Trekking in Ecuador
Ecuador is tiny by South American standards yet it can claim to be the most diverse, friendly, and colourful of all the Andean countries. Here we find rainforest, snow capped volcanoes, high open paramo, mangrove swamp, beautiful tropical beaches and one of the world's great places - the Galapagos Islands.
All of our trips to Ecuador visit the incomparable street markets of Otavalo. Weavings and woollens, arts and crafts, vegetables and fruit are traded furiously with the entire populace seemingly in national dress.
The elegant snow-capped volcano, Cotopaxi (5897m) is world famous. It is only a short distance from Quito and features on both of our itineraries – on our ‘Peaks’ trip we hope to reach its summit, an 8-10 hour round trip, roped in teams of 3-4, with mountain guides. On our ‘Hikes’ trip the Cotopaxi National Park is our first walking location and although the summit is not our objective we can try the challenging climb up to the Refuge at nearly 4800m.
Lying 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands are home to an incredible array of birds, mammals and reptiles, whose isolation enabled Darwin to develop his 'origin of the species' theories on evolution. A place that must be visited!