Introduction to Ecuador Guided Motorcycle Tour

If you came to Ecuador to ride, this is your tour. The 12-day Introduction to Ecuador Self-Guided Motorcycle Tour is built for riders who want to cover serious ground, experience an extraordinary variety of roads, and see just how much of Ecuador can fit into one journey. Some days are long, and that is part of the appeal. You will cross the Andes, descend into the Amazon Basin, reach the Pacific coast, and climb back into the mountains — often experiencing several completely different landscapes in a single riding day.

Ecuador rewards riders who like time in the saddle. Mountain roads climb through high páramo and sweep down into cloudforest, long curves follow river canyons toward the Amazon, and twisting backroads carry you through agricultural valleys, small towns, and tropical countryside. Along the way you will ride past snowcapped volcanoes, cross high Andean passes, follow the mighty Napo River, and reach the warm Pacific coast. The distances may look modest on a map, but Ecuador's mountains make the riding endlessly interesting.

Over 12 days, you will experience an impressive cross-section of the country. You will visit the colonial cities of Quito and Cuenca, the Indigenous market town of Otavalo, the relaxed Pacific beach town of Canoa, and Vilcabamba, the famous Valley of Longevity. You will ride from cold, windswept Andean passes to humid Amazon rainforest and tropical agricultural lowlands, then watch the landscape change all over again as the road climbs back toward the highlands.

The scenery gets your attention, then you get off the motorcycle and find out what is actually going on there. Your programmed Garmin GPS brings you to Indigenous markets, artisan workshops, family-run businesses, historic haciendas, waterfalls, hot springs, farms, archaeological sites, and places most international visitors never encounter. Your daily route sheets give you the background and practical information that turn those stops into something more than another pin on a map.

Along the way you will eat fresh seafood beside the Pacific, taste Ecuadorian chocolate, drink locally grown coffee, visit cacao and coffee producers, meet craftspeople who still work by hand, and sample regional specialties as the country changes around you. These stops break up the longer riding days and give context to the landscapes you are riding through.

Because this is self-guided, you ride independently without a guide setting the pace in front of you. Ecuador Freedom gives you the route, the programmed GPS, the detailed daily route sheets, a thorough pre-ride briefing, local cell phone, back-office monitoring, and 24-hour support. You get the freedom of riding on your own with the advantage of a route refined over years of exploring Ecuador.

The Introduction to Ecuador is for riders who would rather find out what is around the next bend than call it a day early. You will spend plenty of time on the motorcycle, ride some of the country's best roads, and finish with a remarkably complete picture of continental Ecuador — its Andes, Amazon, Pacific coast, people, food, history, and extraordinary geographic diversity.

Day 1

Quito – El Quinche – Cayambe – Zuleta – Otavalo – Cotacachi

Your adventure begins at Ecuador Freedom's La Carolina headquarters in Quito. Before departure, you will receive a comprehensive pre-ride briefing covering Ecuadorian road rules, local riding customs, driver courtesies, route information, safety procedures, and what to expect during the journey ahead. You will also become familiar with your motorcycle, programmed Garmin GPS, and detailed Ecuador Freedom Road Book before setting out on your own.

Getting out of Quito is remarkably easy from our location. Less than a mile of city streets puts you into a tunnel and directly onto the Pan-American Highway. Soon the city begins falling away behind you and the Andes open ahead. Day 1 is a great introduction to what the next 12 days will bring: changing elevations, agricultural valleys, mountain roads, volcanoes, small towns, fascinating stops, and plenty of curves between them.

Your first stop is the Basilica of El Quinche, one of Ecuador's most important pilgrimage sites. For centuries, people have traveled here to ask the Virgen de El Quinche for protection, healing, and blessings. Each November, thousands of pilgrims walk through the night from Quito and surrounding communities to reach the basilica.

It is a fitting place to begin a journey around Ecuador. Your Road Book gives you the background on the basilica and the importance of the Virgin in Ecuadorian Catholic tradition, helping you understand why this remains a deeply meaningful place for Ecuadorians rather than simply a historic monument.

By midday your programmed route reaches Hacienda Guachalá, founded in 1580 and the oldest hacienda in Ecuador. Guachalá has been part of Ecuadorian history for more than four centuries, through the colonial period, independence, the formation of the republic, and into modern Ecuador. Presidents, political leaders, explorers, and other important figures have lived or stayed here, and the property itself tells much of that story.

Old stone walls, heavy wooden doors, courtyards, a historic chapel, and buildings accumulated over centuries make Guachalá much more than a lunch stop. Your Road Book provides historical context so you can better appreciate the significance of the property before sitting down for an Ecuadorian meal in a place that has witnessed an extraordinary amount of the country's past.

From the hacienda, your route continues to the Quitsato Sundial, located directly on the Equator near Cayambe. This is a fascinating place to understand the Equator from an astronomical and Andean perspective rather than simply standing beside a painted line.

The site demonstrates how the movement of the sun and the changing length and direction of shadows reveal the solstices, equinoxes, time of day, and time of year. Long before modern instruments arrived, Andean cultures were careful observers of these celestial cycles and incorporated them into agriculture, architecture, ceremony, and their understanding of the world around them.

Nearby rises Volcán Cayambe, one of the great snowcapped volcanoes of the northern Andes. Its location is unique: Cayambe is the only place on Earth where the Equator crosses permanent snow and glacial ice.

In Cayambe, your Road Book directs you toward one of the town's specialties: bizcochos. These crisp, buttery biscuits have been made here for generations in traditional ovens and are usually eaten with fresh cheese, dulce de leche, and a cup of strong Ecuadorian coffee. As the tour unfolds, you may begin to notice that we have a habit of finding the regional foods worth stopping for wherever you ride.

From Cayambe, your programmed route leaves the busier roads behind and heads into the countryside. Backroads carry you through dairy country, cultivated fields, small Indigenous communities, and valleys framed by the great volcanoes of northern Ecuador. This is where the day becomes as much about the road connecting the stops as the stops themselves.

You continue into the beautiful Zuleta Valley, an area of intensely green farmland, traditional haciendas, and small communities where embroidery, leatherwork, agriculture, and horsemanship remain part of everyday life. The road winds through pastures and family farms in a rural landscape that relatively few international visitors ever experience.

Zuleta is particularly famous for its intricate hand embroidery. The floral designs associated with the valley can require many hours of careful work and have become an important expression of local identity as well as a source of income for generations of women. Riding through the valley gives you a chance to see the landscape and communities behind a tradition that visitors often encounter only as a finished piece in a market.

The road continues climbing, eventually taking you above 10,000 feet. The agricultural valleys fall away and the views become broader until Lake San Pablo appears below beneath the massive slopes of Imbabura Volcano.

In nearby Otavalo, your Road Book directs you to a family weaving workshop for a closer look at one of the traditions for which the region is famous. The Otavaleños have been accomplished textile producers and traders for centuries, and weaving remains an important part of both the culture and economy of the region.

Here you can watch the process rather than simply seeing finished textiles hanging in a market. You will meet the family, learn about the techniques and designs they use, and see the work that goes into creating pieces whose patterns and colors have become immediately recognizable throughout Ecuador and far beyond it.

These personal visits are an important part of the self-guided experience. The motorcycle allows you to cover an extraordinary amount of Ecuador, while carefully selected stops like this give you the chance to understand something about the people and traditions behind the places you are riding through.

You finish the day's riding near Cotacachi at Hacienda Pinsaquí, a historic estate dating to 1790. Once an important textile-producing hacienda, Pinsaquí has hosted figures including Simón Bolívar, and much of its long history remains visible in its thick adobe walls, old courtyards, antique furnishings, fireplaces, and century-old gardens.

Pinsaquí is the kind of place we love using on our tours because staying here becomes part of the experience of Ecuador. Once the motorcycle is parked, you can settle into the hacienda and enjoy an atmosphere shaped by more than two centuries of highland history.

The evening includes live Andean music followed by dinner, with fires warming the old rooms as the highland evening cools outside. It is a fitting end to your first day: excellent riding connected by places that introduce you to Ecuador's history, food, landscapes, traditions, and people.

Day 2

Otavalo – Cotacachi – Cuicocha – Apuela – Cielo Verde

After a hearty Andean breakfast of fresh juice, bread, and eggs, you begin the day in Otavalo, home to one of South America's most renowned Indigenous markets. For centuries, Otavaleños and people from the surrounding highlands have come here to trade animals, food, textiles, household goods, and just about everything else needed for daily life.

Your Road Book directs you through both sides of this remarkable market tradition. At the animal market, livestock changes hands amid a swirl of voices, hooves, bargaining, families, and farmers arriving from the surrounding countryside. This remains a working market where people come to buy and sell animals, giving you a glimpse into rural Andean life that hasn't been packaged for visitors.

Then you continue to the famous Plaza de los Ponchos, where Otavalo's long textile tradition explodes into color. Woven blankets, tapestries, clothing, bags, scarves, jewelry, and handicrafts fill the plaza and surrounding streets. It is also a good place to practice a little bargaining if something catches your eye.

From Otavalo, your programmed route takes you to Cotacachi, a town whose name has become synonymous with leatherwork. Generations of local artisans have developed the skills of tanning, cutting, stitching, shaping, and finishing leather, and workshops and small family businesses remain an important part of the town's identity.

Your Road Book directs you to a local craftsman where you can get closer to the process behind the finished jackets, boots, belts, bags, saddles, and wallets found throughout town. Many artisans continue to use time-honored methods without modern chemicals, producing work of such quality that international fashion houses source goods here.

Meeting the people who actually do the work changes the experience completely. You can see the tools, smell the leather, watch the craftsmanship up close, and understand why Cotacachi has built an international reputation around a skill passed from one generation to the next. And if a jacket, belt, bag, or pair of boots happens to follow you back to the motorcycle, we won't judge.

From Cotacachi, your route climbs toward Cuicocha in the Cotacachi-Cayapas National Park. The lake occupies an enormous volcanic caldera high in the Andes, with two distinctive islands rising from its deep blue water. The route brings you to the rim for one of the most beautiful volcanic views in northern Ecuador.

Then comes one of the day's great transformations. You leave the high Andes and begin descending toward the remote Intag Valley. The temperature rises, vegetation thickens, and mountain agriculture gradually gives way to cloudforest. The road twists down the western slopes of the Andes through steep green mountains, rushing rivers, scattered farms, and small communities.

Intag has remained relatively isolated from Ecuador's major population centers, and that isolation is part of its character. Coffee, tropical and subtropical fruits, small-scale agriculture, conservation, and community enterprises have all become important parts of life here.

In Apuela, your Road Book directs you to the local Coffee Growers' Association, where you can learn how coffee grown on these mountain slopes moves from fruit on the plant to the cup in your hand. You will see how the beans are grown, harvested, processed, dried, selected, and roasted, and taste the result close to where it was produced.

Coffee from Intag has developed an excellent reputation, and visiting the growers gives you a better understanding of what goes into producing it. Elevation, rainfall, shade, soil, careful harvesting, and processing all influence what eventually ends up in the cup. For coffee drinkers, this is one of those stops that makes the next morning's coffee a little more interesting.

Nearby are the Nangulví hot springs, where naturally heated mineral water gives you an excellent excuse to get out of the riding gear for a while. The pools sit beside the rushing Río Intag, surrounded by the green mountains of the valley.

Your Road Book includes the information for the hot springs and lunch beside the river. After a morning that began high in the Andes, sitting in warm mineral water surrounded by subtropical vegetation makes the geographic transition you've just ridden through particularly easy to appreciate.

As you continue descending and the climate becomes warmer, your route brings you to one of the most unusual places on the tour: the exotic fruit farm and research center run by our friends Jim and Mimi, who have lived here for more than forty years.

Over those decades they have assembled an extraordinary living collection of more than 600 species of fruits, herbs, and spices from around the world. Walking through the property can feel like exploring a botanical encyclopedia you can eat. Some of what grows here will be familiar; plenty of it probably won't be.

Jim and Mimi show visitors around their rustic homestead and introduce them to plants adapted to this warm, fertile corner of Ecuador. You can taste unusual fruits straight from the source and put your nose to work identifying different herbs and spices by scent. Some are obvious. Others can be surprisingly difficult when you can't see what you're smelling.

It is also a chance to spend time with two people who chose to make a life in a remote part of Ecuador decades ago and created something remarkable there. Their farm is the sort of place you would never experience by simply following the main highway through the country.

You finish the day at Cielo Verde Lodge, set at only about 1,200 feet above sea level. This morning you were surrounded by the cool highlands of Otavalo; by evening you're deep in warm, lush forest. Few countries allow you to experience that kind of transformation in a single day's ride.

Cielo Verde has private river access with a crystal-clear swimming area, along with a pool and jacuzzis. Once the motorcycle is parked, the river, pool, and warm subtropical surroundings make a very different end to the day from the cold Andean morning in Otavalo.

Dinner features regional food prepared with local ingredients, and the evening settles into the sounds of insects, birds, moving water, and the surrounding forest. After the high Andes, markets, leather workshops, volcanic lake, coffee country, hot springs, twisting mountain roads, and tropical fruit farm, Cielo Verde gives you a completely different Ecuador in which to end the day.

Day 3

Cielo Verde – Cascada Verde – Pedernales – Canoa

After breakfast at Cielo Verde, you point the motorcycle west and continue your descent toward Ecuador's Pacific coast. Your programmed route begins on twisting roads through the lush western foothills of the Andes, following rivers and winding between small farms and forested mountains.

You are still surrounded by green, but it is a different landscape from the one you rode through yesterday. The air grows steadily warmer, the mountains become lower and rounder, and tropical vegetation begins taking over. Tall palms rise above the surrounding forest and cultivated land appears wherever the terrain allows it.

This is another excellent stretch of riding, with plenty of curves and constant changes in the landscape. You are following the water downhill, leaving the Andes behind and riding toward the Pacific.

One of the morning's highlights begins away from the motorcycle. Your Road Book directs you to the trail for Laguna Azul, where you park the bike and take a short walk through dense tropical vegetation. The air is warm and heavy with moisture, dragonflies skim across the water, and the sound of the waterfall grows louder as you approach.

The forest opens onto a beautiful clear blue-green pool with a waterfall dropping into it from the surrounding jungle. After riding through the increasingly warm tropical foothills, this is a very good place to get out of the riding gear and into the water.

The water is cold enough to be refreshing but inviting enough that most riders don't need much encouragement. Swimming beneath the waterfall clears away the heat and stiffness remarkably quickly.

There is something wonderfully simple about this stop: motorcycle parked, boots off, riding gear piled nearby, and clean mountain water surrounded by tropical forest. Some riders head straight for the waterfall while others are perfectly happy floating in the pool and looking around. Either way, it tends to become one of those small experiences people remember long after the trip.

Once you are dry and back in your riding gear, the route continues deeper into the tropical lowlands.

Not far away, another small adventure is waiting. Your Road Book directs you to a narrow suspension bridge over the river leading toward a small riverside retreat surrounded by rainforest. Crossing requires a little balance and concentration, and the bridge moves enough beneath you to make things interesting.

On the other side, you can settle in beside the river for lunch accompanied by birds, rushing water, and the constant background sounds of the forest. After the swim at Laguna Azul and the bridge crossing, it is a very different lunch stop from anything you would find along a major highway.

Back on the motorcycle, your programmed route continues west toward La Concordia. The landscape changes again as large stands of African oil palm begin appearing beside the road. La Concordia sits in one of Ecuador's important palm-growing regions, and the crop has had an enormous influence on the economy and appearance of the surrounding countryside.

The mountains are behind you now. Roads stretch across rolling tropical hills and agricultural country, and the riding begins to have a completely different character. Heat rises from the pavement, tropical fruit grows beside the road, and horses and cattle become increasingly common.

As you ride farther west, you enter the cultural world of Ecuador's Montubio people — the cowboys and farmers of the coastal countryside. Montubio culture developed over generations on the ranches and farms of Ecuador's coastal provinces, particularly here in Manabí and neighboring areas.

Horsemanship remains an important part of that identity. You will see horses tied outside small stores, cattle grazing in pastures, riders working the countryside, and ranches scattered along the road. Rodeos, music, farming traditions, storytelling, and strong family and community ties are all part of Montubio culture.

The motorcycle is an especially good way to experience this part of Ecuador. You are riding directly through working countryside, where small towns, roadside restaurants, farms, ranches, fruit stands, and people going about their day become part of the journey.

Eventually your route reaches Pedernales, a busy coastal town with an energy all its own. Pedernales has long had a rough-around-the-edges, frontier character — a commercial center for the farms, fishing communities, ranches, and shrimp operations spread across this part of the coast.

It is colorful, noisy, busy, and unmistakably coastal Ecuador. Markets spill into the streets, motorcycles and pickups move through town, seafood restaurants line the beachfront, and the Pacific suddenly appears at the end of the road.

Your Road Book points you toward good places to sample the seafood for which this region is known. Pedernales is surrounded by shrimp-producing areas and fishing communities, so this is seafood eaten remarkably close to its source.

Fresh shrimp is one of the specialties here, and on Ecuador's coast it can go from the water to the kitchen remarkably quickly. After several days of highland food, coffee, cheese, and mountain cooking, sitting near the Pacific with a plate of fresh seafood marks another clear change in where you are.

From Pedernales, your programmed route turns south and begins following Ecuador's Pacific coast toward Canoa. This is a beautiful afternoon ride through a mixture of rugged coastline, green hills, fishing communities, shrimp farms, beaches, and long views over the ocean.

You pass through places such as Jama, where life remains closely connected to fishing, farming, and the sea. In places the road runs near the water; elsewhere it climbs into the coastal hills before dropping back toward another beach or river valley.

After spending the previous days among volcanoes, highland farms, cloudforest, and mountain rivers, riding with the Pacific beside you makes Ecuador's extraordinary geographic variety very tangible. In only a few days you have crossed from the Andes to the ocean on a motorcycle without leaving a country roughly the size of Colorado.

Your destination is Canoa, a relaxed fishing and surf town stretched along one of the longest beaches on Ecuador's central coast. Fishing boats share the sand with surfers, backpackers wander between small restaurants and beach bars, and paragliders often launch from the cliffs above town and drift over the Pacific.

Canoa has developed a following among travelers precisely because it has retained its easygoing character. You can walk the beach, watch the fishing boats, have a cold drink with your feet in the sand, or simply sit and watch the sun disappear into the Pacific.

Your night's accommodation is Canoa Suites, right on the beach and just far enough from the center of town to provide some peace and quiet. Tropical gardens surround the property, the rooms are bright and comfortable, and the Pacific is right outside.

Once the motorcycle is parked, the rest of the evening belongs to the coast. Walk the beach, go for a swim, watch the surfers, or settle in with something cold while the sun goes down. Dinner brings more of the seafood and coastal cooking this region does so well.

Tonight you fall asleep to the sound of the Pacific. Tomorrow morning, you wake beside it and get back on the motorcycle for another full day of riding.

Day 4

Rest Day in Canoa

After three days of riding from the high Andes through cloudforest and tropical lowlands to the Pacific, today you stay put. There is no luggage to pack and no reason to put on your riding gear unless you want to. Canoa is an excellent place to spend a day doing as much — or as little — as you please.

The town sits beside one of Ecuador's longest beaches, a broad sweep of sand stretching for nearly 17 kilometers along the Pacific. The water is warm, the beach seems to go on forever, and there is plenty of room to find your own patch of sand. Go for a swim, walk along the shore, find some shade with a book, or settle into a hammock and watch the waves roll in.

Canoa is also one of Ecuador's better-known surfing destinations. Its consistent Pacific breaks attract everyone from experienced local surfers to travelers trying it for the first time. If you've ever wanted to take a surfing lesson, this is a good place to do it. And if surfing holds no appeal whatsoever, sitting on the beach with something cold and watching other people do all the work is also perfectly acceptable.

Despite its popularity with travelers, Canoa is still very much a fishing town. Small boats head out into the Pacific, fishermen bring their catch back to shore, and seafood ends up in the kitchens and restaurants around town. A fish that was in the Pacific in the morning may very well become someone's ceviche or grilled lunch a few hours later.

Over the years, Canoa has also attracted surfers, backpackers, Ecuadorians on beach holidays, and expats who came for a visit and decided they weren't quite ready to leave. The result is an easygoing mixture of people sharing the same little stretch of the Ecuadorian coast.

Walk through town and you'll find small restaurants, surf shops, beach bars, cafés, fruit stands, and plenty of places where nobody seems particularly concerned about how quickly anything gets done. After several full days on the motorcycle, Canoa gives you a chance to settle into that pace for a while.

If you want to explore beyond the beach, one possibility is an excursion to the Isla Corazón National Birdlife Sanctuary, where mangrove habitat supports an extraordinary concentration of coastal birdlife.

The island and surrounding estuary provide habitat for frigatebirds, herons, pelicans, ibis, and many other species. Exploring the mangroves gives you another perspective on Ecuador's biological diversity and a completely different environment from the high Andes and cloudforest you've already crossed.

There are other possibilities around Canoa as well, including surfing, fishing, kayaking, yoga, cooking classes, and local ecotours. Your Road Book provides useful information and recommendations, and the staff at Canoa Suites can also help arrange activities that are available that day.

Or don't organize anything at all. This is a rest day, and nobody gets extra points for filling the schedule.

Lunch is a good excuse to explore Canoa's seafood restaurants. Fresh fish, shrimp, ceviche, patacones, rice, and other coastal specialties dominate the menus, and a long lunch beside the Pacific is entirely appropriate today.

Back at Canoa Suites, the beach is right outside. Swim in the Pacific, relax around the property, read, take a nap, or find a comfortable place with a cold drink and absolutely no plan for the next couple of hours.

Late afternoon is one of the best times to be on the beach. Fishing boats return, surfers are still chasing the last waves of the day, and paragliders may be drifting overhead from the cliffs as the sun begins dropping toward the horizon.

Then the Pacific puts on the evening show. Grab a frosty beer, find a spot facing west, and watch the sun disappear into the ocean. Tomorrow you're back on the motorcycle for another full day of riding, but tonight there is nowhere else you need to be.

Day 5

Canoa – Manta – Pile – Vinces – Hacienda La Danesa

Recharged from your rest day in Canoa, you head south through Manabí Province on one of the longer and most varied riding days of the tour. The landscape changes quickly as you enter Ecuador's coastal dry forest, where the remarkable ceibo trees rise above the hills.

With their enormous swollen trunks and thick branches reaching toward the sky, mature ceibos can look as though they've been planted upside down. They have long held spiritual importance in coastal cultures and produce a light, water-resistant cotton-like fiber that was once used to stuff pillows, mattresses, and even life preservers.

Your programmed Garmin GPS brings you into Manta, Ecuador's great fishing port and home to a powerful tuna fleet. The waters offshore are extraordinarily productive, and fishing has shaped the economy, food, and character of this city for generations.

Your daily route sheet provides the details for visiting the working fish market and the area where local craftsmen build large wooden fishing boats by hand, using skills passed down through generations. The GPS takes you directly to the locations so you do not have to hunt around the city trying to find them.

Manta is also an excellent place for fresh tuna and seafood. With one of Ecuador's most important fishing ports right in front of you, this is a very good place to eat.

Farther south, your GPS brings you into the small village of Pile, famous for producing some of the finest sombreros de paja toquilla in the world — the hats internationally known as Panama hats.

The hats are Ecuadorian. Their famous international name became associated with Panama because large numbers were exported there and worn by workers building the Panama Canal to protect themselves from the tropical sun. Theodore Roosevelt gave the hats enormous publicity when he was photographed wearing an Ecuadorian toquilla hat during his 1906 visit to the canal construction.

Your daily route sheet gives you the background and practical details for the stop, while the GPS brings you to a master weaver in Pile. Here you can see the extraordinary amount of skill and patience involved. The finest hats are woven by hand from extremely fine strands of toquilla straw and can require months of work. Exceptional examples are valued as works of art and can sell for thousands of dollars.

Leaving the Pacific behind, your programmed route turns inland for a substantial afternoon of riding through Ecuador's coastal agricultural lowlands. Rice fields, cacao, bananas, plantains, cattle country, and tropical farms spread across a landscape crossed by rivers and irrigation channels.

This is a lesser-visited part of Ecuador and a good day to settle into the motorcycle and watch the country unfold. Small farming towns replace beach communities as you work your way east across the lowlands.

Eventually your GPS brings you into Vinces, once known as Ecuador's "Little Paris." During the great cacao boom of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, wealthy families here developed strong ties with France, bringing European fashions, architecture, and tastes back to Ecuador. The town still celebrates that connection today, including with its own replica of the Eiffel Tower.

This region is also closely associated with Ecuador's famous Nacional cacao and the floral character traditionally known as Arriba. The story behind the name says that when traders asked where the particularly aromatic cacao was coming from, they were told arriba — upriver.

Cacao wealth helped shape towns like Vinces and played an important role in Ecuador's economic history. Your daily route sheet gives you the historical context as you ride through the same region that helped build that wealth.

The day concludes with a mile-long driveway through stands of teak leading to Hacienda La Danesa, a beautiful working farm and country retreat surrounded by cacao, dairy cattle, tropical vegetation, and agricultural land.

After one of the longer riding days of the tour, La Danesa is exactly where you want to end up. The rooms are elegant and comfortable, the grounds are peaceful, and farm-to-table meals make excellent use of ingredients produced on the property and in the surrounding region.

If there is still energy left, the hacienda offers activities such as tubing on the river, bicycling, and exploring the farm. Or you can park the motorcycle, take a shower, find something cold to drink, and enjoy a quiet evening in the countryside.

Day 6

Naranjito – Cajas National Park – Cuenca

This morning you leave Ecuador's tropical lowlands behind and point the motorcycle toward the Andes. Your programmed route begins among the fertile farms around Naranjito, where pineapples, bananas, cacao, sugarcane, and other tropical crops thrive in the warm, humid climate.

Then you begin to climb. This is one of those Ecuadorian roads where the changes in elevation become part of the ride itself. The heat gradually eases, the vegetation changes around you, and mist begins drifting across the mountains. Before long you're riding through cloudforest, with the road twisting steadily upward through increasingly steep terrain.

It's a substantial climb from the tropical lowlands into the high Andes, with excellent mountain riding along the way. Curves follow curves as farms give way to forest and the temperature continues dropping. By the time you reach the upper elevations, the landscape you rode through that morning seems a very long way away.

Eventually the trees become smaller and more scattered and your route enters the extraordinary landscape of Cajas National Park. Glacier-carved valleys, steep rocky ridges, wetlands, high-altitude grasslands, and hundreds of lakes spread across the mountains around you.

Cajas contains more than 200 lakes, many filling depressions carved by glaciers thousands of years ago. Water is everywhere up here, collecting in dark mountain lakes and wetlands before eventually feeding river systems flowing toward both the Pacific and the Amazon basin.

The park also protects an enormous variety of wildlife and high-altitude plants. Spectacled bears and pumas live in these mountains, although seeing either requires considerable luck. Birds are much easier to find, and the park's strange Polylepis trees — often called paper trees because of their thin, peeling bark — are specially adapted to survive cold, wind, intense sunlight, and thin air at elevations where few trees can grow.

Your programmed GPS brings you to the day's lunch stop in Cajas, where fresh trout is a local specialty that fits particularly well with the cold mountain air. Keep a warm layer handy today. You began the morning among tropical crops and humidity; now you're eating trout surrounded by glacial lakes and high Andean páramo.

From Cajas, your route begins descending toward Cuenca, considered by many to be Ecuador's most beautiful city. After a day spent climbing from the tropical lowlands into the high Andes, arriving among Cuenca's tiled roofs, church towers, plazas, and cobblestone streets is another dramatic change of scenery.

Cuenca is a UNESCO World Heritage City with layers of history stretching back long before the Spanish arrived. The Spanish founded the present city in 1557 on the site of Tomebamba, an important Inca city established decades earlier and described as having rivaled Cusco in its importance and grandeur.

Much of what makes Cuenca special is that the historic center remains a living part of the city. Old churches and monasteries stand beside cafés, restaurants, shops, markets, homes, and workshops. Four rivers run through the city, and the combination of water, historic architecture, plazas, trees, and mountain air gives Cuenca a character quite different from Quito.

Your night's accommodation is the elegant Hotel Victoria, right in the heart of Cuenca's historic center. Once the motorcycle is parked, nearly everything worth seeing is within easy walking distance.

Your daily route sheet gives you the background and practical information for exploring the historic center on foot. Parque Calderón forms the heart of old Cuenca, surrounded by arcades, cafés, historic buildings, and two very different cathedrals. The Catedral Vieja dates to the earliest years of Spanish Cuenca, while the enormous Catedral Nueva is instantly recognizable by its great blue-and-white tiled domes.

Nearby, the city's famous flower market adds another burst of color to the old center. Ecuador's equatorial climate makes it one of the world's great flower-growing countries, and the market is a small, everyday expression of an industry you'll get a much closer look at later in the tour.

Cuenca is also one of Ecuador's important centers for artisanal craftsmanship. Ceramics, textiles, metalwork, jewelry, and other traditional crafts are still produced in workshops around the city and surrounding valleys. You'll see much more of that culture as the tour continues.

For tonight, the motorcycle stays parked. Cuenca has one of Ecuador's best restaurant scenes, with everything from traditional Ecuadorian cooking to excellent contemporary and international restaurants. Your daily route sheet includes restaurant recommendations so you can choose a good place for dinner and enjoy the city on foot after another full day of riding.

Day 7

Cuenca – Saraguro – Loja – Vilcabamba

Today you leave Cuenca and ride deeper into Ecuador's southern Andes. This is a beautiful day on the motorcycle, with long stretches of mountain road carrying you through increasingly remote country as your programmed route takes you south toward Vilcabamba.

The road climbs steadily toward Tinajilla Pass, reaching more than 11,300 feet. Up here the landscape opens into high-altitude pampa, with broad views across the mountains and llamas sometimes grazing beside the road. The air is cool and thin, the horizons are enormous, and the road rolls through a part of Ecuador that sees relatively few international travelers.

Your next major stop is the Indigenous town of Saraguro, home of one of Ecuador's most distinctive Indigenous cultures. The Saraguro trace their ancestry to people brought north from what is now Bolivia by the Incas, who relocated communities throughout their empire and established populations along the Royal Road.

The Saraguro have maintained a particularly strong cultural identity. Traditional clothing is still part of everyday life: black garments contrasted with white, broad-brimmed hats, and elaborate handmade jewelry. Saraguro women are especially recognizable for their intricate beaded necklaces, sometimes built from hundreds of tiny beads arranged into broad, brilliantly colored patterns.

Your Garmin GPS brings you into Saraguro and to the planned stops, while your daily route sheet gives you the cultural background and practical details for exploring the town and market. People from the surrounding farming communities come here to sell produce, textiles, jewelry, and other goods.

Saraguro gives you the chance to experience a living Indigenous culture that has preserved a strong identity for centuries while continuing to adapt to modern Ecuador.

From Saraguro, your programmed route continues south through the mountains toward Loja, one of Ecuador's oldest cities and the cultural center of the southern Andes.

Loja has a long association with music, literature, education, and the arts. Universities bring students from across southern Ecuador, musicians are part of the city's everyday life, and its plazas and cafés give Loja a character quite different from the smaller agricultural communities you've been riding through.

Your GPS takes you through the city and past its distinctive Puerta de la Ciudad before continuing south. Once beyond Loja, the road returns to the mountains and begins carrying you toward a greener, warmer valley tucked between the ridges ahead.

Your destination is Vilcabamba, the famous Valley of Longevity. The town became internationally known in the 1970s after reports of an unusually large number of residents living beyond 100 attracted researchers, journalists, and eventually National Geographic.

The longevity claims have been debated ever since, but Vilcabamba's reputation stuck. The valley has a mild climate, clean mountain air, abundant fresh produce, and a relaxed pace of life that has attracted people from around the world.

Vilcabamba also has a much older history. The valley was known to the Incas and has long been regarded as a place of retreat. Today the small town has an unusual mixture of local farming families, Ecuadorians from other parts of the country, travelers, adventurers, and international residents who came for the climate and decided to stay.

The center is compact and easy to explore on foot, with cafés, small restaurants, shops, and people lingering around the plaza. After spending most of the day crossing the southern Andes, it is an enjoyable place to park the motorcycle and settle in for the evening.

Your night's accommodation is the award-winning Descanso del Toro Lodge, a well-managed hotel and spa with spacious rooms, a spectacular pool, and an excellent on-site restaurant and brewpub.

After a day of mountain riding, this is a good place to unwind. Massages and spa treatments are available for anyone who wants them, the pool is waiting, and you're still close enough to the center of Vilcabamba to wander into town. Your daily route sheet includes practical information and restaurant recommendations for the evening.

Day 8

Vilcabamba – Loja – Zaruma – San Bartolomé – Chordeleg – Gualaceo

Leaving the tranquility of Vilcabamba, you head north through Loja and back into the mountains. Soon your programmed route begins climbing through the spectacular landscapes of Podocarpus National Park, where cloudforest, high grasslands, and subtropical valleys crowd together across a relatively small area.

This is one of the great riding sections of southern Ecuador: continuous curves, changing elevations, deep green mountains, and mist hanging over the road. The park is also extraordinarily biodiverse, with spectacled bears, jaguars, rare amphibians, orchids, and thousands of plant species found within its boundaries.

The road descends toward Zamora, known as the "City of Birds and Waterfalls." Here you briefly reach the edge of the Amazon basin, where the air becomes warmer, vegetation thickens, and rivers and waterfalls appear throughout the landscape.

The riding through this section is especially rewarding, with broad sweepers through lush foothills before you begin climbing back toward the Andes. In the space of a few hours, you experience another of Ecuador's dramatic transitions from cool mountains to subtropical forest and back again.

Your route continues through Sígsig and on to San Bartolomé, a town famous for its family-run guitar workshops. Generations of luthiers here have built instruments by hand, choosing woods for tone, shaping necks and bodies, and refining each guitar through hours of careful work.

Your programmed GPS brings you to one of the workshops, while your daily route sheet gives you the background and practical details for the visit. The smell of cut wood and varnish fills the room while guitars in different stages of construction line the benches and walls. San Bartolomé's reputation has spread far beyond Ecuador, and musicians from around the world have sought out instruments made here.

From San Bartolomé, your route continues to Chordeleg, one of Ecuador's great jewelry towns. The streets are lined with workshops and small stores displaying intricate gold and silver filigree, a tradition with deep roots in Cañari metalworking and later Spanish influences.

The most recognizable pieces are the elaborate earrings known as candongas, along with necklaces, rings, and brooches formed from extremely fine strands of metal. Even the street lamps reflect the town's identity, decorated with oversized filigree designs.

If jewelry is your thing, Chordeleg has a way of turning a quick stop into a much longer one.

Your final stretch takes you toward Gualaceo, another important artisan and agricultural center in this part of the Andes. The area is known for leatherwork, footwear, markets, and traditional textiles, including the colorful macanas woven using ikat techniques in nearby communities such as Bulcay.

The valley is also famous for its orchards, especially peaches, and has a softer, greener character than the higher mountain country you crossed earlier in the day.

Tonight you stay at Uzhupud Garden, a peaceful hacienda-style hotel surrounded by beautiful gardens. After a full day of mountain roads, rainforest, artisan towns, and changing elevations, it is a comfortable place to settle in for dinner and a quiet evening.

Day 9

Gualaceo – Ingapirca – Alausí – Chimborazo Volcano – Baños

Today is one of the longest and most spectacular riding days of the tour. After an early breakfast, your programmed route heads north through Ecuador's southern Andes, climbing through pine and eucalyptus forests toward high passes above 11,000 feet. The air cools, the trees thin, and broad páramo landscapes open around you.

This is a day for riders who enjoy time in the saddle. The roads are excellent, the scenery changes constantly, and some of the most important historic and natural sites in Ecuador are spread along the route ahead.

Your first major stop is Ingapirca, Ecuador's most important Inca archaeological complex. Built in the late 1400s on a site already important to the Cañari people, Ingapirca gives you a close look at two cultures that occupied these highlands before the Spanish arrived.

The centerpiece is the elliptical Temple of the Sun, built from carefully cut stone and aligned with the movement of the sun. Your programmed Garmin GPS brings you directly to the archaeological complex, while your daily route sheet provides background on the differences between Cañari and Inca construction, the site's ceremonial importance, and its connection to the great Inca road system that once linked Quito with Cusco.

From Ingapirca, your route continues north through the mountains toward Alausí, a colorful Andean town built along steep hillsides. For generations it was best known as the departure point for the famous Devil's Nose railway, one of Ecuador's great engineering achievements.

Alausí remains an important market town for the surrounding highland communities. Indigenous families come in from farms and villages across the region, and traditional clothing is still part of everyday life. Your daily route sheet includes information for lunch and the local highland dishes that suit the cool mountain climate particularly well.

Continuing north, your GPS takes you past Laguna de Colta, where totora reeds grow in the shallow water and are harvested for baskets, mats, and other traditional handicrafts. Roadside stalls and small restaurants here also offer one of Ecuador's best-known traditional foods: roasted guinea pig, or cuy, for anyone curious enough to try it.

Nearby stands Balbanera Church, built in 1534 and the oldest Catholic church in Ecuador. Its small stone façade has stood through nearly five centuries of Ecuadorian history, making it a worthwhile stop before your route turns toward the day's highest elevations.

From Colta, the road begins climbing toward Chimborazo Volcano, Ecuador's highest mountain at 20,548 feet. The mountain grows steadily larger ahead of you until its enormous glaciated summit dominates the horizon.

Because the Earth bulges outward around the Equator, Chimborazo's summit is the point on the Earth's surface farthest from the planet's center — farther from the core than the summit of Mount Everest.

Your programmed route takes you through the Chimborazo National Wildlife Refuge, where herds of wild vicuñas graze across the high páramo. These graceful relatives of llamas and alpacas were once nearly eliminated from Ecuador but now thrive here under protection.

The route climbs above 14,500 feet, into a stark landscape of volcanic soil, high-altitude grasses, glaciers, and enormous sky. Weather can change quickly at these elevations: bright sunshine can give way to freezing rain, hail, or even snow. Keep your warm and waterproof layers where you can reach them.

Then you begin a long descent from the high Andes. The temperature rises, farms and trees reappear, and your route carries you through the outskirts of Ambato before dropping toward the deep green valley surrounding Baños de Agua Santa.

Baños sits at roughly 5,000 feet beneath Volcán Tungurahua and is one of Ecuador's favorite mountain resort towns. Waterfalls pour from the surrounding cliffs, thermal springs bubble up beneath the town, and restaurants, cafés, adventure outfitters, and small shops fill the compact center.

After spending much of the afternoon above 14,000 feet, arriving in the warmer air of Baños is quite a change. The town's famous hot mineral baths are especially appealing after one of the longest riding days of the tour.

Tonight you stay at the welcoming Posada del Arte Hotel, one of our favorite small hotels in Ecuador. It is filled with Ecuadorian art and personality, and its location puts you within easy walking distance of the thermal baths, restaurants, cafés, and center of town.

Once the motorcycle is parked, the evening is easy. Take a soak in the hot springs, walk through town, find a good dinner, and enjoy the contrast between where the day began and where it ends. You have ridden from the southern Andes through Inca history, highland towns, Chimborazo's extreme elevations, and finally into the green valley of Baños.

Day 10

“Rest” Day in Baños

We call this a rest day, but Baños gives you plenty of reasons not to rest at all. Sitting in a deep green valley beneath Tungurahua Volcano, the town has become Ecuador's adventure capital, with waterfalls pouring down the surrounding mountains and the Amazon Basin beginning just beyond the eastern edge of the Andes.

Today is yours. Sleep late, soak in the hot springs, wander around town, or fill the day with as much activity as you want. Baños has experienced local outfitters offering rafting, kayaking, canyoning, mountain biking, hiking, and other adventures, making it an easy place to try something you've never done before.

One of the best-known excursions is Casa del Árbol, home of the famous Swing at the End of the World. Perched high above Baños, the simple swing arcs out over the mountainside with tremendous views across the valley and toward Tungurahua when the clouds cooperate.

For something considerably wetter, Baños is surrounded by rivers and waterfalls. Whitewater rafting and kayaking take advantage of the rivers dropping toward the Amazon, while canyoning involves rappelling and working your way directly through a series of waterfalls. It's wet, physical, and a lot of fun.

You can also explore the famous Ruta de las Cascadas, the road that leaves Baños toward the Amazon and passes waterfall after waterfall as it descends through the gorge. Whether you explore it by bicycle, vehicle, or on foot at selected stops, it gives you a close look at the extraordinary geography surrounding the town.

If your idea of a rest day actually involves resting, Baños is equally good at that. The town takes its name from its natural thermal baths, fed by hot volcanic water emerging beneath Tungurahua. A long soak is particularly welcome after nine days of riding around Ecuador.

The compact town center is easy to explore on foot, with cafés, restaurants, artisan shops, small bars, bakeries, and plenty of places to sit and watch Baños go by. Massages and spa treatments are readily available, or you can simply have a leisurely lunch and enjoy having nowhere you need to ride today.

Baños also has an important spiritual side. The Basilica of the Virgin of the Holy Water is one of Ecuador's pilgrimage churches, dedicated to the Virgen de Agua Santa, whom many local people believe has protected the town through volcanic eruptions and other disasters.

Inside, paintings depict stories of accidents, eruptions, and miraculous escapes attributed to the Virgin's intervention. The church offers an interesting glimpse into the deep Catholic traditions that remain part of everyday life in Ecuador and into the relationship people here have developed with the powerful volcano towering above their town.

Your daily route sheet includes suggestions and practical information for activities around Baños, while local operators and the staff at Posada del Arte can help arrange whatever interests you that day.

However you spend the day, you have an entire day with no departure time and no destination. After nine days covering a remarkable amount of Ecuador by motorcycle, that feels pretty good.

Day 11

Baños – Puyo – Hola Vida – Indichuris – Puerto Misahuallí

After breakfast at Posada del Arte — and perhaps one last soak in Baños' volcanic hot springs — you point the motorcycle east and begin descending toward the Amazon Basin on the famous Route of the Waterfalls.

This is one of Ecuador's great motorcycle roads. The Pastaza River cuts through a deep gorge beside you while waterfalls pour from the steep mountainsides above. The road twists continuously downhill, sometimes passing directly beneath cascades spilling onto the pavement. With every mile the air grows warmer, the vegetation thickens, and the Andes begin giving way to the Amazon.

There are opportunities for a little extra adrenaline along the way. Riders who want to can zip-line across the Pastaza River Gorge or try one of the area's swing jumps over the canyon. Those who prefer to keep their boots on solid ground can enjoy the spectacle from the roadside.

At Río Verde, your programmed Garmin GPS brings you to one of the most impressive waterfalls in Ecuador: Pailón del Diablo, the "Cauldron of the Devil."

A short walk takes you into the gorge, where an enormous volume of water crashes roughly 250 feet through a narrow opening in the rock. The closer you get, the louder it becomes until conversation is almost impossible and spray hangs constantly in the air.

Walkways and suspension bridges give you several different views of the falls. It is wet, loud, dramatic, and absolutely worth getting off the motorcycle for.

Back on the motorcycle, your programmed route continues descending toward Puyo. By now there is no question that you've entered Amazonía. Broad-leafed tropical plants crowd the roadside, the humidity rises, and the mountains behind you begin disappearing into dense green forest.

From Puyo, your GPS takes you south to the trailhead for Hola Vida. You leave the motorcycle and take a short jungle walk through warm, humid rainforest before reaching a beautiful waterfall dropping roughly 100 feet into a natural pool.

The water here is considerably warmer than the mountain pools you've encountered at higher elevations, and swimming beneath the falls is an excellent way to cool down after riding through the tropical heat.

Nearby, your programmed route brings you to the Indichuris lookout, perched high above the Amazon Basin. From here the view opens across an immense expanse of rainforest, rivers, and distant hills stretching eastward toward the interior of South America.

It is one of those viewpoints that gives some perspective to the scale of the Amazon. You are still near its western edge, yet the green horizon seems almost endless.

The afternoon gives you another excellent stretch of riding as your programmed GPS turns north on paved roads through rolling tropical hills. The high Andes remain visible off to your left when the weather cooperates, while the landscape around you is thoroughly Amazonian.

Eventually the route turns onto a smaller road and begins following the southern bank of the Napo River, one of the great tributaries of the Amazon. Small farms, jungle vegetation, rivers, and villages line the road as you ride deeper into the rainforest toward Puerto Misahuallí.

By evening you reach Puerto Misahuallí, a small Amazon river town that has long served as a jumping-off point for travel deeper into the rainforest.

Tonight you stay at El Jardín Misahuallí Lodge, where private cabins are surrounded by tropical vegetation. Wide verandas give you space to relax, and some cabins have their own plunge pools or jacuzzis — a welcome luxury after a full day in the heat.

The lodge also gives you a closer connection with the culture of the surrounding Amazon. Local Kichwa families share food, music, crafts, and traditions, and you'll encounter ingredients and customs that are very different from those of the Andes and Pacific coast you've already crossed.

Dinner blends Ecuadorian and Amazonian flavors, and once darkness settles over the forest the soundtrack changes completely. Frogs, insects, birds, and other jungle sounds surround the cabins as you settle in for your final night on the road before the ride back toward Quito.

Day 12

Puerto Misahuallí – Paccari Chocolate Experience – Baeza – Quito

Your final day begins with one last Amazon adventure. After breakfast you'll meet our longtime friend Marco, a native Kichwa guide who has introduced Ecuador Freedom riders to the Ecuadorian Amazon for many years. Rubber boots on and life jackets buckled, you'll board a long motorized canoe and head upriver into the rainforest.

Marco has an uncanny ability to make the jungle understandable. What first looks like an endless wall of green quickly becomes a living community where every vine, palm, insect, and towering tree has a purpose. Plants become medicines, baskets, fishing tools, food, and shelter. Animals you would normally walk straight past suddenly become impossible to miss. By the time you return, the Amazon feels much less like an impenetrable rainforest and much more like someone's backyard.

Back in Puerto Misahuallí, one of the westernmost navigable ports in the Amazon Basin, the resident monkeys patrol the malecón with complete confidence, helping themselves to unattended snacks whenever visitors underestimate just how organized they really are. They're fantastic for photographs, but sunglasses, wallets, and sandwiches should stay close.

Before beginning the long climb back into the Andes, you have one of the most memorable food experiences of the tour: the Paccari Chocolate Experience.

Ecuador is the home of Fine Aroma chocolate, and here in the Amazon you get to see where that story begins. Your programmed GPS brings you to a local Indigenous community where cacao is part of everyday agricultural life. You'll learn how the pods are grown and harvested and how the beans are fermented and dried before becoming chocolate.

Then you get involved yourself. You'll roast cacao beans, work through the traditional preparation process, and discover just how far a raw cacao bean has to travel before it becomes something you'd recognize as chocolate.

Paccari has built an international reputation for Ecuadorian chocolate while working directly with local cacao producers. Experiencing cacao here, surrounded by the climate and communities where it grows, gives an entirely different appreciation for the finished chocolate.

You'll also share a traditional lunch prepared with local Amazonian ingredients. After nearly two weeks of eating your way around Ecuador, it's fitting that one of your final meals on the road connects the food directly to the people who grow it.

Back on the motorcycle, your programmed route turns west through the lush forests of Sumaco National Park. Before leaving the Amazon behind, your GPS brings you to a mushroom farm we never seem to pass without stopping. Oyster mushrooms and shiitake grow in carefully controlled rooms, while the little shop sells Amazonian teas, medicinal herbs, spices, chocolates, and other products from the surrounding rainforest.

It's a fascinating little stop and one more look at the extraordinary variety of things grown and produced in this part of Ecuador before the road begins climbing toward the Andes.

By the time you reach Baeza, it's time for one last essential stop at our friend Gina's.

Gina seems to know absolutely everyone. She served as Governor of Napo Province, and spending ten minutes in her café is enough to convince you that half the people walking through the door are old friends. The other half soon will be.

We send you here because during the next hour you'll climb more than 8,000 feet / 2,450 meters back into the Andes. Strong coffee is mandatory. So is Gina's famous chocolate cake — thick, rich, unapologetically chocolatey, and made with locally grown Amazonian cacao. Somehow the combination of caffeine and chocolate arrives in your bloodstream at exactly the right moment, just as the oxygen begins quietly negotiating for a little more attention.

Gina's café is also a gathering place for hardcore whitewater kayakers who travel from around the world to paddle the legendary rivers nearby. Adventure motorcyclists usually recognize their own immediately. They wear helmets, disappear into remote places, spend unreasonable amounts of money on specialized equipment, and constantly hear that their hobby is going to get them killed.

Leaving Baeza, your programmed route begins one final climb into the Andes. Waterfalls tumble beside the highway, the air cools with every switchback, and within an hour you rise from the Amazon foothills to more than 13,300 feet / 4,050 meters. The thick green forest gradually gives way to open páramo as the road crosses the Continental Divide.

It's an extraordinary final ride. In a remarkably short distance you climb from the warm, humid Amazon through rainforest and cloudforest into the cold, open high Andes. The vegetation changes almost by the minute, waterfalls appear along the mountainsides, and the curves keep coming as you gain thousands of feet of elevation.

From the high pass, the highway descends toward Quito through mountain valleys, high lakes, and sweeping bends. The temperature begins to rise again, traffic gradually returns, and the capital appears ahead as the final miles bring you back to where the journey began.

The final approach to Quito always feels a little different.

Twelve days ago, the motorcycle was unfamiliar and Ecuador's roads were unknown. Since then, you've ridden from the high Andes to the Pacific coast, crossed the southern mountains, climbed beneath Chimborazo, descended into the Amazon, and watched Ecuador change around you mile after mile.

Somewhere along the way, the motorcycle became second nature and Ecuador's roads began to make sense.

Your programmed Garmin GPS brings you back to Ecuador Freedom's La Carolina headquarters with a dusty motorcycle, memory cards full of photographs, and a much better understanding of why we love sharing Ecuador with people who appreciate real adventure.

Our job has never really been renting motorcycles. It is introducing riders to friends, places, and experiences they probably never would have found on their own.

We hope you'll come back. There are still plenty of roads we haven't shown you yet.

This self-guided twelve-day motorcycle adventure begins at Ecuador Freedom’s La Carolina headquarters in Quito, in one of the city’s safest, most convenient, and vibrant neighborhoods. We strongly recommend arriving one or two days before your tour begins so you can adjust to the altitude, enjoy Quito, and complete your paperwork and detailed pre-ride briefing before Day 1 whenever possible. You can learn more about our headquarters, facilities, and location on our Our Shop page.

Orientation, Motorcycle & Self-Guided Support

Before departure, you will receive a comprehensive orientation from an experienced Ecuador Freedom guide who knows and has ridden the route. We cover Ecuadorian road etiquette, traffic norms, driver courtesies, safety procedures, weather, altitude, road conditions, and the practical details you need for the twelve days ahead.

Your motorcycle of choice will be equipped with a waterproof luggage system, with a tank bag available if you would like one. You will also receive a programmed Garmin GPS containing the complete route. The GPS is what brings you to the exact hotels, restaurants, workshops, attractions, cultural visits, viewpoints, and other locations included in the itinerary, so you are not spending your vacation trying to figure out where everything is.

Each day you will also have a detailed Ecuador Freedom daily route sheet explaining what you will encounter along the way. These sheets provide historical and cultural background, practical information, details about the day's stops, restaurant recommendations, useful contacts, and other information that helps you understand the country you are riding through rather than simply following a line on a screen.

You will carry a local cell phone, Ecuador Freedom provides 24-hour support, and our back office monitors your progress during riding days. There is no guide riding beside you, but there is an experienced team behind the route if you need assistance.

Secure luggage storage and lockers are available at our headquarters for anything you do not need during the tour. Pack light and carry only what you need for the twelve days on the road.

The Route & Riding Experience

The route has been carefully refined over years of riding, research, and scouting throughout Ecuador. We have selected roads for outstanding riding, scenery, relatively light traffic, and access to towns, communities, workshops, farms, landscapes, and cultural experiences that most international visitors never encounter.

The riding is almost entirely paved, making this an excellent tour for experienced road riders who want to see an enormous amount of Ecuador without committing to a technical off-road journey. There are short stretches of unpaved road, occasional construction zones, cobblestone streets, changing pavement quality, and the normal surprises that come with riding through a developing country, but specialized off-road skills are not required.

Some days involve substantial time in the saddle. This tour covers a lot of Ecuador because that is exactly what it is designed to do. Over twelve days you ride from the northern Andes to the Pacific coast, through the southern mountains, beneath some of the country's great volcanoes, down into the Amazon Basin, and eventually back across the Continental Divide to Quito.

The miles are broken up by carefully planned stops. Your GPS brings you to the exact locations while the daily route sheets explain why they are worth visiting. Along the way you will meet artisans, farmers, cacao growers, coffee producers, Indigenous communities, craftspeople, and some of the friends Ecuador Freedom has made during years of exploring the country.

This is travel that is connected, engaging, and earned — the kind that puts you in the middle of the country instead of simply moving you through it.

The Day-by-Day Itinerary

The itinerary on this page represents the route and experiences planned for your tour. Because you are traveling self-guided, you have the freedom to manage your own riding pace during the day while following the programmed route and planned stops.

Weather, road construction, closures, landslides, local events, or other conditions can occasionally require a route adjustment. When we know about a change before departure, we update your GPS and briefing accordingly. If something changes while you are already traveling, our support team can help you work through the best alternative.

There is plenty packed into these twelve days, so the route sheets are designed to help you keep the day moving while still experiencing the places that make this tour special.

Ride for a Purpose

Throughout the journey, our Ride for a Purpose program gives riders opportunities to support the communities through which we travel. We encourage participants to bring requested school supplies, sports equipment, and other useful items that can be delivered personally along the route.

These visits give you the chance to meet the people receiving the supplies and see where they will actually be used. For many riders, those personal connections become some of the most memorable experiences of the entire journey.

Returning to Quito

On Day 12, your programmed Garmin GPS brings you back to Ecuador Freedom’s La Carolina headquarters. Once the motorcycle is returned, you will have access to our Freedom Riders’ Lounge™ with hot showers, jacuzzi, gym, library, honor bar, and comfortable facilities where you can unpack and clean up after the ride.

The facilities are particularly convenient for riders who are flying out later that evening or continuing onward to another part of Ecuador.

Weather & Temperatures

Ecuador’s weather is remarkably consistent throughout the year, but this tour crosses an extraordinary range of elevations and climates. During the twelve days you travel from sea level on the Pacific coast, where temperatures can reach around 90°F / 32°C, to exposed mountain roads above 14,500 feet / 4,400 meters, where temperatures can fall into the 30s°F / around -1°C.

In the highlands, passing showers are always possible, although complete days of rain are uncommon. The western slopes of the Andes generally receive heavier rainfall during March, April, and early May. Weather can change rapidly at high elevations, particularly around Chimborazo and the other exposed Andean passes.

Dressing in layers is essential because you may experience several completely different climates during a single riding day. Waterproof riding gear, warm gloves, breathable base layers, and quick-drying clothing make an enormous difference. For more detailed information, see our Weather in Ecuador Guide.

Accommodations

Each night you will stay in carefully chosen hotels, inns, haciendas, and lodges selected for their comfort, character, location, and connection to the places you are visiting. These are mid- to high-end accommodations and include historic haciendas, distinctive small hotels, beach accommodations, mountain inns, and boutique eco-lodges that become part of the experience rather than simply places to sleep.

Single occupancy is included as standard at no extra charge, giving you your own private room each night. In rare cases, Ecuador Freedom may substitute an accommodation of comparable quality because of availability or operational requirements.

Packing & Preparation

After booking, Ecuador Freedom will provide a detailed pre-tour preparation package with packing information, videos, practical travel advice, and other information to help you arrive ready for the trip.

Because this tour covers the Pacific coast, tropical lowlands, cloudforest, Amazon rainforest, and high Andean passes, packing intelligently matters more than packing heavily. We recommend reviewing our Motorcycle Tour Packing Guide before you travel.

No knowledge of Spanish is required. Your daily route sheets include practical information and useful contacts, your programmed GPS handles the navigation to the planned locations, and Ecuador Freedom’s support team is available if you need help with communication or logistics while you are on the road.

• Adventure-ready motorcycle – unlimited mileage and fully prepared for the tour with panniers or luggage system, crash protection, Motoz tires, and premium accessories
• Programmed Garmin GPS – loaded with the complete tour route and exact locations for hotels, restaurants, workshops, attractions, cultural visits, viewpoints, and other scheduled stops
• Detailed Ecuador Freedom daily route sheets – with historical and cultural background, practical information, details about each stop, restaurant recommendations, useful contacts, and other information for the journey
• Comprehensive pre-ride briefing – with an experienced Ecuador Freedom guide who knows and has ridden the route
• Private accommodations – your own single-occupancy room or cabin every night at no additional charge
• Breakfast every day
• Dinner at Hacienda Pinsaquí
• Dinner at Cielo Verde Lodge
• Dinner at Hacienda La Danesa
• Dinner at Uzhupud Garden
• Dinner at El Jardín Misahuallí Lodge
• Traditional Amazonian lunch during the Paccari Chocolate Experience
• Local cell phone for use during the tour
• Back-office monitoring during your riding days
• 24-hour Ecuador Freedom support throughout the journey
• Ride for a Purpose participation – opportunities along the route to support rural schools and communities with useful supplies and other donations
• Freedom on rest days – keep your motorcycle and use it to explore if you choose
• 20% pre-tour discount on premium riding gear from our partner Klim
• Pre-tour preparation package – with packing information, videos, practical travel advice, and other information to help you arrive ready for the trip
• Freedom keepsakes – Ecuador Freedom T-shirt and tour decal
• Freedom Riders’ Lounge™ access – hot showers, jacuzzi, gym, library, honor bar, and a comfortable place to relax at the end of the journey
• Secure storage – luggage storage and personal locker use at our Quito headquarters while you are on the road

• Airfare – flights to and from Quito (UIO)
• Airport transfers – taxis, shuttles, or other transportation between the airport and your hotel
• Travel insurance – including trip cancellation, medical, and emergency evacuation coverage; strongly recommended
• Meals not specifically listed as included – including lunch and dinner on the rest days in Canoa and Baños
• Activities not specifically listed as included – including spa treatments, surfing lessons, rafting, canyoning, additional tours, entrance fees, or other optional experiences you choose along the way
• Alcoholic beverages
• Personal purchases – souvenirs, snacks, laundry, items from the honor bar, and other incidental expenses
• Gratuities – including tips for Ecuador Freedom’s motorcycle preparation staff, hotel staff, excursion guides, local hosts, drivers, restaurant staff, and other service providers along the route
• 100% refundable motorcycle security deposit – a credit-card hold to cover any damage to the rental motorcycle
• Hotel accommodations before and after the tour in Quito

Good to know: Ecuadorian tour packages for qualifying non-resident international travelers are not subject to Ecuadorian VAT, so there is no additional Ecuadorian tour tax added to the advertised package price.

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.