Things to Do in Ecuador

About Ecuador

The first thing you smell is woodsmoke drifting up from the tiled roofs of Quito's San Blas barrio at 7 a.m., mixing with the sharp tang of mountain air at 2,850 m and the faint sweetness of panela being boiled for coffee in the market below Plaza Grande. Ecuador doesn't ease you in—it starts at the equator, where the sun hits with a UV index that will fry your shoulders in twenty minutes flat, and the Andes rip straight up from the valley floor to peaks dusted with snow that shouldn't exist this close to the Amazon. In the indigenous craft quarter of San Antonio de Ibarra, a cedar-wood carving of a condor sets you back $25 (enough to keep the artisan's family eating plantain soup for a week), while ten minutes away in the gringolandia of La Mariscal, a craft beer costs $8 and comes with Himalayan salt on the rim. The same bus that drops you at the Otavalo animal market—where live chickens change hands for $6 and the smell of roasted cuy (guinea pig) drifts over the stalls—will, three hours south, leave you in Baños under waterfalls hot enough to scald, where $3 buys you a bowl of hornado pork so tender it falls off the bone when you look at it. Altitude sickness is real: take the TelefériQo up Pichincha too fast and your skull will pound louder than the marimba bands in La Ronda on a Saturday night. But the payoff is standing above a capital city where 17th-century churches are bolted together with Inca stones, and the next volcano eruption is not an if but a when. If you want tidy, go to Switzerland. If you want a country where the bus conductor hangs out the door yelling destinations like a carnival barker and the equator line is painted on a dirt road outside Cayambe—come here.

Travel Tips

Transportation: City buses in Quito cost 35 cents with the rechargeable Tarjeta Metrobus—buy the card at any station for $2 and load $5 to move like a local. The trolleybus from the old town to the new airport takes 45 minutes and costs $2, a tenth of the $20 official taxi fare. In the Sierra, the "buseta" minivans leave when full, so a Quito–Otavalo run that should be 2 hours can stretch to 3 if you board at 3 p.m.; catch the 7 a.m. express and you'll be sipping canelazo in Plaza de Ponchos by 9:30. Download the app "Mi Bus Ecuador"—it still crashes, but it's the only real-time tracker that exists. Overnight buses to Guayaquil recline almost flat for $12; spring the extra $3 for the ejecutivo class or you'll share your footwell with a sack of potatoes.

Money: Ecuador ditched the sucre in 2000 and went straight to the U.S. dollar, so forget about funny exchange rates—your challenge is finding change. Break your $20 bills at the first supermarket; the woman selling humitas on the corner won't have coins for a twenty and will shrug rather than lose a sale. ATMs spit out $20s; Banco Pichincha machines inside shopping malls are least likely to be skimmed. Tipping is modest—round up to the next dollar in taxis and leave 10% in restaurants only if service wasn't included (check the bill: propino voluntario is optional). Credit cards work in mid-range hotels and chain stores, but the $1.50 bank fee gets passed to you—carry small notes for hostels, markets, and the $0.25 bathroom attendants.

Cultural Respect: Kissing on the cheek happens once, right side, even between men meeting for the first time—pull back after the single kiss or you'll accidentally go for round two and feel like a dentist. In indigenous communities around Otavalo and Tigua, ask before photographing anyone; a polite "¿Puedo tomar una foto?" followed by a 50-cent tip is standard. Saturday is market day, not tourist entertainment—haggle with a smile but don't treat it as a sport; $1 off a $5 weaving is fair, demanding half price is rude. If you're invited into a house in the countryside, accept the bowl of chicha—it's fermented corn, slightly sour, and refusing is like rejecting the family's hospitality. Remove your hat in churches; the guards at Compañía de Jesús will tap your shoulder if you forget.

Food Safety: Street-meat rule: if the grill is smoking and there's a line of construction workers, you're safe—order the chorizo for $1.50 and watch them spear it onto a paper napkin that doubles as plate. Avoid pre-peeled fruit swimming in plastic cups; the knife that cut those strawberries may have been rinsed in river water. Ceviche on the coast is breakfast food for a reason—eat it before 11 a.m. when the catch is still on ice from last night. In the highlands, the $2 bowls of locro potato soup are boiled for hours and topped with avocado, making them safer than the salad. Pro tip: squeeze the bowl of ají hot sauce onto your spoon first, taste, then decide—Scoville levels vary from tangy to tear-gas, and the vendor will grin if you survive the full ladle.

When to Visit

January along Quito's equator line feels like spring in a mountain town—14°C (57°F) at dawn, 22°C (72°F) by lunch—and the skies over the TelefériQo are cobalt until the daily 3 p.m. shower. Hotel occupancy drops 30% after New Year, so a $70 room in the old town can be haggled to $50 if you walk in without a reservation. February brings Carnaval: in Ambato the fruit-and-flower parade means streets carpeted with petals and water balloons hurled by twelve-year-olds who've been training all year—bring a rain jacket you don't mind losing. March is shoulder season; the Galápagos live-aboard boats cut prices 25% and flights from Quito drop to $180 return, but the Amazon starts its four-month soak—Puerto Francisco de Orellana averages 300 mm of rain, so pack dry bags and a tolerance for leeches. April is the secret month: Andean hills blaze green, wild orchids pop along the train tracks to Nariz del Diablo, and Easter processions in Quito's colonial core mean incense and drum corps echoing off 400-year-old stone—rooms in restored convents run $90 instead of July's $160. May warms up; Cotopaxi National Park reopens most trails and the first clear volcano views appear, but cloud forests around Mindo are still dripping—butterfly counts peak, so bring a macro lens and a cloth for your glasses. June kicks off high season: European families arrive, Machalilla beaches hit 26°C (79°F), and the whale-watching boats out of Puerto López fill fast—book the $35 tour the afternoon before or wave goodbye to the humpbacks. July is driest in the Sierra, perfect for climbing 5,897-m Chimborazo, but you'll share the refugio with 200 other trekkers and the summit permit just doubled to $40. August repeats July's weather but adds indigenous fiestas in Otavalo—if you want to buy a hand-woven rug, expect to pay 20% more as vendors recoup the year's biggest crowds. September is the sweet spot: Amazon water levels drop enough to spot jaguars on riverbanks, coastal humidity eases, and hostels in Baños drop to $12 dorm beds now that the summer rush is gone. October rains return to the highlands—afternoon thunderstorms roll over Quito like clockwork—but the slopes around Cuenca turn purple with pride-of-India trees and hotel prices fall another 15%. November is the wildcard: either a late dry spell with empty trails or early soaking that turns Latacunga streets into rivers; either way, flight sales from the U.S. hit $350 return on Tuesdays. December means two things—sun on the coast (28°C / 82°F in Salinas) and frenzy everywhere else: Quiteños head to the beach, rooms triple, and the teleférico queue snakes back two blocks. My advice? Book the coast for Christmas, then escape to the quiet cloud forests of Intag where eco-lodges charge $70 and the only sound is hummingbirds dive-bombing your breakfast mango.