Exploring Ecuador from Quito in 9 days

[ILONA DESPRES]

My husband and I will be arriving in Quito Nov 1st-10th/13(our first trip) I have read the Itineraries given but would like some different ideas, our base will be in Quito and we would like to explore possibly a costal village in this trip as we may return in the early part of 2014 for 4-5 weeks if we like this trip! Any suggestions on how we could explore Ecuador in this short time would be helpful. It being November what kind of clothing would be recommended? Thanks in advance!

[COUNTRY EXPERT- SUZAN HASKINS]

Hi Ilona, what kind of coastal village do you have in mind? And are you saying you are going to stay in Quito the entire time, or are you going to go to the coast for a few days and return? The fastest you can get to the coast from Quito is in about 4 hours by car… or much faster by flight. You can make a day trip to Otavalo and Cotacachi easily from Quito. As for clothes, Ecuador only has two seasons — wet and dry. Temps are basically the same year-round unless it has been rainy and overcast for some time. I personally no longer get very cold… in the mountains I’d recommend jeans or slacks and T-shirts with a sweater or jacket for the evenings. Comfortable shoes for walking. And always have an umbrella at hand, just in case. When it happens, I LOVE the rain and fog…

[ILONA DESPRES]

Thanks Susan for your response. We just wanted to check out a nice small beach village or two to get an idea if we wanted to spend all of our next visit in one or if we wanted to split our time. We are willing to fly anywhere as well taking the bus or taxi to explore different places. We tend to like smaller places and are willing to explore pretty much anything. We rented a place in Quito but were planning on doing a couple of over night trips to explore. Otavalo and Cotacachi are definitely on our list of places, seeing that they are so easy to get to from Quito. We just were wanting ideas on the best way to explore different areas of Ecuador in the short amount of time that we have for this trip so that we could make up our mind where we wanted to go in our next visit. Again thank you for your info.!

[COUNTRY EXPERT- SUZAN HASKINS]

You might fly to Manta and then go north from there about 4 minutes to Crucita for a night and on to Bahia de Caraquez. Quite a few expats in both these places and if you want, I can put you in touch with some who might help you with details. Or you could go south to Puerto Cayo and/or Puerto Lopez. Not as much infrastructure or as many expats in these areas — pretty rustic little fishing villages.

[RUPERT WEBB]

Hi Susan,
My wife and I will be arriving in Ecuador in October and staying in Canoa for 2 weeks and exploring the coast from there with the purpose of finding a place to rent and possibly buying property.
Any contacts that you have that you think would be helpful to us, would be most welcome.
Thanks for your help , we really enjoy your info.

[COUNTRY EXPERT- SUZAN HASKINS]

Hi — of course I meant to write that Crucita is 40 minutes north of Manta, not 4…

We have some good friends who live in Crucita and they are happy to share their advice and experience. You may have seen me write about one couple, Ron and Terresa Moore. You can email them at terresammoore@yahoo.com and remoore2001@yahoo.com. Their friend, Tom Saunders, is a real estate guy in Crucita and San Clemente, and his email address is tomsaun@gmail.com and his website is http://ecuadorbeachfrontproperty.com.

In Bahia de Caraquez and as far north as Canoa, you might reach out to Miriam Weaver –see her website at http://www.EcuadorPropertyConsultants.com

As always, do your due diligence every step of the way. My suggestions should not constitute as any endorsements. 🙂

[COUNTRY EXPERT- SUZAN HASKINS]

Update: Ron Moore’s email address is remoore2001@gmail.com.

[MS. BRENDA MARCEAU CHADBOURNE]

Hello!

We did a whirlwind tour of Ecuador back in May for the same amount of time as you. With some luck and a posting on some site (it could have been this one but I do not recall), we found an absolutely wonderful individual who took us from Quito to Otavalo and Cotacachi, down to Cuenca, over thru Guayaquil to Salinas, up to Canoa and then back up to Cotacachi before departing out of Quito. It appeared to be a whirlwind trip but each day was relaxing and very informative. Dave’s website is http://www.daylightecuadortouring.com (our story and pics are posted on the site also) and he is great individual with an excellent perpective on Ecuador. We highly recommend him.

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