Ecuador

Reading List

FIELD GUIDES

Birds of Ecuador, A Field Guide

Paul Greenfield & Robert Ridgely

A comprehensive, gorgeous and exhaustively researched field guide to the birds of Ecuador (and adjacent countries), featuring 96 color plates. It's also the best bird guide for travelers in the Peruvian Amazon.

 

Amazon Insects - A Photo Guide

James L. Castner

Spectacular, weird and commonly encountered bugs, butterflies, katydids, leafhoppers, ants, bees, spiders and other insects of the Amazon basin. Geared for the traveler, with 200 color photographs.

 

Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, Travellers' Wildlife Guides

David Pearson & Les Beletsky

An excellent guide to Ecuador's wildlife, featuring concise descriptions and color illustrations of 500 frequently encountered reptiles and amphibians, birds, mammals and insects. The Galapagos Islands get a separate chapter and section of illustrations.

 

Neotropical Rainforest Mammals, A Field Guide

L.H. Emmons

Compact enough to slip into your daypack, this field guide to the mammals of Central and South American features 29 color plates of more than 200 species.

 

MAPS

Ecuador Map

Borch Maps

A laminated map of Ecuador at a scale of 1:1,000,000, with detailed insets of Quito, Guayaquil, Galapagos and the Ecuadorian Amazon on the reverse.

  

Quito and Northern Ecuador

ITMB

A full-color map of Quito and surroundings for the traveler, at a scale of 1:12,500.

 

GUIDEBOOKS

Insight Guide Ecuador and Galapagos

Insight Guides

Presenting the natural history, politics, culture, wildlife and attractions of Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands with style and authority.

 

Lonely Planet Ecuador & Galapagos Islands

Lonely Planet

An excellent practical guide to Ecuador and Galapagos for independent travelers.

 

Lonely Planet Latin American Spanish Phrasebook

Lonely Planet Publications

A handy Spanish phrasebook, with a short two-way dictionary.

 

Moon Spotlight Quito

Ben Westwood

A slim, authoritative guide to Quito and the Ecuadorian Andes. What Moon guides lack in flash, they more than make up for in personable, clear writing, expert recommendations and advice. The text is interspersed with color photographs and maps.

 

Viva Travel Guides Ecuador, Climbing and Hiking

Rob Rachowiecki

This practical guide draws on the Viva online community for its in-depth recommendations.

 

Culture Smart! Ecuador

Russell Maddicks

A concise and practical guide to local customs, etiquette and culture with a short overview of the land and people along with practical travel advice.

 

Rough Guide Ecuador

Harry Ades & Melissa Graham

A compact comprehensive guide to travel in Ecuador, including Quito, the Oriente and Galapagos with extensive listings, dozens of sketch maps, and a brief overview of culture, nature and history.

 

NATURAL HISTORY

Through the Eyes of the Condor, An Aerial Vision of Latin America

Robert B. Haas

This collection of stunning, oversized photographs, taken from above, shows the jungles and favellas, the reefs and ruins, wildlife and diverse landscapes of Latin America.

 

Volcanoes, Fire from the Earth

Maurice Krafft

By the great French volcanologist (who died on the job on Mount Unzen in Japan in 1992), this pocket guide features hundreds of full-color paintings and traces the study of volcanoes from early myth and legend to modern science.

 

Tropical Nature

Adrian Forsyth & Ken Miyata

Two uncommonly observant and thoughtful field biologists offer a lucid portrait of the tropics through 17 marvelous essays that introduce the habitats, ecology, plants and animals of the Central and South American rainforests.

 

A Neotropical Companion

John Kricher & Mark Plotkin

From plants and animals to birds and bugs, it's all here in this wonderfully written overview of the ecology, habitats, plants and animals of Central and South America.

 

The Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon

Michael Goulding, Ronaldo Barthem, & Efrem Ferreira

This beautiful, profusely illustrated atlas of the river includes its major tributaries and 150 full-color maps. Goulding (Floods of Fortune) and Brazilian biologists Barthem and Ferreira provide the accompanying text.

 

HISTORY & CULTURE

Banana, The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World

Dan Koeppel

Koeppel traces the history, natural and otherwise, politics and precarious current status of modern monoculture, touching down in India (world center of banana diversity), Ecuador (world's largest producer) and Central America.

 

Ecuador Reader, History, Culture, Politics

Carlos De La Torre & Steve Striffler

A portrait of a nation. This lively sourcebook gathers selections from long out-of-print travel accounts, articles, interviews, poems, literary excerpts (and even a recipe) to document the vitality and diversity of modern Ecuador.

 

Tree of Rivers, The Story of the Amazon

John Hemming

Hemming captures the ambition, greed and awe of naturalists, explorers and missionaries -- and their devastating impact on native peoples -- in this absorbing human history.

 

Forgotten Continent

Michael Reid

Economist editor Reid draws on his years in the cities, presidential palaces and shantytowns of Central and South America in this portrait of a region rich in oil, farmland and culture, with consideration on its prospects in the face of globalization.

 

In Focus Ecuador, A Guide to the People, Politics, and Culture

Wilma Roos & Omer van Renterghem

This slim guide provides a lively overview of Ecuador's history, cultural heritage and political, environmental and economic challenges.

 

Portrait of a Nation, Culture and Progress in Ecuador

Osvaldo Hurtado

President of Ecuador from 1981 to 1984, Hurtado writes of cultural values and obstacles to change. A main one, he writes, is that beliefs and cultural attitudes in the country impede economic success.

 

The Great Inka Road, Engineering an Empire

Ramiro Matos

An astute collection of essays on the "Qhapaq Nan" (the Great Inca Road), its engineering, practical purposes and the great Inca civilization that built it. Includes more than 225 full-color illustrations.

 

The History of Ecuador

George Lauderbaugh

this compact book includes chapters on Ecuador today, Ecuador's indigenous and colonial past, the oil boom and other events.

 

Weaving and Dyeing in Highland Ecuador

Ann Pollard Rowe & Lynn Meisch

A well-illustrated, authoritative overview of textiles and textile traditions in the Andes of Ecuador. Unrivaled in its detail, the study includes not only descriptions of highlanders' indigenous weaving and dyeing technology, but also an interpretation of their works' historical significance. Features hundreds of photographs, drawings and maps.

 

Woven Stories, Andean Textiles and Rituals

Andrea Heckman

This illustrated survey focuses on Quechua textiles, traditions, designs and daily life in the Andes, specifically in the high country surrounding Ausangate, 85 miles southeast of Cuzco.

 

Valverde's Gold, In Search of the Last Great Inca Treasure

Mark Honigsbaum

The spellbinding account of a tough journey into Ecuador's Llanganati mountains in search of buried Spanish gold.

 

Living Poor

Moritz Thomsen

Moritz's heartfelt account of his small triumphs and tragedies as a Peace Corps volunteer in a village on the Ecuadorian coast is a classic.