Suggested Itinerary
Day 1: Transfer In
Arrival transfer to Casona de la Ronda.
Day 2: Otavalo Runa Tupari – volunteer
After breakfast your private drive will collect you and you’ll head to Otavalo and the Runa Tupari office. The program starts with a visit to several indigenous villages and handicraft workshops. After lunch you will have some free time to explore the famous market in Otavalo, before heading to the village where you will have dinner with your host family and spend the night.
Overnight: lodging in a community house
Day 3: Runa Tupari – volunteer
Early in the morning breakfast with host family and guide, then Visit Cuicocha Lake and hike around its perimeter, enjoying the diverse flora and fauna of the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve, around noon lunch and free time in Cotacachi, home of Ecuador’s finest leather craftsmen.
Then the transportation will drive you to your homestay accommodation. In the afternoon you will share of the daily activities of host family, which includes helping in the farms and with the livestock animals. Dinner will be served in the early evening.
Overnight Village Homestay
Day 4: Runa Tupari – volunteer
Today, after breakfast, take a drive to Lake Mojanda (about 45 minutes) for our climb of Fuya Fuya Mountain (4.265m, 14.000ft). Lunch in Otavalo and you will spend the rest of the day with your host family, taking part in their daily activities and having dinner with them.
The other days will be spent helping out with the daily activities of the community’s farms, including harvesting, planting, weeding, helping with the livestock, reforesting and may include some activities with kids in the afternoon or helping out at their demonstration garden.
Overnight Village Homestay
Day 5: Runa Tupari / Casona de la Ronda
After breakfast and some optional morning activities return to Otavalo and then move on to Quito staying overnight at a hotel near the airport for your early morning departure to the Amazon Jungle.
Overnight Casona de la Ronda.
Day 6: Transfer to Napo Wildlife Center (NWC)
Breakfast at Casa Tababela and departure transfer to NWC.
Departing from Quito, Ecuador’s capital city, a 30-minutes flight over the eastern Andes will take you to the jungle town of Coca. There, members Napo Wildlife Center staff will be waiting for you to give you warm welcome and take you to the Francisco de Orellana Port –which is only 5 minutes away from the airport. And here is where the real adventure begins! At the port you will get on a motorized canoe downstream the Napo River, the major tributary of the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador. During the trip, you will have the chance to see different birds such as kingfishers, herons and other and admire the incredible views of the Amazon jungle that opens before your eyes. A box lunch will be provided.
After our two-hours ride along the Napo River, you will arrive at the NWC’s dock entrance where to take a short break to freshen up and use the restrooms. Then, we will continue our way to the lodge on paddle canoes–motorized canoes are not allowed within the Napo territory. This majestic and peaceful dugout canoe ride a narrow stream will lead us to the Añangu Lake, where the hotel is.
Late in the afternoon, we will arrive to the Napo Wildlife Center where our staff will welcome you with drinks and show your rooms and other areas of the lodge.
Overnight Napo Wildlife Center
Day 7: Napo Wildlife Center
Adventure at the Napo Wildlife Center begins early in the morning! In this second day at the premium Amazon Jungle tour you will presence one of the most incredible nature spectacles you will ever see: the parrot clay licks. It will only take us about an hour to get to the first parrot clay lick, which is of easy access from the lodge. Once we get there, at about 7:30 or 8:30 am it will take just a few minutes for birds to show up. It is a real spectacle of colors, about 11 species of bird such as parrots, macaws and parakeets visit the clay licks every day to feed with the minerals that are concentrated in the soil.
Later on, we will hike along the forest trail to visit the Kichwa Añangu community to share time with the men, women and children of the community and learning about their every-day-life activities, routines and their ancestral customs and traditions. Then, we will say goodbye to the families and continue our adventure Then, we will go back to the creek and go hiking for 30 minutes throughout a Terra Firme forest until reaching the second parrot clay lick and repeat the experience of seeing a great variety of parrots, parakeets and macaws as you eat a delicious lunch our staff will provide you.
Late in the afternoon we will arrive back to the lodge to rest and enjoy from our lodge social areas and comfortable-luxury rooms.
Overnight Napo Willdife Center
Day 8: Napo Wildlife Center
Delicious breakfast will be served at the NWC restaurant early in the morning. After that, depart to the Canopy Observation Tower – a high platform from which you will get a close up view of the most amazing views of the jungle. The tower is about 30 minutes from the lodge within the terra firme forest.
This wooden platform of 36 meters high was built just next a huge and ancient Kapok tree. To get to the top you have to pass through different levels of the forest. Then, when you are finally there, the immensity and beauty of the Amazon jungle opens just before you. There are not enough words to describe it, you have to live it yourself!
Birds that are just virtually impossible to see from the jungle floor will pass right through you. Flocks of vibrantly colored tanagers, blue-and-yellow macaws and large toucans fly past in the early mornings and afternoons.
In the afternoon, after have lunch back in the Napo Wildlife Center, we will go deep into a terra firme trail to discover the beautiful and mysterious wildlife that hides in the forest interior. There are great possibilities to see lizards, different species of monkeys such as the endemic Golden Mantle Tamarin monkey, rare and unique insects and even some scary snakes! Also, we will take you to explore the black water Añangu Lake and streams that are home of different species of fish and mammals such as the Giant Otter, a unique specie from the Amazon.
Overnight Napo Wildlife Center
Day 9: Napo Wildlife Center/Transfer to Casona de la Ronda
Depart after an early breakfast to go back to Coca City and repeat the adventure to go out the way you came – a ride on a paddle-canoe to the docking area and then embarking on a motorize canoe to the jungle town.
During this last excursion the creek may reveal new sights of rare bird species and monkeys.
Arrival transfer to Casona de la Ronda Hotel.
Day 10: Antisana Reserve/Transfer Out
Located within a private hacienda estate, the Antisana Volcano (19,985 ft / 5,753m above sea level) – this ecological reserve is one of the most important sanctuaries of the Paramo. It offers Grass Land vegetation for a number of endangered species such as the Andean condor, spectacle bear, puma, Paramo wolf, Andean hill star hummingbird environment of the highlands wilderness, visited only by special permit.
Departure transfer depending
