4 - Tagesabenteuer in Cotopaxi, Quilotoa, Baños & Teufelsnasenzug

This four-day tour of central Ecuador with expert guide Diego in November 2025 far exceeded our expectations! The booking process through Viator/Latin Adventures was easy, and the tour cost was an excellent value. Diego was warm and enthusiastic in sharing his knowledge on a wide range of topics as we visited several iconic sites. We enjoyed his company on hikes and adventures we could not have imagined. He was patient in answering our multitude of questions every day. Diego was a skillful driver and seems to enjoy the challenge of the hilly and curvy roads and the crazy traffic! He is truly a great ambassador for Ecuador. We enjoyed the lodging arrangements included in the tour, and time in the evenings to walk around each place we stayed. We hope to return and visit a different area of Ecuador with Diego soon! We highly recommend this tour!

I was on a 4 day tour in Ecuador's highlands: Cotopaxi, Quilotoa, Baños, Chimborazo. Due to the current circumstances, the tour unfortunately had to be adapted a bit, but with the volcano Chimborazo they had a great alternative. It was a great tour and I was completely satisfied. The hotels were all good and clean, especially the Hacienda at Cotopaxi is a wonderful place to stay. The activities were interesting, well organized and I had a great guide & contact in Diego. He speaks with a lot of dedication about country & people and is very interested himself. It's been a great time and thank you for that, Diego.

This tour started off well enough. Our guide Paul was a friendly sort. We climbed Cotopaxi and it took a while because of the altitude. Also, I like to take my time to enjoy the views. We made it to the refugio and then came back down. There are no guardrails or any sort of infrastructure at Cotopaxi and it's incredibly steep. All good but makes it mentally more challenging. After the hike, we were driving to our hotel and it was already dark outside. We came to a roadblock of large rocks and dirt and assumed it was from the strikes that had taken place in June/July so we drove around. We were driving along when all of a sudden, the road just disappeared into a steep ravine. Luckily, Paul slammed on the brakes and we stopped six inches from the edge. My husband figured out how to back away from the edge in order for us to drive away and back to the little town we had passed. Our guide called the tour company owner/manager, Dante, and after a few minutes, handed the phone to me. Dante said he heard that we had "a problem" on the road (a "problem" ????) and that we really needed to continue on to the hotel we had been traveling to, otherwise he would have to pay double. So, basically, he didn't care that we almost died; he just wanted his money. Also, we're traveling to major tourist sites in Ecuador; why doesn't your company know the roads well enough to know one of them is washed out? I paid your company to have on-the-ground knowledge of this country and yet we almost died. Why do I have to pay for this? We ended up going home the next day - and of course, Dante refused to give us a refund even though it was clearly his company's fault. I have again asked for a refund but I'm not holding my breath. Honestly, almost dropping off into that ravine was fairly traumatic - but having to deal with someone who has no empathy and only cares about their money? Way more traumatizing. Definitely do not recommend.

We loved the trip. Diego was our guide and he provided a lot of insight on local culture and customs. There were four of us on the trip. My wife and I are both 70 and our son and his wife are in their mid-30s. The four of us were the only group on the trip, which made us much more comfortable about COVID issues. We were in a 14 person van so there was plenty of room. Latin Adventures did a great job of picking hotels. In Quito we stayed at the Hotel Vista del Angel. Great hotel with views of the City. Great rooms, great food and a very accommodating staff. Day 1 we traveled to Cotopaxi. The trip took us from 9,000 feet in Quito to 15,000 feet at Cotopaxi. I took altitude sickness medication, my wife did not. Neither of us had altitude sickness. Along the way we stopped inside the park and did short walks to see some lagoons and see how we did at altitude. Diego explained the terraced farming and how it was used by the Incas. The parking lot at Cotopaxi is at 15,500 feet. The trail up to the refuge has a vertical gain of 1,000 feet. It's a hard hike. I only made it about 1/3 of the way. Our son and his wife made it easily to the refuge. It's worth going to Cotopaxi even if all you do is hike the area around the parking area. The views are spectacular. Day 2 we went to Quilotoa. There is a lot of time on the bus between locations. But Diego did a good job educating us about the areas we were traveling through. Quilotoa is a stunning place. The hike down to the Laguna is not difficult. If you're in your 70s take the mule back to the top. We stayed at a locally owned hotel which is also a farm. Great rooms, very nice people and good food. It was nice to experience locally owned hotels. Day 3 we substituted a trip to the rainforest because Devil's Nose is closed. Latin Adventures arranged the day trip which was a long 11 day. But we saw a beautiful waterfall, learned a lot about the native plans and their medicinal value. The transition from the Andes to the rainforest was well worth the trip. We stayed in a nice hotel in Banos. The lodging and food were OK. At all the locations we stayed the food was carefully prepared with purified water. The lunches we ate at local restaurants also were very careful with the water. No one wanted diarrhea and Latin Adventures did a good job of ensuring there weren't any problems. Day 4 we hiked to some amazing water falls, took cable cars across river canyons and did some hiking. Some of the hiking at the waterfalls was somewhat hard. But even at age 70 it was not too difficult. If you have 4 or 5 days in Quito I'd highly recommend the trip. I've attached some of our pictures. After the trip we went back to Quito and then onto Guayaquil to go to the Galapagos. Latin Adventures arranged our PCR tests (which we needed to get on the Lindblad Expeditions boat) and they also arranged our airport transfers. Latin Adventures was good to work with.

We did the 4 day tour with Diego as our guide. He was really fantastic. Firstly he was an excellent driver, he had fantastic knowledge and really selected the highlights for us as well as bringing us to some lovely restaurants. We thoroughly enjoyed our tour and would highly recommend Diego as a guide

Our 4-day trip was outstanding and we cannot say enough about the level of service and our guide, Diego. Overall, the trip exceeded our expectations including the high level of challenging activities, accommodations, dining and attention to detail. Diego had extensive knowledge of history, geography, culture and people of Ecuador. He was very interested in making our experience meet our needs and we could not be happier. We appreciated the fact that he matched the experiences to our desire to be challenged with the climbing, hiking, and distanced covered each day. We felt very safe and taken care of traveling as a mother/daughter group. Be prepared for some car travel time due to the distance of the 4 days of activities - very comfortable and new car was used.