Ecuador Travel Information and Travel Guide

Introducing Ecuador

Nowhere else on earth will you find so much natural diversity – and all the fun that accompanies it – in so tiny a place. Ecuador is the second-smallest country in South America, but its range of offerings is no less than astounding. In one day’s drive you can journey from the Amazon Basin – that’s the Amazon Basin – across glaciated Andean volcanoes, down through tropical cloud forest and sputter into the sunset for a dinner of ceviche on the Pacific coast, where – yes indeed – the water is warm. One day you’ll pick through hand-woven wool sweaters at a chilly indigenous market in the Andes, and the next day you’ll sweat all over your binoculars while spying on howler monkeys from a canopy tower in the Amazon rain forest.

For nature lovers Ecuador is a dream, with exotic orchids and birds, bizarre jungle plants, strange insects, windswept páramo (Andean grasslands), dripping tropical forests and the fearless animals that hop, wobble and swim around the Galápagos Islands. For the adrenaline junky, the choices are outrageous: mountaineering, trekking and white-water rafting are world class. Toss in some horseback riding and surfing and you’ll go home with a happily aching body. And for the culture vulture, Ecuador is a labyrinth of indigenous heritage of traditional costumes and highland markets, where a constant rhythm of sound and movement envelops you. As for colonial architecture, few cities top the beauty of Cuenca and Quito, both of which are Unesco World Heritage Sites.

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