When planning Ecuador travel think about the Ecuador tours or tour you want to complete. See our best Ecuador tour. Ecuador is diminutive country that boasts a wonderfully diverse array of luxury Ecuador holidays. Ecuador is a pocket-sized version of all that is synonymous with Latin America. It has a landscape dotted with smoking volcanoes, well-preserved colonial towns, vibrant and colourful indigenous markets and vast tracts of sultry Amazon rainforest.
But Ecuador has one unique feature all of its own - the magnificent Galapagos Islands. Famous for their wide variety of fearless wildlife and as the inspiration for Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, a cruise around these fascinating islands is one of the world’s great travel experiences.
Proving the old maxim that the best things really do come in small packages,
Ecuador has more than enough to provide any visitor with an enthralling trip.
Highlights
Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands have almost an embarrassment of riches, an influence and reputation far beyond their physical size. Natural beauties range from the world’s deepest and densest rainforest in the east, across mountain landscapes patchworked into tiny fields by indigenous Indians, over the world’s second-highest volcano and skim Pacific waters to Darwin’s ‘Natural Laboratory’ of the Galapagos.
Offering the best of Latin America in miniature, within its compact borders, Ecuador contains everything a traveller could wish for in abundance. Its national parks and wildlife reserves include some of the richest Amazon jungle, but the highlight is the Galapagos islands, an archipelago of national parks nearly a thousand kilometres offshore.Here the animals that inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution have never learnt to fear man and let visitors stray close, each island has its own species and landscape.
Overlaying this natural beauty, Ecuador also has a cultural depth with stately colonial buildings and a dramatic mountainous landscape, where thriving Indian
communities throng local markets and proudly maintain their ancient cultures.
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Guiding you further
Overview the capital, Quito, with a helicopter flight or look closer through studio tours of leading artists and lessons at a major ceramics workshop. Should you wish
to visit Cotopaxi, the second-highest volcano in the world, we can get you there in style: on a chartered train with onboard naturalist. When we visit Cotopaxi by road
however, we often stop off at Hacienda la Herrería, a historic home housing priceless artworks, for tea with the owner. At Otavalo we visit a private Indian home so you can see the entire process of textile production.
In Cuenca we visit the leading ceramic producer, with the chance to commission a piece to your own design. We can organise cooking courses in Andean cuisine,
ballet displays and special Andean spa treatments. To experience rural life we can drive out into the foothills of the Andes and visit a private hacienda for a delicious
organic locally-grown lunch and a whooping, hollering mustering rodeo.
When it comes to the Galapagos we know every vessel and island, and choose the best. Manned by expert crew, our ocean-going craft also offer skilled naturalists and inspiring guides.
The Galapagos Islands
Darwin’s living laboratory – The Galapagos Archipelago – is a world apart, exceptional for its fearless wildlife. Any visitor to the islands can swim with a sea lion, paddle alongside a penguin, be amused by the ‘fool’ booby bird and observe a giant tortoise. The wildlife is truly unparalleled, the landscape barren, volcanic and markedly beautiful.Never connected with the continent, the islands contain many endemic species; a quarter of the shore fish, half of the plants and almost all of the reptiles are found nowhere else. The Galapagos Islands were discovered in 1535 by the Bishop of Panama drifting off course on his way to Peru. Ecuador officially claimed the Archipelago in 1832 and Charles Darwin arrived in 1835 on HMS Beagle where he was inspired to write his theory of evolution. Officially declared a national park in 1959, today the islands represent one of the most unique places on Earth. The Galapagos are a two-hour flight from Quito or Guayaquil.Whilst there are seasonal variations, the islands are a year-round destination.
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