Wet moorland, black lakes, then cloud forest falling east
Cuenca down to the Podocarpus cloud forest: reserve an eleven night sierra journey in southern Ecuador
From $3,330 per person, two sharing a double room, for eleven nights: six around Cuenca and the lake filled moorland above it, five in the Loja highlands where the mountains drop toward the Amazon basin. The drier stretch of the year runs August to January. Even then the moorland makes its own weather, and rain arrives sideways in any month.
Reserve this with the officeNothing is charged here. The form stays open at any hour and a person writes back inside one working day.
Segment by segment, in the order they are taken
Cuenca and the Cajas paramo
move in: half a day6 nights, from $1,620a colonial grid at two and a half thousand metres and a lake filled moorland above it
The Loja highlands and Podocarpus
move in: a full day5 nights, from $1,710cloud forest on the eastern slope where the Andes drop toward the Amazon basin
$3,330 per person for the whole line, which is what the 2 segments come to added together. The office takes nothing off for buying the chain and adds nothing for buying one piece, so the arithmetic is the whole story and neither way is put above the other.
What eleven nights in the sierra hold
Two altitudes and two climates, held together by one road running south. The first stretch is a colonial grid at around two and a half thousand metres with four rivers through it, and above the town a moorland of peat, tussock and several hundred small lakes, high enough to be cold in the middle of the afternoon. The second stretch crosses into the Loja highlands and then out onto the eastern slope, where the mountains fall away toward the Amazon basin and the forest is wet, mossy and loud with birds most mornings. Eleven nights is enough to be in each of them properly rather than to pass through, which is why the route is cut where it is cut.
Crossing from Cajas down to Loja
Getting out of it is the longer half of the day.
One half of the sierra alone
Both halves stand on their own. Six nights around the town and its moorland is from $1,620 per person. Five nights in the Loja highlands and the cloud forest is from $1,710 per person. The second asks more money for fewer nights because reaching it and moving inside it takes longer and the roads are rougher, not because it is ranked above the other; this page ranks neither, and people who ask us usually already know whether they want thin cold air or wet warm forest. Taken alone, the eastern half opens with a long arrival day of its own, and that day is travel rather than a first day of walking.
How the figure is built
$1,620 and $1,710 come to $3,330, and the whole line is from $3,330 per person, two sharing a double room. The chain costs the sum of its parts, exactly: nothing comes off for taking both, nothing is added for splitting them. Inside the figure are eleven nights of rooms, ground transport with a driver including the day between the two halves, entry and permits for the protected areas on your itinerary, and a guide on the days marked for one. Outside it are reaching Ecuador and leaving it, anything that moves by air, meals other than breakfast, drinks, tips, laundry and personal spending. Cover for illness and cancellation is outside as well, and this office does not sell it. The operating company bills you in its own name and this office takes no payment.
| The line | Cuenca to Podocarpus |
|---|---|
| Segments | 2, each sellable on its own |
| Nights end to end | 11 |
| From | $3,330 per person, two sharing |
| How the figure is built | The sum of the segments, with nothing taken off for the chain and nothing added for a single piece. |
| Getting to the country | Your own booking. This office arranges nothing aboard aircraft or ships, and no carrier is under contract to it. |
| Who invoices you | The company that runs each segment, in its own name. |
Asked before people commit
How fit do I need to be for the moorland?
The town sits near two and a half thousand metres and the moorland walks go higher again. Days there are short and mostly flat rather than long and steep, and a rest day sits before the first high one. Whether that altitude suits you is not a question this office is qualified to answer and we will not try to answer it. Put it to your own doctor, early, before you commit to anything.
Am I likely to see the cloud forest birds?
Most mornings on the eastern slope are loud with them, and some mornings are silent for no reason anyone can explain. Nobody controls that and we will not pretend otherwise. On a poor morning you still get the forest itself, which is the reason to be there: moss to the depth of a hand, epiphytes on every branch, and water running under all of it.
Will you sort out my entry paperwork?
No. This office gives no advice on visas, passports, vaccination, law or medicine, for Ecuador or anywhere else, and it will not read your documents or check your dates. Ask the consulate of the country you are going to, and ask well before you commit, because what we can tell you about the route is worth nothing if you cannot get in.
Reserve one segment, or a whole line
This form is open at any hour, and whatever reaches it is read by a person who answers inside one working day. Nothing you send commits you, and no figure is charged at this end at any point.