5 Days: Jungle, Highland and Lakes

Day 1 of the 5 day adventure is spent in the cultural interactions and activities that we are confident will interest you and greatly enrich your visit to Ecuador. The following 3 days are spent in a stunningly beautiful ride or walk through jungle to the highlands and lakes of the Ecuadorean Andes.
Day 1: Local people and their way of life

8-9 am  Leisurely breakfast, accompanied by hummingbirds and clucking hens, followed by a short walk through the woods to meet your first guide for the day, who will show you the dairy farm and help you to hand milk the cows and make cheeses. Photo opportunities abound!

11am  Meet your next guide, who will take you on horseback (or on foot if you prefer) to a nearby organic vegetable farm.  After an excellent lunch served at the farm, skillfully prepared by Marcela Torres using home-produced, organic ingredients, you will enjoy a really first-class demonstration of the pleasures and perils of producing abundant, quality food to feed the whole family.  We are proud to place emphasis on ‘hands-on’ practice rather than just demonstration, and are confident that you will thoroughly enjoy your visit to this farm.

2pm  Brief but fun-packed visit to the community trout farm, where you will take part in the organized chaos of sport fishing, Ecuadorean style!

3pm  A fine conclusion to the day`s activities; you are treated to a guided tour of the trees, birds and wildlife in the beautiful cloud-forests adjoining the guest houses, before returning to a supper of trout, grilled over a wood fire
Day 2: From meadow to Jungle to Andean Highland.
After a hearty, organic breakfast, we set off on foot or on horseback for a stunningly beautiful 3 day trek to the highland lakes of Pinan.  We cross delightful woodland, streams and meadows before rising up through the jungle, pausing to enjoy superb views of the vast, mist-enshrouded nature reserve, and huge trees festooned with mosses, orchids and other epiphytes.
Towards midday we emerge from the jungle into the intense light of the West Andean highlands. The abrupt, almost surreal change from dense jungle to huge expanses of high altitude (3500m) grassland is astonishing. The Pinan lakes, shimmering in the distance, provide a fine setting for a tasty, traditional lunch, and there is plenty of time after setting up the campsite to explore and absorb the wonderful views and blissfully refreshing absence of “civilization” and all its trappings.
Day 3
After a delicious breakfast of empanadas and coffee we enjoy a morning of sport fishing for trout: hook and line for the traditionally minded, and the riotous fun of machete fishing for those willing to try something different!  A nourishing lunch, supplemented by the catch, is followed by a visit to a nearby indigenous settlement, to sample organic dairy produce and discover the local lifestyle in this beautiful highland corner of Ecuador.  Back at the campsite, the combination of good food and company, flaming sunset over the lakes and then a wonderful, humbling “starscape”, all make for the perfect finish to a great day.
Day 4
Refreshed and ready for the return journey, we take a route that enjoys wonderful views of volcanoes and jungle, as we descend from the highlands through the jungle and into the patchwork meadows, woods and vegetable plantations, crossed by fast-flowing, blue-water streams.

 Back at San Antonio, we enjoy well deserved refreshments,  say goodbye to our guides, and enjoy a short ramble to the farmhouse of the Rodriguez family.  We think you will be charmed both by the surroundings and by the nine children in this traditional, typically self-reliant family.  Pet parrots, turkeys, guinea-pigs and hens of different shapes and nameless breeds are all part of the riotous fun at this homestead. Whatever the undoubted difficulties of this way of life, typical of the Intag zone, we think you will agree that it is a million miles from the comfortable, slightly predictable reality of suburban life in Europe or North America. Unlike many tour operators, we are unashamed to share these differences with you: surely such rare intercultural experiences are one of the great benefits of travel!
Day 5
Today we learn – and taste – the fascinating art of cane sugar production by water mill, the oldest in Intag.  We cover the 5km to the mill on horseback, on foot, or by truck, according to your preferences. En route we stop at a deep river pool, a fine place to bathe in an idyllic setting.  Those opting to travel by horseback will enjoy the memorable (and highly photogenic) experience of bathing the horses.

After a traditional lunch at the mill farm house we set off for a tour of the farm, which includes a demonstration of the cultivation of semi-tropical crops such as yucca, coffee and banana.  The production of traditional, unbleached sugar from the crushing of the cane, through the various stages of heating and evaporation to produce delicious organic sugar, is a fascinating and tasty experience, and you are expertly guided by the quietly-spoken mill owner, Ivan  Ayala. The organic blocks of sugar which are the end result of the patient process of evaporation are far more nutritious and healthy than the bleached white sugar that normally appears on our supermarket shelves.  Afterwards, there is time to see the milling of maize by water mill, and the traditional preparation of mouth-watering maize tortillas.