| Duration: | 9 Day(s) - 8 Night(s) |
| Tour Category: | Culture Tours |
DAY 1: FRIDAY- ARRIVAL IN QUITO, ECUADOR
Arrival in Quito, where you will be met at the airport by our guide and transferred to your hotel. Overnight.
DAY 2: SATURDAY- QUITO CITY TOUR, THE BEST COLONIAL SITE IN SOUTH AMERICA – REPUBLICA DEL CACAO EXPERIENCE
After breakfast, our guide will be waiting for you to explore the colonial site of Quito considered one of the most beautiful ones in South America, you will walk through the Main Plaza, visit the Government Palace, the Cathedral and some of the most important churches built around the 16th and 17th centuries like La Compañía de Jesús that is one of the most beautiful and perfect churches in South America, it is the finest example of Latin American baroque architecture, especially in its facade that is a fantastic work of art carved out on Andean stone. The altars, pulpits, pillars, and arches are all covered with gold leaf.
Lunch in a local restaurant and in the afternoon you will go to the Republica del Cacao Factory located in the downtown, where you will enjoy a fun activity:
This is your moment to become a chocolate chef and design your chocolate bars. Learn how to temper chocolate and create your own chocolate bars and chocolate drops. Then you can take your creations and give them as a gift.
Return to your hotel, overnight.
DAY 3: SUNDAY- THE AMAZING COCK OF THE ROCK LEK – QUITO, COOKING CLASS
After breakfast, our guide and our expert chef will be waiting for you for an interactive market tour in Quito. We will learn about the incredible diversity of Ecuador's products and cuisine. After this interesting experience, you will return to your hotel, where you will enjoy a fun cooking class of delicious Ecuadorian food with delicious chocolate.
In the afternoon, our guide will drive you to the Pacari store, where you will have a chocolate experience, you will learn about the history and tradition of Ecuadorian chocolate, and you will learn the process of elaboration of the exquisite chocolates. Return to your hotel, overnight.
DAY 4: MONDAY- AHUANO – ARCHIDONA: SANTA RITA PROJECT, PACCARI CHOCOLATE – PAPALLACTA SPRINGS
After breakfast you will depart to Santa Rita community in Archidona city (4 hours approximately), you will start your chocolate trail and workshop in Santa Rita “See the entire process of cocoa production: visiting the plantations and working farms where the beans are taken from their brilliantly colored pods in the first stages of being turned into delicious Ecuadorian chocolate, acknowledged as being amongst the best in the world.
After an amazing full day learning about the Ecuadorian chocolate, in the afternoon, after lunch, you will depart to San Isidro lodge located 1 hour from Santa Rita, dinner, and overnight.
DAY 5: TUESDAY- PAPALLACTA SPRINGS
After breakfast, you will have time to enjoy San Isidro trails, that is located in a zone still mostly blanketed by extensive humid forest with agreeable temperature, exciting birds, and a diversity of other wildlife, including large mammals like tapir. After lunch, you will depart for Termas de Papallacta (1 hour and a half). Once in Papallact, you will have free time to enjoy the excellent hot springs and the thermo ludic area (SPA) that this place offers. Dinner and overnight.
Have smoother and healthier skin thanks to the moisturizing properties of chocolate. Body exfoliation, facial mask, 10 minutes thermal jet, and a chocolate bar.
DAY 6: SATURDAY- MASHPI ARTISANAL CHOCOLATE
After breakfast, our guide will be waiting for you to depart for the Mashpi area, located 2 hours from Mindo. You will pass through Pedro Vicente and Pachijal towns before arriving at the Mashpi Artisanal Chocolate farm that is owned and operated by a small Ecuadorian family, You will receive a briefing about the history of the area and the farm, providing key information on today’s reality.
Then you will visit the area of agroforestry systems with organic cacao, where you will learn about the plants, flowers, and fruits. While walking through the agroforestry systems, it would be possible to explain and understand the multiple benefits of this system of diversified cropping, its role as a biological corridor, and the benefits to the local flora and fauna.
Then you will experience the process of the harvest, fermentation, drying, and later you will be able to observe the transformation of the world-famous toasted world famous beans of Arriba Cacao to pure chocolate paste. After a full day in this amazing place, you will return to Sachatamia lodge in Mindo, where you can relax in the pool, have dinner, and overnight.
DAY 7: SUNDAY-THE AMAZING COCK OF THE ROCK LEK – QUITO, COOKING CLASS
Early in the morning, after a cup of hot drink of choice, you will visit the famous Paz de las Aves Refuge where you will have the opportunity to have one of the most amazing experiences, visiting the cock of the rock lek, where, during the breeding season, the males produce a special sound and fly like real acrobats waiting for the female to choose one of them to mate.
Besides, here it is possible to see four species of Antpittas, the Giant Antpitta, the Moustached Antpitta, the Ochre-bellied bellied, and the Yellow-breasted Antpitta. Then you will visit the feeding station to see black chinned and blue-winged mountain tanagers, toucan barbet, dusky piha, sickle-winged guan, crimson-rumped toucanet, etc.
Return to the main house of this reserve to enjoy a typical breakfast of this region and keep birding to find an ocellated tapaculo being fed with worms, yellow vented woodpecker, powerful woodpecker, crimson mantled woodpecker, orange-breasted fruit-eater, etc.
After this experience, you will return to Quito, box lunch en route, and in the afternoon, you will arrive at the Cultura Manor hotel where our expert chef will be waiting for you to enjoy of a fun cooking class of delicious typical Ecuadorian food. Overnight.
DAY 8: MONDAY: TO’AK EXPERIENCE & FUNDACIÓN GUAYASAMÍN – BAÑOS TOWN
After breakfast, our guide will be waiting for you to visit the Guayasamin home and museum (considered the best painter in the last century), combining the chocolate making with an analogical interpretation of the precolonial pieces related to the use of the cacao, and then the tasting with pairing at the private wine cellar of the Guayasamin home.
The first hour is a private tour of Guayasamin’s home and all of its most intimate chambers, guided by an art specialist from the museum. The guide will share Guayasamin’s passion for art and culture and explain the most significant pieces of his private art collection. This is a unique look inside the life of one of Latin America’s most creative minds in this past century.
The second hour is a tasting and pairing of To’ak chocolate, guided by a chocolate specialist from To’ak. The tasting is held in Guayasamin’s private wine cellar, where he welcomed some notable people of the 20th century’s like Fidel Castro, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Francois Mitterrand, the Prince of Monaco, and the King of Spain.
Akin to a wine tasting, guests will be guided through a comprehensive tasting of raw and roasted cacao beans and four different editions of To’ak Chocolate.
The guide will educate guests about different Ecuadorian cacao varieties, terroir, fermentation methods, barrel-aging, and how these production variables influence the flavor and aroma profile of each expression of chocolate. Comparable to a Wine 101 course, but with the most luxurious and elaborate dark chocolate in the world.
Lunch is included in a local restaurant, and then you will depart for Baños city, where you can rest, have dinner, and overnight in your preferred hotel.
DAY 9: SATURDAY: FREE DAY IN QUITO – INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
After breakfast, you will have a free day to enjoy Quito on your own, You can walk around the hotel, visit the Artisan Market, or rest and relax at the hotel. After an unforgettable experience in Ecuador, at an opportune time, you will be transferred to the airport in order to catch your international flight home.
END OF THE SERVICES!!
A NOTE ON THE ORDER OF THE ITINERARY:
Itinerary subject to change based on local conditions. It could be flexible according to the client’s interests.
PRICES INCLUDE: Private transportation, transfers airport-hotel-airport, bilingual naturalist guide, accommodation based on double room in all hotels (single supplement under request), lodges included in the itinerary or similar depending on availability, all excursions described in the itinerary, meals as described in the itinerary, entrance fee to: Middle of the world (Intiñan museum), El quetzal farm, Mashpi chocolate farm activities, Paz de las Aves reserve, To’ak experience, waterfalls and lifts in Baños, chocolate tour in Casa del Suizo, Santa Rita farm, Thermoludic area SPA Papallacta hot springs, churches and museums in Quito, Republica del Cacao silver package, cooking class.
NOT INCLUDED: Travel insurance, meals not specified, soft and alcoholic drinks, tips, and personal expenses. entrance fees: Butterfly Farm per person, orchid farm per person, zip line tour per person, spa massages or treatments.
