I intended to spend a whole week at the coast of Ecuador and live in a cozy bungalow right at the beach of Ayampe, a small laid-back surfer town. Doing one week of just surfing, napping in a hammock by the sea and reduce the travelling pace from exploring every day to relaxing every day and learn to surf.
Baños, located in the Tungurahua province of Ecuador, is a popular tourist destination known for its beautiful scenery, outdoor activities, and therapeutic hot springs. The town is situated at the foot of the Tungurahua volcano and is surrounded by lush green mountains and cascading waterfalls.
Cotopaxi Volcano, located in the Andes mountains of Ecuador, is an awe-inspiring natural wonder that should be on every nature lover’s bucket list. Standing tall at 5,897 m (19,347 feet), it is one of the world’s highest active volcanoes and known for its almost perfectly symmetrical cone shape.
The town San Carlos in the Mindo Valley, mostly known as Mindo is a small village in the cloud forests of Ecuador. Being situated in a relatively low elevation of 1250 m on the western slope of the Andes it’s a transitional landscape between the mountains and the tropical rainforest. The region is of extraordinary biodiversity and you can find a myriad of animals here. It’s a Mekka for bird observation and offers many outdoor activities for both ends of the adventure spectrum.
The Quilotoa Loop is most likely the best trek in Ecuador and is very beginner-friendly. You can do it in several variations. However, the most usual version is the 3 day trek from the small village of Sigchos to the Quilotoa Crater Lake, the marvel of the Ecuadorian Andes. Personally, hiking the Quilotoa Loop was my greatest highlight in Ecuador. I haven’t met anyone doing this trek with an agency, it is usually done independently, which makes sense due to its simplicity.
For me this was the first time ever crossing the boundary of 4,000 m and I surely did underestimate what altitude sickness means. Personally, this was the first step towards my ultimate goal of climbing my first 6,000er later on in Bolivia.
Quito has the most original and best preserved colonial old town in South America and is the highest capital on Earth at 2850 m (Though La Paz in Bolivia is the highest administrative capital on Earth at 3625 m). It is surrounded by volcanoes and has a quite extreme shape. From north to south it stretches over 45 km while from east to west only about 8 km in average. Furthermore, the equator is crossing right through the northern part of the city and you can literally be in two hemispheres at the same time there!
