Saraguro-Yacuambi Eco-expedition, Southern Ecuador

This tour package has been designed for people who enjoy nature, extreme trekking and camping. This tour requires tourists to be in good physical shape. During this tour tourists are required to trek for 5 hours for two days and with backpacks on their shoulders. Due to its high demand of energy this tour has been categorized as an eco-expedition.

During this expedition your will trek from the Andes to the jungle. The trajectory of this expedition allows you to truly travel off the beaten path and to see how vegetation and climate change with decreasing altitude. Although very tiresome, this expedition is a good way to test your selfdtermination and also allows you to visit places that few other people have visited, both Ecuadorian and foreign.

The comfort version of this tour involves taking a plane from Quito to Loja and back, avoiding the 12 hour bus ride from Quito to Loja and back. Consequently, this expedition version is only four days long. The rest of the expedition follows the same itinerary presented below.

Day 1: This eco-adventure tour starts in Quito, where we will take a bus and engage in a 12 hour long ride to the city of Saraguro, located in Loja province. We'll leave Quito at 6:00 pm and we'll reach Saraguro at 7:00 am the following morning.

Day 2: Once in Saraguro we'll head towards our host Saraguro home. There we'll go to our rooms and relax until breakfast time. After breakfast we'll head to the Smiling Mountain where we'll participate in a shamanistic ritual. During the rest of the morning and the afternoon we'll visit handicraft shops and other Saraguro communities. At night we'll have dinner with our host family and spend the rest of the night in the family's company.

Day 3: After breakfast, we'll say bye to our host Saraguro family and head towards the paramo, a wet ecosystem characterized by the presence of grasses , mosses, shrubs and other low vegetation. The paramo is great for bird watching and it will be

the starting point of our five hour trek. During our trek we'll climb through the paramo up to an altitude of 3500 meters above sea level and then we'll climb down to 2500 meters, at this altitude we'll by able to watch from the distance the jungle and the Chorrobanco waterfall. Late in the afternoon we'll reach the community called Tutupali, where we'll have dinner and spend the night in a tent.

Day 4: After breakfast we will engage in a horse-back riding tour along the Yacuambi River, which will take us to the community called La Esperanza. At this town we'll climb on a truck that will take us to the town of Yacuambi, where we will have lunch. After lunch we will depart to the Copalinga Ecolodge, which is located between the city of Zamora and the Bombuscaro Entrance of the Podocarpus National Park. We'll spend the rest of the day relaxing at Copalinga Ecolodge.

Day 5: In the morning we'll visit the Podocarpus National Park in order to enjoy a quick swim at the Bombuscaro River and to visit La Poderosa Waterfall. At noon will depart to the city of Loja, making a brief stop at the San Francisco Environmental

Education Centre in order to have lunch and to visit the cloud forest. We'll be in Loja by 2:00 pm and we'll spend the next few hours in this charming city. An interesting fact to note is that Loja won in 2001 a third place in a world-wide contest on environmental-friendly cities. At 5:30 pm we'll board the bus back to Quito. We will be in Quito's bus terminal at 7:00 am the following morning and our eco-expedition will formally end.

ALL-INCLUSIVE PRICE:	$680 US (Comfort Version) $595 US ( Student Version)
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY:	HIGH
MIN. - MAX. GROUP SIZE:	3 - 6 PEOPLE
DURATION:	5 DAYS
AVAILABLE:	ALL YEAR

The price of this tour includes,

All required transportation while on tour (except air flight to Southern Ecuador), all required meals while on tour (non-alcoholic beverages included), all required accommodation while on tour, Podocarpus National Park entrance fee, Ecuadorian taxes.
Tour guide and tips.
All activities mentioned in the itinerary.

The price of this tour does not include,

The air ticket to Southern Ecuador and back, departure from Ecuador tax ($31.60 US), costs of alcoholic beverages, medical expenses, insurance, phone calls, nor any extra activities you may wish to part-take.

To book this tour please use the on-line reservation form, give us a call or write us an e-mail using the contact info provided.

Don't forget to check-out our suggested things to bring list and the immunization requirements needed for this eco-adventure tour.

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