Ama la vida – 2 weeks adventuring in Ecuador
As we were planning our adventures for this winter, one of the things that we knew we wanted to do was winter whitewater kayaking, in warm water and warm weather. There wasn’t much more criteria than that… Based on our February Mexico experience, we ended up choosing to go back to Mexico in late November and then selected a trip to Ecuador with Chris and Andrea from Endless Adventures (based out of Nelson, BC), who we have been buying kayaks from for the last few years. Chris is a great coach/instructor/guide and we all have things on our learning wish list!
At the time I didn’t really stop to think about where Ecuador was…. a bit silly I know. We made the decision in May and put our deposit down in June. Around that time I finally got around to looking on the world map and clued in to the Galapagos Islands being in Ecuador – bad geography memory on that one! Next came the library trip to pick up the lonely planet guide to Ecuador and the research began.
The funniest thing was that once we started mentioning that we were headed to Ecuador to paddle, we were amazed at the number of our friends and acquaintances that had travelled, kayaked and adventured in Ecuador. This turned out to be quite reassuring and another great research vehicle.
We went back and forth on budget and timeline and settled on a 16 day trip, with 14 of those days being actually in Ecuador and the others being consumed with travel time… It takes a good 24+ hours of travel time to get from the Yukon to Ecuador, just a mere 8,283 km away. We also had to make the tough decision to forego exploring the Galapagos islands, both due to cost and time. It just means that we have to head back another time!
Our final itinerary covered off both the Andes and Amazon region, mostly kayaking but with some exploring built in as well. We enjoyed time in Quito, San Francisco de Borja, Baeza, Tena and Banos. This was our first trip to South America and it was a great entry point into that continent. Completely family friendly, clean, and we all felt very safe, thanks to the people we were surrounded with.
There is so much to cover that I will write multiple posts, highlighting both the whitewater kayaking and the road schooling experiences that we had. We will definitely go back to Ecuador and recommend it to anyone considering heading to South America! For kayakers – you have to hang with Chris and Andrea at Endless Adventures International– they do it right (rivers, lodge, food, and fun)!
More details on our trip can be found at:
Wow next time round I want to be one of your children and live the life