FOX Reizen · Ecuador

Ecuador & Galápagos Island Hopping

From Amazon lodge to giant tortoises

Eighteen days across four worlds: the colonial streets of Quito, a jungle lodge deep in the Amazon, the avenue of volcanoes — and five days of island hopping in the Galápagos among sea lions, boobies and giant tortoises.

Ecuador & Galápagos Island Hopping — Photo by FOX Reizen on FOX Reizen

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The story

The taxi rattles out of Quito before sunrise, the city still wrapped in woodsmoke and cold, and within days you are somewhere completely different — soaking in thermal pools above Papallacta while cloud pours through the valley below. The Amazon lodge arrives next, humid and loud with frogs, then Baños with its candy stalls and the volcano glowing orange at dusk. Chimborazo stops you cold: that enormous white silence, the air so thin it feels borrowed.

Cuenca slows everything down. Cobblestones, cathedral domes the colour of oxidised copper, a market where women sell orchids by the fistful. Guayaquil is heat and river light, a one-night exhale before the flight west.

Then the Galápagos rewrite your sense of what wild means. A marine iguana blinks at your shoes on San Cristóbal. Sea lions sleep across the dock like they own it — because they do. Flying home, Ecuador feels less like a country visited than a thing that happened to you.

The route

Highlights

Five days of Galápagos island hopping incl. excursions
Jungle lodge in the Amazon with community visit
Snorkelling with sea lions
The equator monument and colonial Quito
Andean markets and the Chimborazo

Day by day

1
Quito
Day 1-3

A UNESCO-listed old town at 2,850 metres, plus a visit to the equator monument at Mitad del Mundo.
Photo by Lloyd Douglas on Pexels
2
Papallacta
Day 4

Steaming thermal baths high in the Andes, on the road down to the rainforest.
- Termas de Papallacta
3
Tena — Amazon lodge
Day 4-5

Two days in a jungle lodge: wildlife walks, canoe trips and a visit to an indigenous community.
4
Baños
Day 6-7

Adventure capital under the Tungurahua volcano — waterfalls route, swings over the abyss and hot springs.
5
Chimborazo & Guamote
Day 8-9

Along Ecuador's highest volcano to the authentic Andean market town of Guamote.
- Chimborazo Volcano & Chimborazo Wildlife Reserve
- Mercado Indígena de Guamote
6
Ingapirca & Cuenca
Day 10-11

Ecuador's most important Inca site, then the elegant colonial city of Cuenca with its blue-domed cathedral.
- Ingapirca Archaeological Complex
- Centro Histórico de Cuenca
- Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepción (New Cathedral of Cuenca)
- Mercado 10 de Agosto (Mercado 9 de Octubre)
7
Guayaquil
Day 12

Tropical port city and the springboard to the Galápagos, with iguanas in its central park.
- Parque Seminario (Parque Bolívar)
- Malecón 2000
Photo by Marx Ramirez on Pexels
8
Galápagos: Santa Cruz & San Cristóbal
Day 13-16

Island hopping with hotel stays on two islands: snorkelling with sea lions, the Charles Darwin station and giant tortoises in the wild — excursions included.
- Charles Darwin Research Station (Santa Cruz)
- Tortoise Reserve, Santa Cruz highlands
- Playa de los Perros / snorkelling sites, Santa Cruz
- Playa de la Lobería, San Cristóbal
- Cerro Tijeretas (Frigatebird Hill), San Cristóbal
Guayaquil
Day 17-18

Fly back from the islands and connect home via Guayaquil.

Photo by Marx Ramirez on Pexels