Travel Running: The Galapagos & Ecuador

The Galapagos Islands

One of the most incredible places that I have ever run was in the Galapagos. This was a place I never in my wildest dreams thought I would even visit let alone being able to run here.

The island of Santa Cruz will be your first stop. The airport has its own island from which you take a long bus ride to a boat to get the the “main” island. When they throw your bag on top of the boat with nothing holding it down don’t worry they won’t lose anything.

So running here the last thing you need to worry about is getting lost bu you will get looks, I promise. These islands are very familiar with having tourists but then to see some blonde girl running down the dirt roads, it’s unusual.

From Santa Cruz I went to Isabela which has one dirt road so enjoy and explore. Take your phone or camera because you are pretty much guaranteed to run into a tortoise or multiple. If you make your way to the ocean you’ll probably run into a seal and they are far from shy.

One thing to be said about the Galapagos is that if you have a boat to catch or a tour leaving don’t mess around with times. There is typically one round of boats to the island a day and if you miss it and have a plane to catch in 2-days well you’ll be missing your plane and good luck catching another. There is one flight a day from Ecuador so you better be on that plane if you have any sort of a schedule you are trying to stick to.

Guayaquil, Ecuador

Guayaquil is one of the bigger cities in Ecuador and sits on the Rio Guayas. In Ecuador people speak Spanish, I know that is obvious but some other places you may get away with knowing people speak some English but here I found truly to be all Spanish. Knowing very basic Spanish did not get me very far in this country (thank goodness for native family).

Whenever I feel even slightly uncomfortable running in a foreign city I stick to the hotel gym. If I had a running buddy or someone else in the family to join me I would have loved to explore running along the waterfront but solo something in me said maybe not to go alone. In a place like Guayaquil I absolutely stick out from the people who live there and when I feel that attention drawn it makes me uneasy to run in a city that I am brand new to. Luckily the hotel had a treadmill (in kilometers) and I was able to get a good view of the city while still getting my run in. Later in the day, with my family, I was able to get out and explore the city by foot.

I highly recommend a walk to Las Peñas. Stairs, stairs, stairs. This is a beautiful area of the city where nestled along a massive flight of stairs are homes, shope, restaurants and is a very beautiful view of the city once you reach the top.

Montanita

This is where the people (young people) of Ecuador go to play. It is a beach, party, chill ocean town. We stayed at a hotel that was at the far north end of the beach which made running and not getting lost very easy. I love when I get the opportunity to do a run along the beach and Montanita could not have been a better place for this. The sand was the perfect texture, hard enough to provide a solid running surface and the waves were so calm. Of course this kind of a run is done barefoot. Since this is a party and nightclub kind of town the beach was almost completely empty in the morning, I had it all to myself. Being a pretty touristy town I also felt safe going on these runs alone. The beach here is very long which luckily lends itself to a pretty decent run. I would run one way down the beach until I felt like turning around and was able to get in 3-6 miles pretty easily. An incredible way to start the day!