Your Travel Experience with Galapagos PRO
Day 1
Arrival in Quito
Welcome to Quito! The biggest, most well-preserved colonial city of America. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978, the city is considered the cultural capital of South America and the second most important city of the old Inca Empire. Depending on arrival time, you can spend your day exploring the old town of Quito and the surrounding area. In the evening, one of your trip leaders will meet you at the hotel for a welcome briefing and there will be plenty of time to discuss details and answer any questions you may have regarding the adventure.
Accommodation: Hotel Mercure Alameda or similar
Day 2
Flight to Coca and enter the Yasuní National Park
Let’s board a morning flight or super early drive by car to the town of Coca town to begin our adventure. We’ll take a scenic drive to the Shiripuno River, at the entrance of the YASUNI National Park. While the guides prepare our gear, we’ll enjoy a riverside picnic. Our first expedition will be canoeing down this gorgeous river surrounded by complete nature and wildlife. Along the way, we will have opportunities to spot river turtles, monkeys, caiman, and many species of birds like the oropendola, caciques, kingfishers, macaws, toucans, parrots, and more. We will finally arrive at a local Huaorani family where we will spend our first night in the deep amazon. The Huaoroai tribe is one of the most unique groups in the entire Amazon rainforest and it is known to be the last contact by western society. This special group of people continues to depend on the forest for its survival and its customs have been kept alive until now. In our visit we will learn very much about local living manners and traditions.
Accommodation: Camping in Yasuní Park
Meals included: Breakfast, lunch and dinner
Day 3
Amazing encounters with wildlife while Kayaking
We wake up in the morning with the sunrise to be part of a local activity with the family walking in the forest to collect some leaves from palms in order to manufacture the most useful natural fiber. We will also learn about the plants that are more used in the daily bases, including a deep knowledge with medicinal plants. After spending a cultural morning, we will enjoy lunch with the family and continue with the kayaks down the river heading deeper into the jungle. Every day in the Amazon is a new adventure: the more we paddle, the more pristine and wilder the jungle becomes with new exciting opportunities to encounter more wildlife, such as different types of monkeys, capybara, tapir, swallows, flycatchers, herons, sandpipers and hawks. Late afternoon, we arrived at our campsite, located on the Shiripuno riverside. Our chef will prepare a special tasty dinner for us tonight.
Accommodation: Camping in Yasuní Park
Meals included: Breakfast, lunch and dinner
Day 4
Kayaking in flooded forest
After a delicious breakfast we will start early in the morning kayaking by canoe down the Shiripuno river to reach the entrance to the Amarun – Cocha, which means Anaconda Lagoon in the native language. This is located in the most pristine forest in the area and with luck, we may see the biggest and most beautiful snake on the planet. We will also enjoy breathtaking landscapes with incredible dark and clear waters in a flooded forest. Over here we will discover the mythic piranhas, caimans, boas, and more. Later we will canoe back to the camp site and after a nice break at the hammocks, we will go on a night exploration to view insects, frogs, and possibly some snakes.
Accommodation: Camping in Yasuní Park Meals included: Breakfast, lunch and dinner
Day 5
Educational Hike and visit to the parrots-clay lick
In the morning we will take a hike in the pristine forest to the clay lick the earliest possible. It is one of our best adventures in the jungle, visiting the Lamederos or Saladeros (Animal clay lick) where there is a big concentration of different species animals such us peccaries, deer, rodents and some colorful birds such us; parrots, macaws, and sometimes few predators surrounding the area. They come to feed on the clay from the mineral-enriched ground, which helps them digest and detoxify from the poisons of their main diet. Such places are unique in the Amazon rainforest; because they offer a great chance to see a wide range of Amazon wildlife species. After lunch we will take a hike in the pristine forest this time to learn about the rich flora of the area and how important are the medicinal plants in local life, and all its different uses in daily life. On the way back we can enjoy some piranha fishing.
Accommodation: Camping in Yasuní Park Meals included: Breakfast, lunch and dinner
Day 6
Back to Quito
This is an early morning we will start our navigation back from the deep Amazon up the river by canoe for around 3 hours and on the way, we will have our last chances for spotting amazing wildlife especially the early starters such us birds and riverside creatures, later we will return to by car Coca, and we will take a car to Quito
Meals included: Breakfast