Dirt Deluxe Self-Guided Motorcycle Tour

Day 1

Quito – Intiñan – Pululahua – Nono – Tandayapa – Bellavista – Mindo

Day 1 begins at Ecuador Freedom Bike Rental headquarters in Quito, sitting at roughly 9,350 feet / 2,850 meters in the Andes. Before you start worrying about dirt roads, waterfalls, hummingbirds, or chocolate, we take care of the important stuff.

You’ll be fitted to your motorcycle and receive a comprehensive pre-ride briefing from one of our experienced guides who knows this route firsthand. We’ll cover Ecuadorian traffic laws, local driving habits, road courtesies, motorcycle setup, communication, changing road conditions, and the particular sections of the route where you need to pay closer attention.

We’ll also walk you through your programmed Garmin GPS and Ecuador Freedom Road Book. The GPS handles the route while the Road Book gives you the context: daily route information, important stops, background on the places you are visiting, practical information, restaurant recommendations, and the details that help turn a line on a GPS screen into an actual trip through Ecuador.

You’ll also carry a local cell phone, and our team will monitor your progress from the back office during the riding day. If you need us, 24-hour Ecuador Freedom support is available throughout the tour.

Then you ride.

Your first stop is the Intiñan Equator Museum, where you can stand directly on the Equator and spend some time learning about the geography, Indigenous cultures, and traditions connected with this part of Ecuador.

Intiñan is hands-on rather than museum-under-glass. There are demonstrations built around the Equator, exhibits on traditional ways of life, and plenty of opportunities to stand with one boot in the Northern Hemisphere and the other in the Southern Hemisphere.

It is a good introduction to a country where geography controls almost everything you are about to experience. Over the next several hours, a relatively small change in distance and elevation will take you from Quito’s dry high-altitude basin into one of the wettest and most biologically diverse environments in South America.

A short ride farther brings you to the rim of Pululahua Crater, an enormous volcanic caldera just north of Quito.

Looking down from the rim, you can see farms, homes, and cultivated fields spread across the floor of the crater. People actually live and farm inside this volcano.

It is a quick lesson in how Ecuador works: volcanic soil, steep mountains, farms tucked into improbable places, and people making a living wherever the land gives them a chance.

From here, the pavement begins losing its importance.

Your programmed route turns onto unimproved dirt farm roads that work through the foothills of Pichincha Volcano toward the western slopes of the Andes.

The traffic falls away quickly. Pavement gives way to dirt, farms replace neighborhoods, and Quito starts disappearing behind the mountains.

Your first village is Nono. On a map, it looks almost like a suburb of Quito. Once you are standing there, it feels completely different.

Small farms surround the town, horses and cattle are common, traffic is light, and the pace of life has very little to do with the capital sitting just over the mountain. The physical distance is short. The cultural distance is much bigger.

From Nono, the road pulls you farther into the green country west of Quito and toward Guagrapamba Waterfall.

The waterfall sits in a steep forested valley where cold mountain water drops through thick vegetation beside the route. It is your first real taste of the environment you are riding into: wetter, greener, quieter, and increasingly dominated by forest.

From here, you continue along what locals call the Hummingbird Road, a dirt route threading through one of Ecuador’s richest bird habitats.

The name is well earned. Hummingbirds flash across the road, orchids and bromeliads hang from trees, mist collects on the vegetation, and every kilometer pulls you deeper into the cloudforest.

Water is everywhere along this section. Small rivers cut across the mountains, waterfalls pour out of the forest, and the road follows the contours of steep green valleys as you work farther west.

This is where the landscape starts doing what Ecuador does so well: changing faster than seems reasonable. The air becomes wetter, the vegetation thicker, and the dry Andean environment around Quito is already well behind you.

Your route passes through the tiny hamlet of Tandayapa, a place that has become famous among birdwatchers, biologists, photographers, and researchers from around the world.

There is a reason serious bird people end up here carrying camera lenses that cost more than some motorcycles. The western slopes of the Andes contain an extraordinary concentration of species packed into a relatively small area.

Different elevations create different habitats, and the combination of moisture, temperature, forest, and geography produces a remarkable variety of birds, butterflies, amphibians, orchids, bromeliads, and other plant and animal life.

For riders, it also happens to produce a very good dirt road.

The next stop is the Bellavista Cloudforest Reserve, established by our friend Richard Parsons in the 1990s, when the road through this forest was still the principal route toward Ecuador’s coast.

Richard began acquiring and protecting land here because he understood how biologically important these forests were and how quickly they could disappear. Bellavista has since become internationally known among birdwatchers, scientists, photographers, and naturalists.

If Richard is around, introduce yourself. He is basically a walking BBC documentary about birds. Ask him about something with feathers and there is a good chance you are about to learn considerably more than you expected. He knows the forest, knows the species, and genuinely enjoys sharing that knowledge.

You’ll have lunch at the Bellavista lodge, surrounded by forest, hummingbirds, and whatever else happens to show up while you are eating.

Dense forest drops away from the lodge, birds move constantly through the vegetation, and the sounds of Quito have been replaced by wind, water, insects, and birds.

After lunch, there are roughly another 10 miles of cloudforest dirt riding ahead of you.

Your GPS leads you through thick vegetation and changing elevations before the road begins its descent toward the basin containing Mindo.

Eventually the forest opens and you drop into the broad green bowl surrounding Mindo.

Mindo sits inside its own microclimate, and the difference can be remarkable. Conditions here are often completely different from what you experienced only a short distance away around Tandayapa and Bellavista.

Clouds, elevation, moisture, and the shape of the surrounding mountains interact to create a warm, humid pocket famous for birds, butterflies, orchids, rivers, waterfalls, cacao, and coffee.

Mindo has become one of Ecuador’s great centers for biological research and nature tourism while still retaining the feel of a small mountain town surrounded by an unreasonable amount of green.

In Mindo, your Road Book directs you to a chocolate tour where you can follow cacao from the tree to the finished product.

You’ll learn how cacao is grown, harvested, fermented, dried, roasted, ground, and finally turned into chocolate. More importantly, you’ll begin to understand why Ecuador produces the best chocolate in the world.

Ecuador is the home of fine-aroma cacao, and the combination of genetics, climate, soil, fermentation, and careful processing can produce chocolate with remarkable complexity. There is considerably more involved than grinding up a brown bean and adding sugar.

There will, of course, be tasting. Education requires sacrifice.

From there, your programmed route takes you to Las Terrazas de Dana Boutique Lodge, where private cabins are built into the hillside overlooking the surrounding cloudforest.

This is where the Dirt Deluxe part of the name starts earning its keep.

Each cabin gives you privacy, a comfortable bed, and a private terrace looking directly across the forest. After a day of dirt farm roads, waterfalls, hummingbirds, cloudforest, and chocolate, you can sit outside with a drink and absorb the view.

There is also a swimming pool for anyone who still has enough ambition left to change out of riding gear.

The lodge is owned by David, who is from Spain, and dinner reflects that connection. The kitchen produces excellent Spanish food, including paella, along with other dishes that go particularly well with finishing a day covered in dirt.

Good riding, good food, a comfortable bed, and a private terrace hanging over the cloudforest.

That is Dirt Deluxe.

Day 2

Mindo – Río Intag Coffee Region – Lake Cuicocha – Otavalo

After breakfast overlooking the cloudforest, your programmed route takes you north out of Mindo on dirt roads through rolling green hills, fruit orchards, small farms, and thick vegetation. The morning starts warm and humid, with the smell of wet earth and forest still hanging in the air.

This section gives you a good look at how quickly Ecuador changes once you get away from the main highways. Small communities appear between ridges, farmhouses sit beside the road, and fields are tucked into slopes that would make most people think twice about owning a tractor.

One of the first programmed stops is Cascada La Piragua. A short walk through the forest brings you to a cold waterfall and swimming hole used by local families. If the weather is cooperating, it is a great place to strip off some riding gear and get into the water.

Nearby, your Road Book points out a place where you can try fresh sugarcane juice mixed with mandarin lemon. The cane is pressed right there, the citrus cuts the sweetness, and after a morning on dirt roads it does a respectable job of bringing a rider back to life.

This is one of the pleasures of riding the route with the Road Book in front of you. The GPS tells you where to go; the Road Book tells you why it is worth stopping.

From La Piragua, the route continues through working agricultural country. You’ll pass farms growing tomatoes, celery, green peppers, fruit, and other vegetables, with the crops changing as the elevation and temperature change.

These are working backroads. You may share them with farm trucks, cattle, people on horseback, families moving between villages, and machinery that has probably survived several owners and at least one creative repair involving wire.

The views across the ridges can be enormous, but there is plenty going on right beside the road too. This is productive countryside, and the route lets you see how people make a living from steep, fertile land that would be considered inconvenient almost anywhere else.

You’ll pass through Nanegal and continue toward the Intag Valley, descending into warmer country as the vegetation thickens and the roads follow rivers, farms, and small communities deeper into the western Andes.

Eventually you enter the Río Intag Valley, a rugged agricultural region known for coffee, subtropical crops, cloudforest, rivers, and fiercely independent communities.

Your next major stop is Nangulví Hot Springs, beside the Río Intag. Several thermal pools give you a chance to soak tired muscles while the river charges past below.

You’ll also have lunch here before getting back on the motorcycle. Dirt roads in the morning, hot mineral water at midday, then more mountain riding in the afternoon. This is an arrangement worth supporting.

In Apuela, your Road Book leads you to the Río Intag Coffee Growers’ Association for a look at how coffee from these mountain farms is processed.

You can see how the beans are dried, sorted, roasted, and prepared for sale, and get a better understanding of what coffee production actually means in a place like Intag. Behind the finished cup are steep hillsides, shade trees, changing weather, family farms, picking, drying, sorting, and a lot of physical work.

The coffee here is part of the local economy and part of the landscape you have been riding through all morning.

From Apuela, your route begins climbing out of the Intag Valley on dirt and old cobblestone roads toward the mountain village of Plaza Gutiérrez.

Here, the Road Book directs you to a local women’s group working with cabuya, a tough natural fiber extracted from the long leaves of Furcraea cabuya, a plant that looks similar to agave and grows well in this part of the Andes.

The leaves are cut and processed to extract strong fibers that can be dried, worked, and woven into bags, hats, baskets, mats, and other useful goods. The women have organized their work through the local Asociación Mujer y Medio Ambiente, creating income for families from a plant that grows right around them.

This is exactly the sort of place that would be easy to ride straight past without knowing what is happening behind the door. Your Road Book gives you the information to stop, introduce yourself, see the raw material, and understand how local knowledge becomes something people can actually sell.

Above Plaza Gutiérrez, the riding gets more demanding as you climb back toward the high Andes. A series of steep switchbacks carries you out of the warm Intag Valley, with huge views opening across the mountains behind you.

Waterfalls drop through the green walls below, and the vegetation changes as you gain altitude. Tropical plants give way to eucalyptus, pine, highland farms, and colder mountain air.

Your route eventually brings you to Laguna Cuicocha, a volcanic crater lake sitting beneath Cotacachi Volcano. Dark blue water fills the huge caldera, with two volcanic islands rising from the center.

The name Cuicocha is commonly translated as “Guinea Pig Lake,” and local traditions once held that the lake was bottomless or connected underground all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Whether you buy that explanation or not, standing on the crater rim after climbing all the way out of the Intag Valley gives you a pretty good appreciation for how much elevation you have covered.

From Cuicocha, your GPS leads you along mountain and old cobblestone roads toward Otavalo, one of the most important Indigenous commercial centers in the Andes.

The Otavaleños have been skilled textile producers and traders for centuries. Their weaving traditions predate the Incas, survived the colonial period, and eventually developed into international trading networks that carried Otavaleño textiles and music far beyond Ecuador.

Your Road Book gives you the information you need to explore the famous Plaza de los Ponchos, where textiles, hats, leather goods, jewelry, spices, food, blankets, paintings, carvings, and all manner of locally made products fill the market.

It is colorful, busy, unapologetically commercial, and full of people who have been buying, selling, bargaining, and moving goods around the Andes for generations.

Your day ends at Hacienda Pinsaquí, a historic colonial hacienda just outside Otavalo.

Pinsaquí has thick adobe walls, old courtyards, gardens, fireplaces, traditional furnishings, and enough history to make most modern hotels seem like they were assembled last Tuesday. The Treaty of Pinsaquí was signed here in 1863, helping bring an end to conflict between Ecuador and Colombia.

Before dinner, a local Indigenous Andean music group performs during the welcome reception. Then you can sit down for dinner and settle into your private room surrounded by the architecture and atmosphere of one of northern Ecuador’s great old haciendas.

You started the day in humid cloudforest and crossed waterfalls, vegetable farms, hot springs, coffee country, small mountain communities, cabuya workshops, steep dirt climbs, and a volcanic crater lake before finishing at a colonial hacienda in the high Andes.

That is a pretty solid day’s work.

Day 3

Otavalo – Cotacachi – Tumbabiro – Cotacachi-Cayapas National Park – Hacienda La Primavera

After a proper hacienda buffet breakfast and an early walk through the gardens and duck ponds at Pinsaquí, your Road Book directs you to a nearby family workshop where textiles are still produced using traditional Otavaleño techniques.

The process begins well before anything reaches a loom. Natural fibers are prepared and spun, and colors are produced from local plants and traditional natural dyes. One of the more surprising sources is cochineal, a tiny insect that can produce brilliant reds, pinks, oranges, and purples depending on how it is prepared.

You’ll see how the fiber is spun, how the colors are made, and how the loom turns all of it into finished textiles. Otavaleño families have been producing and trading woven goods for centuries, but seeing the work behind a blanket or scarf gives you a completely different appreciation for what you saw hanging in the market yesterday.

There is a lot of time, skill, repetition, and knowledge hiding inside something that looks very simple when it is folded neatly on a market table.

From there, your programmed route takes you to Cotacachi, Ecuador’s leather capital, sitting beneath the massive Cotacachi Volcano.

The center of town is lined with small workshops and stores selling jackets, boots, belts, saddles, wallets, handbags and other leather goods. But before looking at all that clean finished leather hanging under bright shop lights, your Road Book points you toward our friend Luis, so you can see where the process actually begins.

Luis is an Indigenous leather tanner who still works hides using traditional vegetable-based methods rather than modern chemical tanning.

Walking into Luis’s tannery is a quick education in what the word leather actually means. There are animal hides packed in salt, wet skins hanging and drying, large vats, scraping tools, water, flies, and plenty of smells that will never be bottled and sold as an air freshener.

Luis works with salt, water, vegetable tanning solutions, time, muscle, and experience. Hides have to be cleaned, soaked, scraped, treated, stretched, dried and worked repeatedly before they become the smooth material you recognize as leather.

It is slow, physical work, and much of the knowledge has been handed down through generations.

Seeing the process from raw animal hide to finished leather explains why Cotacachi developed such a strong reputation for leather work in the first place.

Once you have seen the salted hides, tanning vats, scraping, stretching and drying involved, those jackets and boots in the shops down the street suddenly look a little different.

You’ll have some time in the center of Cotacachi afterward, where the leather shops offer remarkably good prices and where available luggage space can suddenly become an important engineering problem.

Leaving Cotacachi, your GPS takes you onto old serpentine cobblestone roads through the agricultural country of northern Ecuador.

You’ll pass enormous farms producing long-stem roses and other cut flowers, one of Ecuador’s major exports. The combination of high elevation, intense equatorial sunlight, cool nights and fertile volcanic soil allows Ecuadorian growers to produce some of the best roses in the world.

The roads continue through a string of small towns with fading pastel adobe buildings, iron streetlights, old churches, cobbled sidewalks and farms pressed right up against the edge of town.

Your Road Book also directs you to the mineral hot springs of this region, where you can get off the motorcycle and soak for a while before continuing the short distance to Tumbabiro.

In Tumbabiro, your next stop is lunch at Hacienda Pantaví, and this place deserves more than a quick mention.

Pantaví is part hacienda, part restaurant, part gallery, and part expression of the wonderfully unconventional imagination of Ecuadorian artist Diego Andrade. His paintings, sculptures and mosaics appear throughout the property, turning courtyards, walls, gardens and passageways into a constantly changing collection of things to look at.

Andrade’s work is built into the personality of the place. You keep noticing another painting, another sculpture, another strange little detail tucked into a corner.

The Tumbabiro Valley also has a warm, dry climate that can feel remarkably different from Otavalo only a short ride away. The courtyard at Pantaví seems to catch that weather particularly well, making it a very good place to sit down for a proper lunch before the hard riding begins.

Enjoy it. The afternoon has plans for you.

After the last small town of Cahuasquí, your programmed route enters Cotacachi-Cayapas National Park, and the character of the day changes quickly.

The road begins climbing aggressively on unimproved dirt, with sections reaching grades of around 30 percent. In a remarkably short distance you gain thousands of feet of elevation as the agricultural valley falls away behind you.

Look back occasionally and you may catch views of snow-covered Cayambe Volcano far across the Andes.

The road first climbs through a magnificent pine forest before eventually breaking above the tree line into exposed high mountain country at more than 13,000 feet / 4,000 meters.

The views across the valleys below are enormous. The air is thinner, the temperature can drop quickly, and weather can change with very little warning. This is a good time to add another layer and keep your attention on the road.

From the high point, your route begins descending the western slopes of the Andes on rocky switchbacks.

The environmental change happens quickly. Open, cold high country gives way to moss, thick vegetation, mountain pasture and eventually green cloudforest. Brooks cross the road, waterfalls pour down the mountainsides, and the air becomes wetter and warmer with every mile of descent.

Depending on conditions, there may even be an opportunity to get into some of that cold mountain water.

Eventually your GPS brings you into La Merced de Buenos Aires, a small mountain village on the western side of the Andes.

You already ate lunch at Pantaví, but after the climb over the mountains there is always room for something else: freshly roasted trout.

Your Road Book points you toward a simple wooden restaurant in the village serving trout raised in the cold mountain water surrounding this area. It comes to the table hot, fresh and uncomplicated — exactly what you want after climbing above 13,000 feet and coming down the other side.

The people here are friendly and still genuinely interested when motorcycle riders from another part of the world turn up in their small village.

This is a snack worth making room for.

From La Merced de Buenos Aires, your programmed route continues west on unimproved dirt farm roads through a strange series of small mountains that look almost like pyramids rising from the surrounding valleys.

The road passes trout farms, fruit growers, coffee farms, cattle, rural homes and small agricultural communities. People are working in the fields, animals wander near the road, and children appear outside tiny schools in places where very few foreign travelers ever stop.

Along this route are rural schools connected with Ecuador Freedom’s Ride for a Purpose program, which helps us deliver school supplies to children in remote communities that our motorcycle tours allow us to reach.

This part of the ride is a good example of why we build tours around these roads. You are not riding through empty scenery. These mountains are working places filled with farms, families, schools and people making a living from whatever the land around them can produce.

Your route briefly joins the paved E10 at the ranger station before leaving it again near Limonal.

The smaller road drops deep into the fertile western Andes, following a roaring river past waterfalls, farms and dense vegetation toward the tiny hamlet of Primavera.

Just outside the village, your GPS leads you toward the entrance to Hacienda Primavera Wilderness Lodge.

The final approach is exactly how a lodge like this should be reached: by motorcycle, down a remote mountain road, with a full day already behind you.

Hacienda Primavera sits deep in the Chocó cloudforest, surrounded by primary and secondary forest, rivers, tropical vegetation, orchids, epiphytes and an extraordinary variety of birdlife.

Parrots and toucans are among the more conspicuous residents, but serious birdwatchers come here because the Chocó supports an enormous range of species within a relatively small area.

The lodge has large rooms, a gourmet restaurant, a beautiful spring-fed swimming pool, and a working horse and cattle ranch. There is also coffee grown on the property, and the staff can show you around if time and energy permit.

One of the best places to end the day is the infinity jacuzzi overlooking the rainforest. After cobblestone roads, leather workshops, hot springs, a good lunch, steep dirt climbs, thin air, rocky switchbacks, cloudforest and a hot trout on the side of a mountain, warm water suddenly becomes an extremely persuasive idea.

This is what the Dirt Deluxe concept is built around: put in a serious day on the motorcycle, then finish somewhere worth reaching.

Day 4

Primavera – El Chical – Maldonado – El Ángel Ecological Reserve – Tufiño – Tulcán – Aloburo

You wake up at Hacienda Primavera high on its hill above the tiny hamlet of Primavera, surrounded by a 360-degree view of mountains, forest, farms, and deep green valleys.

The hacienda is a working farm as well as a wilderness lodge, with its own coffee plantation, horses, tropical fruit trees, bananas, and vegetable gardens. Much of what appears at breakfast has not traveled very far to reach the table.

Then the motorcycle comes back out.

Today your programmed route takes you from this warm, wet Chocó cloudforest all the way into cold high-altitude páramo near 14,000 feet, through the Colombian borderlands, to volcanic hot springs, traditional brick and tile makers, one of the strangest cemeteries anywhere, and eventually into dry cactus country for the night.

There is also some serious dirt riding in the middle of all this.

Ecuador has some explaining to do.

The ride away from Primavera begins on remote dirt roads through dense tropical vegetation, rushing streams, waterfalls, farms, and mountain valleys.

Your GPS leads you up a steep climb through the Golondrina Protected Forest, across a mountain pass, and then down into another valley toward the small community of El Chical, close to the Colombian border.

This is productive subtropical country. Families grow coffee, cacao, tropical fruits, bananas, and other crops on steep green hillsides cut by rivers and mountain streams.

There is very little tourism here. Most of what you see exists because somebody is farming, hauling, planting, harvesting, repairing, or trying to get something useful out of a mountain that rarely provides a level surface.

From El Chical, your route continues through the border country toward Maldonado.

The road follows river valleys and mountain slopes through a landscape that still feels thoroughly tropical. It is worth remembering just how warm and green everything is here, because in a few hours you will be looking around wondering where all the trees went.

Sugar cane is one of the important crops in these warmer valleys, and your Road Book directs you to a local family that still makes panela the traditional way.

Fresh cane is crushed to extract the juice, which is then boiled for hours in large open pans over a wood fire. The building fills with steam, wood smoke, and the heavy sweet smell of reducing sugar as the liquid slowly thickens into syrup.

When it reaches the right consistency, the syrup is poured into molds and allowed to cool into the hard golden-brown blocks of panela used in kitchens all over rural Ecuador.

Panela is dissolved in hot water to make agua de panela, stirred into coffee, used in cooking and desserts, and carried by people working in the fields as a quick source of energy. Here you get to see the entire process only a few feet from the cane fields that supply it.

In Maldonado, your Road Book leads you to the Golondrina Coffee Growers Cooperative, run by our friend Germán.

Germán works with farming families throughout this isolated border region who grow coffee using the particular combination of elevation, rainfall, temperature, and rich mountain soil found on these western Andean slopes.

You can see what happens between picking a coffee cherry and pouring a cup. Beans have to be selected, dried, shelled, sorted, and roasted before anybody gets to sit down and complain that their morning coffee took too long.

Many families here also grow raspberries, and during harvest season red-stained fingers are simply part of everyday life.

The cooperative has worked with local communities on reforestation and agricultural practices intended to reduce erosion and protect the steep mountain soils these farmers depend on.

Then comes the important part: drink the coffee.

A cup produced by the people who grew, picked, selected, dried, and roasted the beans tastes considerably better after you have ridden across the mountains to get it.

From Maldonado, your programmed route begins climbing hard out of coffee country and toward one of the rarest landscapes of the entire tour: the high páramo of the El Ángel Ecological Reserve.

The change is dramatic. Dense forest begins opening. Temperatures fall. The air gets thinner. Trees eventually disappear altogether.

And then the frailejones take over.

These extraordinary plants look like somebody crossed a giant sunflower with a fuzzy palm tree and then planted thousands of them across the mountains.

Frailejones are built for high-altitude life. Their thick, woolly leaves protect them from freezing temperatures and intense ultraviolet radiation while helping collect moisture from fog and clouds. Dead leaves remain wrapped around the trunks, providing additional insulation against cold nights.

They are also part of the páramo’s natural water-storage system. Moisture collects in the plants, surrounding vegetation, and deep sponge-like soils, then gradually feeds streams and rivers flowing toward communities thousands of feet below.

There is no place on Earth quite like this.

The dirt road keeps climbing through hillsides covered with frailejones, small lakes, wetlands, exposed ridges, and huge open views.

You climb toward the Volcán Chiles region at elevations approaching 14,000 feet / 4,267 meters.

There are very few buildings up here, almost no traffic, and long stretches where your motorcycle may be the only mechanical sound for miles.

The weather can move across these mountains very quickly. Blue sky can disappear behind fog, cold rain, or wind within minutes, while sections of dirt road can become muddy and slick.

This is where the information from your pre-ride briefing becomes especially useful. Your programmed GPS handles the route, your Road Book gives you the background and stop information, and you also have your local phone, back-office monitoring, and 24-hour Ecuador Freedom support while you ride.

Near Volcán Chiles, volcanic lakes sit among the mountains while mist moves across open páramo covered with frailejones.

This is cold, exposed country. At these elevations the temperature can change fast, the air is thin, and the wind has had several thousand miles of practice.

Fortunately, there is something considerably warmer waiting farther down the mountain.

A long old cobblestone road carries you toward a remote collection of natural hot springs near Tufiño, tucked beneath the slopes of Volcán Chiles and close to the Colombian border.

You may smell the sulfur before you reach the pools.

The setting is spectacular. Steep cliffs surround the springs, and Andean condors nest in the surrounding cliffs. These enormous birds can sometimes be seen soaring overhead while you soak in the naturally heated mineral water below.

Park the motorcycle, exchange riding gear for a bathing suit, and let hot volcanic water work on the hands, back, shoulders, and legs that have spent the morning climbing through the páramo.

Sitting in a remote hot spring beneath condor nests after riding across mountains approaching 14,000 feet is a difficult experience to improve upon.

Eventually somebody has to make the unpopular decision to get out of the water.

Your programmed route continues through the small highland village of Tufiño and toward Tulcán.

Along the road, your Road Book points out traditional brick and roof-tile makers.

The soil in this part of Carchi is particularly well suited to producing the rich red bricks and clay roof tiles seen on homes, haciendas, and farm buildings throughout northern Ecuador.

The process is impressively physical. Local earth is prepared, compressed and shaped, then left to dry before thousands of bricks are carefully stacked into enormous kiln-like towers.

Huge logs feed the fires, which must remain burning continuously for about seven days. That sustained heat transforms ordinary local soil into the hard red bricks and roof tiles used throughout the region.

There is a tremendous amount of digging, carrying, shaping, stacking, firing, unstacking, and hauling behind every finished brick.

After you watch the process, you begin noticing those red roofs everywhere.

Your next major stop is Tulcán, the capital of Carchi Province and one of Ecuador’s principal border cities.

Your Road Book directs you to the José María Azael Franco Guerrero Cemetery.

Calling it a cemetery does not really prepare you for what is inside.

More than four hectares of the grounds are filled with enormous cypress trees clipped and sculpted into hundreds of living figures: animals, arches, faces, Indigenous and pre-Columbian forms, geometric designs, mythical creatures, and shapes inspired by cultures from around the world.

The tradition began in 1936, when Tulcán parks director José María Azael Franco began shaping the cemetery’s cypress trees by hand. He called part of his creation the “Altar de Dios.” After his death, his family, other gardeners, and artists continued expanding the work.

Today, people interested in topiary travel to Tulcán specifically to walk through it.

Walking between graves beneath giant walls of living sculpture is peaceful, meticulous, slightly surreal, and completely unlike any cemetery most people have ever visited.

Your Road Book also directs you to Tulcán’s remodeled central market, where regional foods and everyday border-city life replace the formal landscaping of the cemetery. This is your lunch stop.

There is also a chance to sample the local drink known as norteña before getting back on the motorcycle and turning south.

South of Tulcán lies one of the sections that earns the Dirt Deluxe tour its 5/5 Challenging difficulty rating.

Parts of the old Pan-American route cross terrain containing a great deal of dark volcanic soil and ash. When it is dry, the surface can be loose and dusty. When it gets wet, it becomes something else entirely.

Rain can turn these roads into deep, black, slick mud. Ruts fill with water, the surface underneath becomes difficult to read, and traction can change from one meter to the next. Some wheel tracks are firm. Others are deep enough to swallow half a motorcycle before you realize you chose poorly.

This is serious dirt riding.

If conditions are good and you choose the challenging route, this is exactly the sort of riding many Dirt Deluxe riders came to Ecuador for.

You can expect to be standing on the pegs, reading ruts, managing momentum, moving the motorcycle beneath you, and occasionally discovering that volcanic mud has its own opinion about where the front wheel ought to go.

On the self-guided Dirt Deluxe, however, you do not have to tackle the most difficult old Pan-American sections.

Your programmed GPS includes an alternate route that bypasses the deepest and most challenging mud. We’ll explain both options during your pre-ride briefing and give you the latest information available about road conditions before you depart.

That gives experienced off-road riders the option to take on the full challenge while allowing other riders to continue the tour without turning Day 4 into an involuntary motorcycle extraction exercise.

If you take the challenging route, there may be sections where the mud is deep, the motorcycle is moving around underneath you, and progress requires concentration, commitment, and good judgment.

That is part of what you signed up for if you choose it.

Dirt Deluxe is built for riders who want challenging dirt roads during the day and first-class treatment at night. The self-guided format simply gives you the information and route alternatives to decide how much of the challenge you want to take on.

This section is one of the reasons the tour carries our highest 5/5 Challenging rating.

Once you get through — or around — the wet high-country sections, the ride begins changing again.

You start what we call the drying cycle.

As you descend toward the Chota Valley, warmer, drier air begins rising through the canyon.

Jackets open. Gloves start drying. Wet highland grass disappears. Frailejones are long gone. Green mountains slowly turn silver-gray and brown.

Then come the cactus.

Within a couple of hours, you have gone from fog, volcanic wetlands, and near-freezing mountain air to dry earth, goats, cactus, and warm sun.

The landscape looks like somebody changed countries while you were riding downhill.

As the route continues south, your GPS takes you onto an old cobblestone road that once formed part of the principal route between what are now Ecuador and Colombia.

Before modern highways cut through these mountains, roads like this carried farmers, merchants, armies, mail, livestock, and political power through the northern Andes.

Simón Bolívar traveled through this region during the independence campaigns that transformed northern South America.

Today, cactus lines the old road, goats move across the hillsides, and local people still work the dry land surrounding the route.

After waking up in rainforest, riding through cold páramo, and perhaps fighting your way through deep black volcanic mud, this dry canyon country feels completely removed from where the day began.

Your programmed route eventually leads toward Hacienda Piman, tucked into an extraordinary dry Andean landscape above the Chota Valley.

After miles of old cobblestone, cactus, switchbacks, and silver mountains, a beautiful hacienda appears in the middle of all that dry country.

Piman has spacious, luxurious rooms, a swimming pool, excellent food, and private views across the surrounding mountains and canyon.

The outdoor pergola is one of the best places to finish the day, with comfortable seating, a huge wood-burning stove, and an excellent supply of cocktails.

Think about where you woke up this morning.

You started deep in wet Chocó cloudforest. Since breakfast you have crossed rainforest, sugar-cane country, a family panela operation, cacao and coffee country, isolated border communities, high páramo covered with frailejones, volcanic lakes, hot springs beneath condor nests, traditional brick yards, one of the strangest cemeteries in South America, challenging volcanic mud if you chose to take it on, ancient cobblestone roads, and dry cactus-covered mountains.

Now you are sitting beside a wood fire at a beautiful hacienda overlooking a dry Andean canyon.

That is Dirt Deluxe.

Day 5

Aloburo – Ibarra – Zuleta – Cayambe – Oyacachi – Papallacta

Today brings another major shift in climate, culture, history, and terrain. You leave the dry northern landscape around Aloburo and ride toward the tranquil shores of Laguna Yaguarcocha, also known as Blood Lake.

The peaceful lake has a particularly violent name because of a brutal chapter in Andean history. In 1495, Inca leader Huayna Capac defeated the local Cara people here, and tradition holds that thousands of bodies were thrown into the lake, turning its waters red.

Today, Yaguarcocha is considerably more peaceful. Totora reeds grow along the shore and are still used for traditional crafts, while the broad road surrounding the lake doubles as a racetrack.

Ancient battlefield, reed-lined lake, mountain scenery, race circuit. Ecuador has never been particularly interested in sticking to one subject at a time.

From the lake, your programmed route takes you into the historic center of Ibarra, founded in 1606 and known as the White City for its whitewashed buildings.

The center is filled with stately plazas, churches, old façades, and colonial buildings sheltering quiet interior courtyards.

But there is another very good reason to stop here: helados de paila.

Your Road Book directs you to the original shop of Rosalía Suárez, the woman credited with making Ibarra’s helados de paila famous. This intensely flavored fruit sorbet is made using fresh fruit, sugar, ice, and salt, traditionally worked by hand in a bronze pan.

Choosing a flavor is generally followed by the realization that choosing only one was poor planning.

South of Ibarra, the route runs through a patchwork of intensely green fields, dairy farms, and small highland communities toward Zuleta and a country road known locally as the Ruta de los Bordados — the Route of the Embroiderers.

The road runs beneath snow-covered Cayambe Volcano through countryside that, on a clear day, can look remarkably like Switzerland — rolling green farmland beneath a snowy mountain — just considerably less developed.

Your Road Book directs you to the embroidery shop of our friend Fanny Albán.

Embroidery has an important place in Otavaleña culture, especially in the beautifully decorated white blouses traditionally worn by Indigenous women throughout this part of northern Ecuador.

The elaborate flowers and patterns embroidered around the neckline, chest, and sleeves are among the most recognizable elements of Otavaleña dress. These garments are still worn in everyday life as well as at markets, festivals, weddings, and other important occasions.

This is a living tradition, not something being recreated for visitors. The embroidery remains part of how Otavaleña women express community, identity, and personal style.

Fanny can give you a closer look at the work and the amount of patience required to build these intricate designs by hand.

Look closely at the stitching. Flowers, leaves, stems, and geometric details are built one thread at a time, with the consistency coming from years of practice rather than a machine quietly doing the difficult part somewhere in the back room.

The same skills are used to produce beautiful household pieces, including embroidered tablecloths and sets of cloth napkins.

If you are looking for something useful to bring home, this is one of our favorite stops. Fanny's napkins and tablecloths pack easily into motorcycle luggage, and if you buy more than you want to carry, we can arrange to get them back to our office for you.

More importantly, when somebody asks where they came from, you can tell them exactly who made them and where you met her.

As you continue toward Cayambe, the massive volcano begins dominating the skyline.

Cayambe Volcano is the only place on Earth where the Equator crosses permanent snow. The Equator runs directly across its glacier, creating the rather ridiculous geographic possibility of standing at zero degrees latitude while looking up at ice and snow.

The surrounding region is also the heart of Ecuador’s cut-flower industry. High elevation, intense equatorial sunlight, cool nights, and volcanic soils produce enormous long-stem roses exported around the world.

By the time you reach the town of Cayambe, you have earned another Ecuador Freedom tradition: second breakfast.

Cayambe is famous throughout Ecuador for bizcochos, crisp, buttery biscuits that have been made here for generations.

Your Road Book directs you to our favorite place in town, where they still use a traditional recipe and bake the bizcochos in wood-fired ovens.

Fresh from the oven, they are warm, flaky, slightly salty, and dangerously easy to keep eating. They are traditionally served with fresh local cheese, dulce de leche, coffee, or hot chocolate.

This is one of those regional foods that tastes better in the place where it belongs.

So yes, breakfast twice. Motorcycle tours require fuel. Nobody said all of it had to go into the motorcycle.

After Cayambe and second breakfast, your route continues to Hacienda Guachalá, founded in 1580 and the oldest hacienda in Ecuador.

Guachalá has survived more than four centuries of Ecuadorian history. Presidents, political figures, explorers, landowners, workers, and generations of local families have all passed through this property while the country around it changed from Spanish colony to independent republic.

The old stone walls, heavy wooden doors, courtyards, gardens, and historic chapel make it immediately obvious that this is not somebody’s modern idea of what a colonial hacienda ought to look like. The place has actually been here long enough to accumulate the scars.

Haciendas like Guachalá were once enormous agricultural estates and major centers of economic and political power. Understanding them helps explain a lot about the history of the Ecuadorian Andes: who controlled the land, who worked it, how communities developed, and why the social structure of the countryside evolved the way it did.

Your Road Book gives you the historical background so you know what you are looking at when you walk through the old buildings and courtyards before getting back to the considerably newer technology parked outside.

From Guachalá, the route continues toward another place that helps explain why Ecuador calls itself the Middle of the World.

The Quitsato Equator Monument sits precisely on the Equator and is built around a giant sundial measuring approximately 54 meters across, with a central cylinder roughly 10 meters high.

The monument uses the movement of the sun and its shadows to demonstrate the time of day, the seasons, solstices, equinoxes, and the relationship between the Equator and the movement of celestial bodies.

The important part of Quitsato is that the story does not begin with Europeans arriving with instruments.

Indigenous cultures of this region were observing the sun, shadows, mountains, and seasonal movements of the sky long before modern surveying equipment arrived. Their understanding of celestial cycles allowed them to recognize the special geography of this region centuries before the measurements were given modern scientific labels.

The site connects that knowledge with the Chakana, or Andean Cross, and explains how astronomy, agriculture, seasons, geography, and ceremonial life were tied together in pre-Columbian culture.

By watching the direction and length of shadows throughout the day and over the course of the year, people could track seasonal changes and use that information to help determine when to plant, harvest, travel, and hold important ceremonies.

Standing here turns the Equator into considerably more than a line painted on the ground.

And yes, you can stand with one boot in the Northern Hemisphere and the other in the Southern Hemisphere. Everybody does it. There is no point pretending you are above this sort of thing.

Once on the southern side of the Equator, the character of the ride changes again.

Your programmed route turns onto old cobblestone roads climbing the slopes of Cayambe Volcano and enters the Cayambe-Coca National Park.

This is one of Ecuador’s most protected natural areas, and access to this route requires special permission. Ecuador Freedom has the permit required for your tour, giving you access to one of the wildest and least-visited sections of the route.

The park protects an enormous range of elevations and habitats, from high Andean páramo to cloudforest and the upper reaches of the Amazon watershed.

Hundreds of bird species live here, and Ecuador Freedom guides have personally encountered wild puma and spectacled bears inside the reserve.

The riding is high, remote, and exposed, with rough surfaces, cold air, open páramo, water, mud depending on conditions, and very little sign of human development.

The Andes are not putting on a show for anybody up here. They are simply enormous, cold, wet, and indifferent while you work your way through them.

This is also a section where your preparation matters. You have the programmed GPS route, detailed Road Book, the route briefing we gave you before departure, your local phone, back-office monitoring, and 24-hour Ecuador Freedom support — but you are doing the riding and making the decisions on the motorcycle.

Eventually your route drops into Oyacachi, a remote highland community with a history directly connected to where you began the day.

Local tradition holds that Oyacachi was settled by descendants of people who fled the Inca violence around Laguna Yaguarcocha. After beginning the morning at Blood Lake, you have effectively ridden through a piece of that history.

Today Oyacachi is known for wood carving, thermal springs, cold mountain streams, and trout.

Your Road Book directs you to lunch, where locally raised trout is cooked over a wood fire using traditional methods.

The fish has not suffered through an international supply chain. It comes from the cold, clear water running through the valley, gets cooked, and lands on the plate.

There is also time for a soak in the Oyacachi hot springs.

After the cold highland riding, getting into naturally heated water does a remarkable job of convincing your hands, shoulders, legs, and back to cooperate for another few hours.

Then it is back onto the motorcycle, because the park is not finished with you yet.

From Oyacachi, your programmed route continues through remote sections of the reserve across high páramo that can look surprisingly like the Scottish Highlands.

Glacial lakes sit among broad open moorland. Cold wind pushes across the grass. Clouds move fast over the mountains, and the road threads through a landscape with very little between you and the weather.

Keep your eyes open for condors, mountain toucans, and other high-Andean wildlife.

This is one of the most beautiful high-altitude sections of the Dirt Deluxe, but it still requires attention. Weather changes quickly up here, and the isolation is real.

The day finishes at Termas Papallacta Hot Springs Spa & Resort, one of Ecuador’s best high-Andean retreats.

Your private adobe-and-thatch cabin has its own outdoor thermal bath. Cold mountain air hangs over the valley while hot mineral water steams a few steps from the door.

Think about what happened since breakfast.

You woke up in dry cactus country, rode around a lake named after an Inca massacre, ate hand-made fruit sorbet in a colonial city, met Fanny on the Ruta de los Bordados, ate warm bizcochos and cheese in Cayambe, walked through Ecuador’s oldest hacienda, stood on the Equator, climbed onto the slopes of a snow-covered volcano, crossed protected páramo, ate wood-fired trout in a remote mountain village, soaked in hot springs, crossed glacial country, and finished in your own thermal bath.

Challenging riding during the day. Posh treatment at night. That is Dirt Deluxe.

Day 6

Termas de Papallacta – Laguna Muerto Pungo – Quito

The final morning is built for recovery. After five days of dirt, cloudforest, high passes, cobblestone, hot springs, desert, borderlands, rainforest, and remote Andean roads, you’ll have time to enjoy your private cabin at Termas de Papallacta Spa Resort.

This is not a rushed pack-and-go morning. Soak in the thermal waters, walk the resort trails, breathe the cold mountain air, and let the body remember that it has been working hard all week.

The resort offers spa treatments, quiet paths, beautiful gardens, mountain views, and horseback riding in the surrounding area.

If you want one more slow cup of coffee, one more soak, or one more walk through the high-Andean landscape before returning to the city, this is the time to take it.

Dirt Deluxe means earning the comfort, and by Day 6, you have earned it properly.

Your programmed route back toward Quito begins with the climb over Papallacta Pass, the continental divide at roughly 13,400 feet / 4,085 meters.

The air is thin, the weather can move quickly, and the views across the high páramo are a final reminder that Ecuador does not waste geography.

From here, the normal route begins dropping back toward the capital.

But there may be another option.

For riders who still have some fight left in them before handing back the keys, there is an optional alternate route toward Laguna Muerto Pungo, a remote high-altitude lake hidden deep in the páramo.

This is not simply a scenic detour. The road is rough, isolated, and genuinely challenging, with broken surfaces, steep sections, mud, water, loose rock, and rapidly changing high-mountain weather all capable of making an appearance.

Conditions vary enormously, and there are times when the route becomes too difficult or simply cannot be ridden safely.

We will tell you during your pre-ride briefing whether the Muerto Pungo route is considered rideable for your tour. We know this road, we monitor current conditions as closely as we can, and we will not send you toward it if we believe conditions make it a poor choice.

If the route is open and conditions are suitable, your programmed GPS and Road Book will give you the information you need to ride it independently.

If we advise against it, your GPS will keep you on the normal route back toward Quito.

This is one of those places where good judgment matters more than proving anything. Weather and road conditions in the high páramo can change quickly, and what was rideable on one trip may be a completely different proposition after several days of rain.

If you do get the green light, expect another proper piece of Dirt Deluxe riding rather than an easy sightseeing loop.

The reward is Laguna Muerto Pungo itself, sitting in cold, empty páramo with almost nothing around it except grassland, water, mountains, and weather.

You ride out to the lake, stop for a look around, and then retrace the route before continuing toward Quito.

After six days of dirt roads, mud, high passes, cloudforest, volcanic country, and long days on the motorcycle, Muerto Pungo is a fitting last test if conditions allow.

If you still wanted one more challenging ride before the pavement takes over, this is it.

Your programmed route continues toward Quito along old cobbled roads tied to the route of Francisco de Orellana, the Spanish explorer who crossed from the Andes toward the Amazon in search of wealth, glory, and whatever else men with royal backing and bad ideas convinced themselves they were chasing.

Centuries later, this route still feels like a passage between worlds: cold highlands behind you, Quito ahead, and the Amazon Basin somewhere beyond the mountains you just crossed.

The day finishes back at Ecuador Freedom Bike Rental in Quito.

After six days, you will have crossed cloudforest, coffee country, crater lakes, colonial towns, high páramo, volcanic passes, rainforest, desert, hot springs, cobblestone roads, and some of the most rewarding dirt routes in Ecuador.

You started with a motorcycle and a clean jacket.

You finish with mud on the boots, a few stories that will grow with time, and the satisfaction of having ridden Dirt Deluxe the way it was meant to be ridden.

Six days of serious riding. Six nights of proper comfort. That is Dirt Deluxe.

This self-guided motorcycle adventure begins at Ecuador Freedom Bike Rental’s headquarters in Quito’s secure and convenient La Carolina neighborhood. We strongly recommend arriving one or two days early so you can adjust to the altitude, complete your paperwork, and spend some time exploring the capital before the tour begins. Our guide to enjoying Quito before your motorcycle tour includes suggestions for nearby attractions, restaurants, museums, and other worthwhile places to visit.

We ask that you visit us in the afternoon whenever possible, since our mornings are generally focused on preparing and assisting riders who are departing that day. Contact us before your arrival and we’ll arrange a convenient time for your paperwork and detailed pre-ride briefing. Completing these details in advance means that when Day 1 arrives, your motorcycle is ready, your route is familiar, and you can get down to the important business of riding.

Orientation, Motorcycles & Support

Before departure, you’ll receive a detailed pre-ride briefing from an experienced Ecuador Freedom guide who knows and has ridden the route many times. We’ll cover Ecuadorian traffic laws, local driving customs, road courtesies, safety procedures, riding conditions, route-specific challenges, and the different types of terrain you’ll encounter during the tour.

We’ll also review your programmed GPS route and your detailed Ecuador Freedom Road Book, including daily route information, important stops, historical and cultural background, practical information, restaurant recommendations, and points of interest along the way.

You’ll be provided with the adventure-ready motorcycle of your choice, fitted with a waterproof luggage system, protective equipment, suitable tires, and an optional tank bag. Before leaving Quito, the motorcycle will be inspected with you so that you understand its controls, accessories, luggage, and any model-specific features.

You will also have a local cell phone, back-office monitoring during your riding days, and 24-hour Ecuador Freedom support. You are riding independently, but you are not simply handed a motorcycle and sent out on your own.

The Route & Riding Experience

The Dirt Deluxe route is the result of years spent riding, scouting, testing, and refining Ecuador’s remote backroads. Your programmed Garmin GPS gives you the complete route, while your Road Book provides the background and practical information that helps you understand where you are going and what you are seeing along the way.

This tour follows mostly unpaved, unimproved natural dirt roads rather than graded gravel highways. Expect narrow one-lane tracks, ancient cobblestone, loose rock, mud, ruts, steep climbs, rough descents, shallow water crossings, cold high passes, warm valleys, and rapid changes in elevation and weather. The roads are chosen for their scenery, remoteness, lack of traffic, cultural value, and the quality of the riding itself.

Dirt Deluxe carries our highest 5/5 Challenging difficulty rating. That rating reflects the demands of the complete tour: long riding days, sustained concentration, high altitude, steep climbs and descents, mud, loose rock, old cobblestone, water, rapidly changing weather, and sections where conditions can become genuinely technical. This is not an extreme enduro tour, but riders should arrive with solid off-road experience, good physical conditioning, and the stamina to remain focused for a full day on the motorcycle.

In northern Carchi, sections of the old Pan-American route cross dark volcanic soil and ash that can turn into deep, slick black mud after rain. Other sections climb steeply through rocky mountain terrain or cross isolated high páramo where weather and road conditions can change quickly.

The goal is to give you challenging, rewarding riding while making sure you have support when you need it. You are never expected to ride beyond your ability or continue through something you are not comfortable with. If you reach a section that you believe is above your skill level, stop and contact us. We can help you assess the situation, talk through your options, provide assistance when practical, or direct you to an alternate route where one is available.

Good judgment is part of adventure riding. Turning around, using an alternate route, or asking for help when conditions exceed your ability is a much better decision than forcing the issue because a line happens to appear on the GPS.

Some route decisions are made before you leave Quito. For example, conditions on the old Pan-American section in Carchi can vary considerably, and there is an alternate route available when necessary. On the final day, the optional ride toward Laguna Muerto Pungo is also highly dependent on recent weather and road conditions. We will tell you during your pre-ride briefing whether we consider the Muerto Pungo route rideable for your tour.

Your GPS and Road Book are designed to keep the trip structured without taking away the independence that makes self-guided riding so rewarding. You know where you are going, where the important stops are, where to eat, where you are sleeping, and what is worth understanding along the way, while still riding the motorcycle yourself and experiencing the country at your own pace within the programmed itinerary.

Participants are also encouraged to support our Ride for a Purpose program. Riders may bring requested school supplies, sports equipment, art materials, and other useful items for children in remote communities visited during the tour. Donations are delivered directly to local schools, giving participants an opportunity to meet students and teachers while making a practical contribution to the communities through which you ride. Please review the program page before packing for the current list of requested items.

This is the Dirt Deluxe idea: challenging backcountry riding during the day, followed by excellent food and some of Ecuador’s most comfortable, distinctive, and beautiful accommodations at night. You earn the luxury during the ride, which makes the warm shower, good dinner, comfortable room, and cold drink at the end of the day feel even better.

Meals & Tour Expenses

Breakfast is included with your accommodations. During riding days, you’ll handle lunch yourself, with restaurant recommendations and suggested stops included in your Road Book. In locations where there are no practical dinner options within walking distance, dinner is included as part of the tour.

Fuel, tolls, lunches, alcoholic beverages, snacks, gratuities, souvenirs, and personal purchases are not included unless specifically stated otherwise in your tour package.

After the Ride

When you return to Quito, you’ll have access to the Freedom Riders’ Lounge™, including the honor bar, jacuzzi, hot showers, luggage storage, and a comfortable place to relax before continuing your travels. Ecuador Freedom staff can also assist with hotel arrangements, airport transportation, local recommendations, and planning your next destination. More information about our location and facilities is available on the Ecuador Freedom headquarters page.

Weather & Temperatures

Ecuador’s general weather patterns remain fairly consistent throughout the year, but the dramatic elevation changes on the Dirt Deluxe route mean that conditions can vary considerably during a single riding day. You may begin in warm, humid valleys where temperatures approach 90°F / 32°C and later climb into the high Andes, where temperatures can fall into the 30s°F / 0–4°C.

Passing showers are common in the highlands, although a complete day of rain is unusual. Longer periods of rain are more likely on the western slopes of the Andes during March, April, and early May. Rain can make the unpaved sections considerably more demanding, adding mud, standing water, slippery rock, and deeper ruts to the riding conditions.

Dressing in layers is strongly recommended. Waterproof outerwear, warm gloves, breathable protective gear, moisture-wicking base layers, and quick-drying clothing will make the ride far more comfortable. Our detailed Weather in Ecuador Guide explains regional conditions, elevation-related temperature changes, seasonal patterns, and what riders should expect in the Andes, cloudforest, and lower valleys.

Accommodations

Throughout the tour, you’ll stay in carefully selected, higher-end hotels, historic haciendas, mountain lodges, and rural inns chosen for comfort, character, location, secure motorcycle parking, and convenient access to the route. These properties are an important part of the Dirt Deluxe experience rather than generic places selected simply to break up the journey.

After a demanding day of dirt roads, high passes, mud, rocks, and water crossings, you can expect a comfortable room, a hot shower, a good meal, and a welcoming place to recover before the following day’s ride.

Self-guided riders receive a private room at no additional charge. Ecuador Freedom reserves the right to substitute accommodations of comparable quality when required by availability, weather, access conditions, or other operational considerations.

Packing List & Preparation

Before your trip, Ecuador Freedom will provide detailed preparation information, including a recommended packing list and guidance on luggage, protective equipment, documents, physical preparation, and the conditions you are likely to encounter. We also recommend reviewing our complete Motorcycle Tour Packing Guide, which covers riding gear, layering, waterproof clothing, electronics, personal items, and other practical considerations for riding through Ecuador’s changing climates and elevations.

Your motorcycle includes installed luggage, but you will be carrying your own personal gear during the tour, so pack light. Bringing less makes the motorcycle easier to manage on difficult terrain and saves you from hauling unnecessary weight through six days of off-road riding.

No knowledge of Spanish is required. Your Road Book contains practical information and useful contacts, and you’ll carry a local cell phone so you can contact Ecuador Freedom if you need assistance with communication, logistics, accommodations, mechanical problems, or other issues along the route.

The better prepared you are, the more you’ll enjoy the route’s changing weather, varied terrain, altitude, cultural encounters, and inevitable backcountry surprises. Dirt Deluxe is demanding enough to feel earned, but carefully organized so that you can focus on the riding and the country around you rather than worrying about the logistics.

• Unlimited-mileage motorcycle rental
• Programmed Garmin GPS with the complete tour route
• Detailed Ecuador Freedom Road Book with daily route information, maps, points of interest, historical and cultural background, practical information, useful contacts, and restaurant recommendations
• Comprehensive pre-ride briefing with an experienced Ecuador Freedom guide who knows and has ridden the route
• Saddlebags or luggage system
• Luggage storage and locker use while riding
• Local cell phone
• Back-office monitoring during your riding days
• 24-hour Ecuador Freedom support
• Single-occupancy accommodations in the luxury haciendas, lodges, and boutique hotels listed in the itinerary
• Breakfast and dinner every day
• 20% pre-tour discount on high-quality riding gear from Klim
• Pre-tour preparation package with packing lists, videos, and travel information
• Souvenir T-shirt
• Souvenir decal
• VIP access to the Freedom Riders’ Lounge™ with hot shower, jacuzzi, gym, and honor bar

• Airfare to and from Ecuador
• Airport transfers
• Refundable security deposit to cover any damage to the rental motorcycle
• Hotel accommodations before and after the tour in Quito
• Medical and emergency evacuation insurance
• Trip cancellation insurance or any other travel insurance
• Alcoholic beverages
• Personal purchases, souvenirs, laundry, or other incidental expenses
• Gratuities for your guide, hotel staff, restaurant staff, and other service providers along the route

Want to spend more time exploring Ecuador? You can extend the Andes Twist with any of the options below. Each extension has a fixed add-on price that includes the additional motorcycle rental days along with the accommodations, meals, activities, and other items indicated in the individual extension description.

The extension price is the same regardless of which motorcycle you choose, which can make these additions especially attractive if you are riding one of our higher-priced motorcycles.

You do not need to decide on an extension before you begin the booking process. During online booking, you can review the available extensions, select the ones you want to add, and see your updated total price before completing your reservation.

Book your self-guided Andes Twist online in just a few steps.

You can book this tour solo or with a group of friends, and self-guided departures are available throughout the year except on dates when we already have a Guided Andes Twist departure scheduled.

Our reservation system provides up-to-date availability and pricing. Simply enter your preferred dates, select your motorcycle, and choose any tour extensions you would like to add. The system will calculate the exact price of your tour based on your selections.

You can also extend your trip with any of the tour extensions listed below. Add them during the booking process and the reservation system will automatically include them in your itinerary and calculate the updated tour price.

If more than one passenger will be traveling in a 4x4 support vehicle, please contact us so we can arrange the appropriate room-sharing configuration and provide accurate pricing.

We can also customize the Andes Twist if you would like to modify the itinerary, add extra days, combine it with other destinations, or create a more personalized version of the tour. Contact us and we can discuss the possibilities with you.

Our booking system asks for an identification number as part of the reservation process. You may use your passport number, driver’s license number, national ID number, or another government-issued identification number.

If you prefer not to enter that information online, or if you have any difficulty completing the payment, just contact us. We can take your credit card information over the phone and process the payment for you.

You may also select the “Request PayPal Invoice” option at checkout. We will send you a PayPal invoice that can be paid with any major credit card. No PayPal account is required.

If you prefer to pay by bank transfer, we can provide our banking instructions upon request.

If you have any questions, need help configuring a booking for several riders or passengers, or would like to discuss a customized version of the tour, please email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or click the chat button below.