| Horseback riding | Rafting |

From Quito, cyclists have access to a large diversity of rides ranging from snow-capped Andean volcanoes exhilarating páramo, cloud forest or jungle on hundreds of miles of mostly traffic-free unpaved roads and trails. The massive scale of the Ecuador's Andes turns cycling uphill into a torture, so our tours are essentially downhill.

Mountain biking is a great source of fun and exercise for people of all ages and abilities, but like any activity, there are levels of difficulty that range from quite manageable for most to the very difficult reserved only for truly experienced individuals. We want to make sure that the trip you choose is the one that's best for you, the one that you will enjoy the most, and so we have classified each of our tours into three categories: easy, moderate, and challenging.

Trip Levels
Easy: Suitable for most people in good health.
Moderate: Requires a reasonable level of fitness - these trips can require sustained endurance levels, hills, longer days and higher altitudes.
Challenging: Physically demanding and best suited for strong people with a lot of endurance. Days can be long, often at altitude, and in remote regions with tough terrain.

Biking tours range from one day up to twelve days all-included tours.

Here a selections of Bike tours available:

ONE DAY BIKE TOURS

COTOPAXI VOLCANO NATIONAL PARK

This is the best known moderate day trip

Drive through páramo landscape to highest point. Enjoy stunning view of 8 different volcanoes.
The bike adventure on the world's highest active volcano begins. Bike on dirt roads through volcanic ash and páramo landscape to Inca ruin at 3.700 m Packed lunch while keeping an eye towards the sky - you might see a condor! In the afternoon bike on dirt roads and single track down from Lake Limpiopungo through pine forest.

Altitudes: 4500-3200 m. (15000-10600 ft.)

QUITO - NONO - TANDAYAPA

Trip Rating: Easy
Drive northwest until we reach the highest point on this trip (3.000 mts). At this point, we switch to our mountain bikes and start the descend. We'll pass the quaint village of Nono. Watch the vegetation change from páramo to cloud forest to low montane forest as you whiz down the mountain until reaching the small bearding paradise of Tandayapa. Keep one eye on the road and the other toward the sky: there's a good chance to see parrots, hummingbirds, toucans and caciques. Picnic lunch. Afterwards we will let you end the biking tour through desert like areas until we reach the Equatorial Line Monument. Drive back to Quito.

Altitudes: 3000-1800m (10000-6000 ft)

TWO DAYS BIKE TOUR

PAPALLACTA - SAN RAFAEL FALLS

Trip Rating: Moderate

This is an excellent way to see a cross section of Ecuador's ecosystems in two days. As we travel, we are dwarfed by the striking Andes Mountains that surround us. You will pedal across the páramo - the Ecuadorian equivalent of the arctic tundra - and down through stunning cloud forest, traversing steep Andean slopes as you descend down into the Amazon basin.

The terrain for this leg of the journey is a combination of dirt and paved roads of scenic rolling hills.

Day 1: Ascend by jeep to the high pass "Paso de la Virgen" at 4200 meters (13300 ft). From here the descent begins by mountain bike...all the way to the small town of Baeza. Lunch in the wilderness. The afternoon bike trip takes us through tropical rainforest to San Rafael Falls, the highest waterfall in Ecuador and end the day with an amazing trek to the famous Waterfalls.

Return to Baeza where a fortifying dinner will be served while you relax to the sounds of the tropical rainforest. Night rest in hotel. (L, D)

Day 2: After breakfast we depart by mountain bike for a 3-hour ride. Once we reach our first destination, we store our bikes on our jeep's roof and drive back up to the Papallacta Hot Springs for a soothing swim in the natural thermal pools. Lunch. Drive over the Papallacta pass at 4200 m and remount our iron horses for the two thousand-meter "whiz" downward to Tumbaco valley. Views of Antisana Volcano will bedazzle you! Jeep to Quito. (B,L)