Ecuador: The Difference between an Extreme Adventure and an Extraordinarily Extreme Adventure

Compartir

When practicing extreme sports, the body receives a shot of adrenaline that makes us experience what we call “an intense sensation”. In this world, there are many of these sports that make us have amazing experiences. However, with the passing of time these experiences become monotonous with the daily practice of such sport. To avoid that, Ecuador has profited from its natural environments to maximize the intensity while practicing extreme adventures, providing carefully chosen spots with unique surroundings that make extreme adventures an original experience. Find out below the difference between an extreme adventure and an extraordinarily extreme adventure:

• Hidrospeed at Santo Domingo (The Andes)

In the area of the Andes, there are some of the nature’s most pristine places perfect for the practice of fun sports such as the hidrospeed: a sport that puts you in direct contact with water in which you don’t use any kind of boat, but a small floating sled to go down the river using your legs for propulsion. It is something similar to bodyboard, but done in a river. This sport can be practiced in a province very close to the Ecuadorian coast called Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, in the waters of the Blanco River located inside a natural paradise called Valle Hermoso. Thanks to its geographic location, this route offers different landscapes of exuberant vegetation and contrasting weathers that change drastically as you go down the river.

• Bungee Jumping at the Pastaza River’s bridge (Los Andes - Amazonia)

This sport is practiced inside the city of Baños de Agua Santa, located inside the Tungurahua Province. Tied up to the San Francisco Bridge, you will experience the adventure of jumping off the bridge to the powerful waters of the Pastaza River, directly to the rocks where the water incessantly breaks into, adding to the experience an extra touch of risk. The surroundings of this place make the difference: the beautiful Andean and Amazonian landscapes with shinny waterfalls and the Tungurahua Volcano as its eternal guardian make bungee jumping at the Pastaza River a completely different experience.

• Towing at the Canoa Beach (Ecuadorian Coast)

Experience astonishing emotions by reaching great heights with a sport called Truck Towing. As its name says, Truck Towing consists on a Delta wing which is pulled by an all-terrain vehicle until it gains enough speed to fly up to the sky more than 700m (2296ft). The ideal place for practicing this sport is at the north coast of the Canoa Beach, located inside the Manabí Province. In this place, excellent thermal air currents are originated, making it perfect to set out a trip to the sky and observe from above the endless sea with its deep blue color and its waves braking into the white sand. Once in the air, the villages, the mountains and the forests laying on the horizon can be seen in just a glance.

• Diving at Las Grietas (Galapagos)

Diving is something usual, but in a truly enchanted place like the Galapagos Islands, the most usual things become fascinating. In the Santa Cruz Island (also known as the Indefatigable Island), west of the Academia Bay, is found a fantastic spot called Las Grietas, which is a great crack in the land that forms two perpendicular, high walls at whose bottom lies a channel of crystalline waters. This is the ideal place to take your most original jump to the water from an approximate height of 12m (39ft). You will be amazed by the water’s transparency, which allows you to easily observe the wonderful aquatic life. If you believe that this dive couldn’t get any more surprising, you will be shocked when you realize this channel has freshwater at the top and saltwater at the bottom. Have different and fun experiences in only one dive!

Extreme sports can be practiced all around the world, but Ecuador offers places that seem to have been designed by nature especially for the practice of these sports, making the experience of an extreme adventure even more special.

Photo: helixblue

Mindo: A Road That Will Take You through a Spectacle of Colors and Sounds

Compartir

If you have seen the bird’s natural paradise of Tandayapa, a place that seems to have been chosen by birds to gather together and celebrate, then you may wonder if there is in the world another place like that. Amazingly there is, and it is found very close to Tandayapa. Its name is Mindo Cloud Forest.

Home of an impressive variety of unique flora and fauna, Mindo is a place where clouds come together with the trees and the birds, creating a cocktail with the most fantastic landscapes. Only 68km (42mi) to the west of Quito, this wildlife reserve offers the most wonderful ecological adventures. Here, activities such as trekking and sight-seeing will make you feel in contact with nature. You will also be able to observe more than 420 different bird species. Looking at the amazing humming birds flying nonstop and the butterflies cheering up the environment with their colors, you will understand the importance of all species, even if they seem small and simple.

The forest’s road will lead you through a spectacle of colors and sounds with trees, waterfalls, butterflies and flowers. The numerous orchids found in the way will make you take a closer look and observe each little amazing detail. In this forest are found 500 orchid species out of a total of 4000 species registered in Ecuador, and you may see them in the area’s viewpoints or in places harder to reach, like the top of a hill.

Mindo is the home of fantastic creatures living inside an unknown world. It offers visitors a trip that will show them the beautiful simplicity of nature inside a pristine forest with multicolored plants and animals that will be your hosts during your visit.

Photo: caminosisenderos

Live The Amazonian experience at its best at The Cofán Bermejo Reserve

Compartir

The story tells that during the 16th Century, the Spaniards entered the Amazonian territory and found a great and well-organized indigenous civilization with an approximate population of 3000 inhabitants known by the name of “Cofa Na’esu A’i”. Its settlers are still known as “Cofanes”, and they are considered the guardians and only administrators of the most biologically diverse spot on Earth: the Cofán Bermejo Ecological Reserve, an Ecuadorian territory of more than 55.000 hectares located in the North border of the Sucumbios Province.

Perhaps the most impressive fact about this place is that the Bermejo Forest, which is located inside the reserve covering only a 3% of its territory, is the home of an approximate of 700 bird species; 3000 woody plants and at least 20 mammal species considered to be endangered according to a biological inventory made by the Chicago Field Museum.

Getting to this reserve is an adventure only for those with adventurous spirits and a good shape. The only way to access the place is by taking the Inter-oceanic Lago Agrio – Tulcán Highway, a branch from the Amazonian Highway. When arriving to Cascales, which is 1 hour away from Lago Agrio, there is a small way leading to the Shuar community known as Taruka. After that, the adventure begins: to get to the reserve, visitors will have to walk for 6-8 hours in the region of the San Miguel and Bermejos rivers. It is highly recommended to take good camping equipment with you and to be accompanied by one of the reserve’s forest rangers.

The effort that such a long walk implies is widely compensated when you arrive to this green paradise. Its five pathways created and used by the local indigenous communities will take you through winding tracks, steep slopes, fast-flowing rivers, giant trees and precipices, always accompanied by an astonishing fauna and a mix of Andean and Amazonian flora. This is the Amazonian experience at its best!

To live in the jungle, one must be in good shape physically and mentally. The effort you made to get there, the pure nature of the virgin jungle and the open space survival rules you’ll put into practice will make together a great memory.  Going to Cofán Bermejo is certainly a demanding but unforgettable adventure.

Photo: Jade Rivera Rossi

Find Out Why People from All around the World Come to Walk Along This Line

Compartir

The City of Quito is known as one of the Latin American countries that has better preserved in a tangible way its Colonial past, but it is also famous for other interesting things, like being the so-called “World’s belly button”:

Dividing the globe into a northern and a southern half by an imaginary line called “Equinoctial line” or “Equator”, the French geodesic expedition that took place in 1736 found out that the center of the planet was located right at the city of Quito, where a Center of the World monument was erected. Nowadays, many people from all around the world enjoy having pictures taken at that monument, with one foot stepping in the northern hemisphere and the other foot stepping on the southern hemisphere of the planet.

The French geodesic mission’s objective was to confirm the shape of the Earth. For this effect, they created the universal metric system that is currently used. With that system, they discovered –to the world’s astonishment– that the planet was round and flattened on the poles. After intense measuring work, the mission also managed to determine that the center of the world was located inside the province of Pichincha, in the Ecuadorian northern mountain range, 13.5km (8.3mi) away from downtown Quito.

That area is now known as the “Center of the World City”, whose main construction is the Center of the World Monument, a 30m (98ft)-tall pyramidal structure that is a tribute to the union of two worlds and to those who contributed so much to what we know about our planet. On its interior is found the Center of the World Ethnographic Museum, built between 1979 and 1982, where the different cultures of the Ecuadorian ethnic groups are shown. The beautiful local handcrafts decorate the surroundings and the whole place is framed by wonderful Andean landscapes.

Nowadays, if you check on the coordinates given by a GPS system, you will realize the French geodesic mission failed to locate the center by a very small difference, marking it on the 0° 00' 08,10" point, only 239.5m (785.7ft) to the south from the 0°00’0,0’’ point. This showed the impressive accuracy of the geodesics of those times, given the fact that they couldn’t use any of the devices that the modern technology has, which actually have the universal metric system they created as their own base.

The Center of the World City is definitely a place worth visiting. It is a place that keeps the secrets of the story of one of the world’s most transcendental events where visitors can experience the nice feeling of walking right at the line that marks the middle of the world.