Roaming South America

La Concordia, Ecuador

September 5, 2025

La Concordia is in the north-central part of the Coastal Zone of Ecuador. While north of the craziness of the crime-ridden central- and southern-coastal regions, the police here are still on high alert and have a big presence throughout the town. The shutdown of the town by 7pm is a bit less noticable here compared to Quevedo and Babahoyo. La Concordia has a population of around 35,000 and dates back to only 1955, so no historical architecture here. Actually, nothing of much interest here, other than the fact that the equator passes through the town.

The Equator through La Concordia

At the west side of town is a turning circle in Route E20. In the middle of the roundabout is a monument that is supposed to indicate the location of the equator. It's not quite in the correct location. The equator passes through town a couple hundred meters south of the monument. I discovered the exact coordinates of that location, 0.000000°, -79.383330°, and walked across town to see what was there. And what did I find? A futbol (soccer) field, a volleyball court, a small community center building of 1 room, and 3 sticks, one of which was trying to be a tree but failing, that and the two other sticks were all surrounded by circles of stones. That's it. No sign saying "THE EQUATOR." No tourists crowding around taking selfies. No line painted for you to stand with one foot in the Northern Hemisphere and the other in the Southern Hemisphere. It was quite nice, if rather plain. Across the soccer field is a tienda. I spoke with the owner while eating an ice cream bar, he said his house is build on the equator, as are many other along the street that passes along site the location of the equator. The street is hand-layed cement pavers, and down the center there are two yellow and one red stripes. Those strips are no more than 20 or so meters from the three stick-markers and heading directly east-west.

The Climate and Geography

La Concordia sits at about 217 meters above sea level and has a tropical rainy monsoonal climate. There two "seasons" - the warm and rainy "winter" (December - June) and the warm and less rainy "summer" (July - November). The annual daily high is about 29° C () and the annual nightly low is about 21° C(). The days of rain range from 11 to 21 per month. While I was here, it was only a couple of days, but there was no rain. Humidity is always in the 80-90% range.
Wikipedia

Tourism? Maybe.

The Wikipedia page has some paragraphs about tourism in La Concordia, but based on what I saw, they have a long way to go before they can call themselvs a tourist attraction of any real sort. There are some forest reserves outside of town. There are a few nearby rivers that supposedly offer rafting and canoeing, but in my walking about town I saw no tour agencies. My impression is they need to invest in these offerings to make them truly appealing to tourists.
Wikipedia

My Impressions

La Concordia is not a tourist destination, no matter what the Wikipedia says. It's not an ugly or bad town to visit, to stop for a bite to eat, but really, it's nothing special. After months in the Amazon zone and the mountains, and not seeing any of those stupid mototaxis, and crossing the mountains to Babahoyo and Quevedo, both of which have no mototaxis, here in La Concordia - yes, they're here. Granted, there aren't a lot of them, thankfully, but they are here driving like maniacs. That's the way of mototaxis. So, should you go out of your way to visit La Concordia? No.