I having flown in them they are
very quite and comfortable.
Salinas is to my mind the best
beach town in Ecuador. Small enough not to have crime and noise and hassle but big enough to have a mall and
modern clinic. We’ll soon have details of our new project just to the east of Salinas which will be a
standout project in Ecuador.
Both Manta and Salinas are
having larger runways installed so they can accept international flights. Manta already has the runway
thanks to the efforts of the US Air force who upgraded it to run their operations. Entering the terminal at
Manta you can see the plans for the new terminal building. Salinas is a small airport at present but already
you can see the work has started on the new runway.
If you look at a map of Ecuador and search out the larger towns and cities
you may wonder why small cities such as Santo Domingo, Ibarra and Ambato don’t have flights to them but in
every case it’s because the road communications are good to the major cities or thee is just not enough
demand.
Ibarra and Ambato are both about two hours away from Quito. It’s nearly
all 4 lane highway from Quito to Ambato and I just heard that there’s a six lane highway slated to be
constructed from Quito to Ibarra. This will be great news for those of us who live in
Cotacachi.
The current 2 lane highway is top quality and generally the travel time is
between one and three quarters to two and a quarter hours. Occasionally you can get stuck behind a slow
trailer so a six lane highway would probably cut off at least 15-20 minutes of the journey and when we add
in the fact the new airport will be at least 20 minutes closer to Cotacachi we could be looking at just over
an hours journey.
Until nest newsletter - happy
flying!
