Bahía de Caráquez

By Katie Tibbetts

This clean and breezy town, sitting on a slender peninsula reaching into the Río Chone, boasts a quiet atmosphere accompanied by tall white-fronted apartment complexes and broad tree-lined avenues. Locals in San Vicente say the best thing about Bahía is the view from San Vicente. To a certain extent, the city does seem a lot more impressive from afar than up-close. Once a holiday haven for high-heeled Ecuadorians, Bahía was tormented by unrelenting El Niño rains in the late 1990s. Severe flooding, coupled with a double earthquake, destroyed buildings and roads, triggered landslides and pretty much washed out tourism in the area. The city has made a brilliant recovery, however, and along with the repaired roads and reconstructed buildings came the growth of a new urban bent: ecotourism.

Declaring itself a ciudad ecológica, or eco-city, Bahía has kicked into high environmental gear with a handful of recycling, reforestation, conservation and environmental-education programs. The town even has its own eco-taxis: tricicleros painted forest green. To commemorate their ecological declaration, the town celebrates every February 28, with music and eco-friendly events like mangrove planting. Navigating the town is relatively easy: the Malecón wraps around the edge of the peninsula, eventually becoming Circunvalación as it approaches the shore. Some of the best and most popular eateries line the riverside, close to the ferry, in an area touted as Malecón 69. For a little culture head to Museo Bahía de Caráquez, which houses an excellent collection of archaeological artifacts from a variety of prehispanic coastal cultures. Casa Velázquez and Casa de la Cultura are also noteworthy.

Although Bahía's beaches are nothing to brag about, the town is lively and friendly on weekends (though a bit deserted during the week) and there are a number of interesting and worthwhile sites located nearby. The Río Chone estuary consists of several islands and mangrove habitats; this unique area is a bird's and a birder's paradise. During mating season, from August to January, visitors can observe the male frigate bird and his characteristic red-puffed chest, among other winged residents, nesting in the mangroves. Lying within striking distance of tropical dry forests, mangrove islands and remote beaches, Bahía is a good place to get down with nature, or just spend a pleasant afternoon meandering along the Malecón.