Overlanding Ecuador: the land of volcanoes, tropical vibes and jungle fever

Almost 6 months ago, we started our Global Honeymoon.
As time goes by, we don’t even know what day of the week it is…
But we do know it’s time for our blog update about exciting Ecuador!
And oh boy, it was exciting!

What did we like in Ecuador?

  • We encountered so much diversity in a small period of time. From tropical vibes to crisp cold days, from drop dead stunning lake views to mystical volcanoes and jungle fever. Ecuador has it all!
  • For once, this was a smaller country and thus hooray for smaller distances and more quality time to discover the outdoors.
  • Cheap fuel amigos! With 31 cent per liter it was a joy to fill up the tank every time.

What didn’t we like?

  • Nothing Ecuador can do about, just too little time to visit it all! Why? Because we have a family playdate in Bogota, Colombia where we need to be in time 🙂 We’re looking forward to that!

The highlights of overlanding Ecuador

  • If you want to see a stunning bluegreen lake tucked away in a volcanic crater, Lago Quilotoa is your piece of heaven. You can choose to do a multiple day hike or a one day hike all around the crater. If you don’t have much time – like we did – you can just have a great view from 2 different miradors.
  • Never thought that it would happen in the chaotic planning but we met up with other overlanders: Olivia (Liv) and Ashwin (Ash). It was a short get together at lake Quilotoa for a yummie home made dinner and breakfast but we enjoyed it so much! So funny how many resemblances there are between two travelling couples 🙂 If you happen to dig splendid nature pics taken by a drone and catchy stories, you’ll fall in love with their blog:  ashlivin.com. You can follow their adventures on instagram @aatre and @livspark. And if you’re up for healthy recipes, follow Olivia @thehealthycamper.
  • Ecuador is the land of the volcanoes. Couldn’t miss that! We camped at the foot of the Cotopaxi volcano. When we arrived in the late afternoon, it was all covered in clouds and we couldn’t see a thing. It soon began to rain and everything turned pitch black. But all would be great in the morning! We woke up at 6am and there it was: Cotopaxi in full glory! We enjoyed it for about 10 minutes until the clouds covered it all up again 🙂 But hey, we saw the damn beautiful volcano!
    Top tip: the national park closes at 3PM but if you only want to sleep there you can enter until 5PM. Entrance is free.
  • We had a jungle fever since the beginning of our trip and thus Ecuador was our last chance to do it! We traded our Land Cruiser for a boat in the Cuyabeno Jungle. Together with Green Forest Ecolodge, we spotted more animals than we had imagined! From monkeys to sloths, pink dolphins, big blue butterflies, snakes, spiders, frogs, bats, scorpions, … We’ve seen them all! We floated in the Amazon Laguna Grande which was very relaxing, until we spotted a huge caiman 200 m further down the river 😀 We went bird spotting at 6AM and couple times caiman and boa spotting as soon as the darkness set. We did day and night hikes in the dry parts of the jungle and spend some time paddling in a kayak with the whole group. And last but not least: visited the Shaman and baked yuka bread with the locals. The food in the lodge was delish and the company even better. Thank you Darwin, our guide, for the cool experience!

Where to next?

Right now, we’re waiting for Christophe and Olivier, Dimitri’s brothers! They will arrive in a couple of hours in Bogota, where we’ll spend the next two weeks travelling together. Happy family reunion coming right up! And yeah, we’re more than excited to overland Colombia with them 🙂 More about that in our next blogpost 😉

Enjoy our pics and talk to you soon!
Ciaokes to all of you,
Sarah & Dimitri

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