Exploring Southeast Ecuador: A Journey from the Andes to the Amazon
We head back to Ecuador to explore a lesser-visited southeastern loop that moves from the high Andes into the Amazon in just a few hours. David and Tim swap rainforest lodge stories, then David sits down in Cuenca with Felipe from Two Degrees Expeditions to unpack a new, community-driven route that threads cacao and guayusa farms, light-adventure rafting, birding lodges, Shuar cultural experiences, and standout gastronomy in Saraguro.
Why listen:
• Discover how quickly you can link the Andes and Amazon in southern Ecuador
• Learn what “light adventure” looks like for families and curious first-timers
• Hear how Shuar and Saraguro communities are leading culture-forward, sustainable tourism
• Get ideas for unique stays, from river-perched rooms to forest cabins
Places and experiences mentioned
• Cuenca
• The Andes and the Amazon of southern Ecuador
• Cacao farm visit and chocolate tasting
• Guayusa farming and tea tradition
• Family-friendly rafting experience
• Shuar community visit and cultural exchange
• Saraguro town and Chamuico restaurant (six-course tasting)
• Lodges referenced: Rio Vida Lodge (Hualaquiza), Copalinga Forest Lodge
Responsible travel notes
• This route is intentionally community-based. Please book with operators who compensate local partners fairly and cap group sizes.
• Follow lodge guidance on river and rainforest safety, stick to marked paths, and use insect repellent that is rainforest-safe.
• Cultural photography: always ask permission, especially during ceremonies.
Connect with the guest
Book directly with Two Degrees Expeditions or find them on Instagram at 2 degrees expeditions.
Note: Some of the above are affiliate links. if you book using them you will not be charged any extra, but we will receive a small commission to help support the show.
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
On Today's travel in 10, we are going back to Ecuador and this time exploring the southeast of Ecuador, a southeastern loop that I was lucky enough to have the chance to do just a few weeks ago, exploring everything from kind of the Andes to the Amazon.
Speaker A:And one of the things that really struck me on this trip is how quickly you can get from this aquatic mountain range, the Andes, and up at high altitude down into the wilds of the Amazon rainforest.
Speaker A:Tim, I know you've had a chance to travel around a little bit this region as well.
Speaker A:What were some of your impressions of it?
Speaker B:Yeah, so I've been in the Andes, but not in Ecuador.
Speaker B:But I did go into the Amazon region, and it was really interesting.
Speaker B:I stayed at this lodge where you had basically open windows.
Speaker B:So I remember just laying in bed and hearing the sounds of the rainforest, and they would change depending on the time of the day.
Speaker B:So afternoon would have a certain tempo, evening would have a different tempo, and then overnight would have a different sound as well.
Speaker B:And it was just absolutely beautiful.
Speaker B:I remember they had a.
Speaker B:A dry box because it was so humid in the Amazon, so you could put your passport, your devices in this dry box so that you didn't.
Speaker B:They weren't affected by the rainforest, but it was really a true jungle experience, probably the truest jungle experience that I've ever had before.
Speaker B:Now, that's a while ago, David.
Speaker B:I know you were there much more recently.
Speaker A:Well, a lot of similarities in my experience for sure, too.
Speaker A:We stayed in a couple of really cool spots, but one river, Veto Ecolodge, sounds similar to what you experienced, where I was staying in a room where your windows all opened up and it was actually kind of perched out over a river.
Speaker A:Whitewater rafting later that day.
Speaker A:But right in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, and as you say, thousands of species of birds, you wake up to just the sounds of the forest all around you and go to sleep with the sounds of the river running underneath your room.
Speaker A:And it had actually a bathtub built out right over top of the river so you could.
Speaker A:I know you're a guy who enjoys relaxing in a room with a good bath at the view.
Speaker C:This.
Speaker C:This.
Speaker A:You would have loved this one, Tim.
Speaker A:You were sitting out over the river in the middle of an Amazon rainforest, so right up your alley.
Speaker B:I love a bathtub.
Speaker B:And that sounds like a fairly epic bathtub, actually.
Speaker C:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:But why don't we go live to Ecuador, where I had a chance to sit down again with Philippe from Two Degrees Expeditions, who me on our tour of the region and he's just opened up this kind of.
Speaker A:This is kind of a less explored part of Ecuador where he gets into on the loop that we've gone to explore.
Speaker A:So we'll let him tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker A:We are here today in beautiful Cuenca this is a wonderful city that I have had a chance to spend the last few days in and me and you have spent the last few days before that traveling around southern Ecuador, probably a part of Ecuador that not as many tourists get to or know about.
Speaker A:A little bit of an emerging destination, I think it's fair to say from a tourism perspective.
Speaker A:Why did you choose to take us there?
Speaker C:So I was researching.
Speaker C:I've always been in love with the rainforest.
Speaker C:I think the rainforest is the place where we all humans come from.
Speaker C:At some point 15 million years ago there was a big glaciation 15,000 years ago there was a huge glaciation and the people that moved into these areas, they came into the rainforest and stayed.
Speaker C:So a lot of these communities that are living in the rainforest are actually some of the descendants of these people and we can find some of our roots there.
Speaker C:So I've always been in love with this place.
Speaker C:Rainforest in Amazon so I came to live in Cuenca 13 years ago.
Speaker C:I'm originally from this city but I was living in different places so I decided to come back and settle here and I was always thinking how can I do a tour to the southern rainforest?
Speaker C:A place where everybody would like to see something and maybe there's attractions and culture and landscapes and animals or anything.
Speaker C:So being here in the city for a long time, going to the rainforest would be a challenge Would be like two days travel, ugly roads and everything.
Speaker C:But then eventually the roads got better with new roads and new systems.
Speaker C:So now these roads are nice.
Speaker C:It's like three hours away from the city which is nothing.
Speaker C:You drive three hours and you are in a completely different spot.
Speaker C:So last year I had a calling I was like I need to go to the rainforest.
Speaker C:So I basically took my car and started driving down and talking to people and finding these new places.
Speaker C:So I found this cacao place and I was like, wow, this has to be the first place we have to visit.
Speaker C:And then I found the guayusa place.
Speaker C:So this place where they show guayusa, which is a very important drink in the rainforest where all the rainforest cultures, Guayusa is, is a sacred drink.
Speaker C:So I was like, these people are like selling they actually, you can go and pick it up yourself and then maybe buy it this is crazy.
Speaker C:So, and then I. I was looking for a nice hotel and I found this place next to the river that you can actually sleep listening to the river and close to the forest and.
Speaker C:And the best thing, you can just go down to the hotel and take a raft.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And draft down the river.
Speaker C:And this river is amazing because there's beautiful forests and birds and people and things to see.
Speaker C:So I thought it was perfect.
Speaker C:And then also after that, I started finding about the communities that live there, that these are the shuar people, the people that have been priority for thousands of years in this place and they received tourists.
Speaker C:They were actually thinking of the same idea of maybe developing tourism in the area.
Speaker C:So for me it was perfect.
Speaker C:I think discovering that there's actually people in the other side of the.
Speaker C:Of my city thinking of developing tourism and that I could actually make an alliance with them and help them protect their culture, their forest and have like a sustainable touristic project.
Speaker C:It was perfect.
Speaker C:So that's the reason I actually developed the package of the southeast loop.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that southeast loop.
Speaker A:I mean, prior to you developing this trip, it sounds like there really hasn't been much in terms of organized tours to get you into that part of the country.
Speaker C:No, there's tourists to go to the place, but not something organized, not a package.
Speaker C:Specifically, people from Cuenca have been going to this place in the last year because this is kind of like came to be known just a year ago.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:So people have been going, but they only go for like the day, they spend the day and then they come back.
Speaker C:So there's nothing really organized that connects.
Speaker A:All these attractions and connects all these small rural communities from agritourism to adventure to national parks.
Speaker A:So much that we were able to pack in.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:And also like full gastronomy.
Speaker C:The idea of also having new experiences or getting in touch with these communities and walking with them, or walking barefoot inside of the forest, like these types of experiences are experiences that have to be connected to a package because on their own they don't really mean anything for sure.
Speaker A:One of the things that really struck me is that in all the communities that we went to, people have really preserved their culture very well.
Speaker A:I mean, you see the traditional dress, you hear some traditional music, traditional food.
Speaker A:Why do you think they've been able to preserve their culture so much more in so much more of a strong way here than you see in many other places around the world?
Speaker C:Well, I think it's been a long process because the mestizos.
Speaker C:I'm a mestizo and most of the Ecuadorians are mestizos, people from the cities, they started going into the rainforest and taking places to do cattle or agriculture and displacing the local communities like the Shuar.
Speaker C:So, so this brought a lot of problems and eventually this settled into, okay, we use this space and you use this space, and maybe we can work together in some of these places.
Speaker C:So that led to the recognizing that we are a culture and we want to keep this and conserve these parts.
Speaker C:So I think the Shuar people have really, really clear ideas of what they want to conserve.
Speaker C:They have mapped all of the traditions and, and their ancestral knowledge and they're trying to show it to the people.
Speaker C:So I think otherwise than thinking that these people are actually dressing like that all day.
Speaker C:It's a fact that they have embraced the western culture, but they have kept the roots of what they are.
Speaker A:Yeah, but even traveling in the big cities here in Cuenca, you still see a lot of people in traditional dress every day.
Speaker A:And yeah, they really, really do seem to have preserved their culture and in a very unique way here.
Speaker C:The thing is that here, because of this process of colonization, there's people that have decided that they want to keep their culture, they are who they are, and they want to stay dressed the way that they do.
Speaker C:So it's been very cool process to understand that these people want to be or show to the outside world that they still have their language, they still dress and they still have some gastronomy that they want to keep.
Speaker C:I think it's a process of recognizing who you are.
Speaker C:Yeah, identity.
Speaker A:I thought something else that was really unique about this trip that we just did was, you know, I think for a lot of people in North America, the Andes hold a lot of attraction, mystery.
Speaker A:The Amazon also.
Speaker A:And to be able to go from the Andes to the Amazon, literally, I mean, in some of the days it was an hour, an hour and a half, and we were traveling from, you know, the heights of the Andes to the middle of the rainforest, to these remote indigenous communities.
Speaker A:And to be able to do there's just so much in such a short period of time and such a wide variety from a cultural standpoint, wildlife standpoint, just such a mix of things in a few days time.
Speaker C:Yes, Ecuador has this diversity standpoint where actually people can wake up in the morning in the rainforest, see the sunrise, go have lunch in the highlands with the sun, and then drop down to the coast and actually see the sunset in the coast.
Speaker C:So Ecuador has that thing of being able to move from different Environments in small periods of time and little short distances.
Speaker C:So from here, from Cuenca to the upper highlands to the highest spot that's 4,100 meters, it's only an hour.
Speaker C:And then from there to the coast it's another hour and you're actually on the coast completely.
Speaker C:And then to the sea, it's only four hours away.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:So for us Ecuadorians, when I was younger, it would be fun.
Speaker C:People would be like friends would be like, oh, let's go to have ceviche in the morning.
Speaker C:And we would basically leave in the middle of the day and end up in the afternoon having a beer in the ocean and then coming back to the city.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:So that type of experience I think is what forges into understanding our country as a neighbor spot where you can do many different activities in one day.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Or have different food in one day, like Locro de papas or guinea pig up in the highlands.
Speaker C:And then it's ceviche in the coast.
Speaker A:In the coast, yes.
Speaker A:Gastronomy was a huge part of this tour we just did.
Speaker A:I mean, we had the experience, as you say, on the cacao farm when we first arrived.
Speaker A:Ecuador, renowned for its chocolate for sure, known around the world.
Speaker A:We then got to finish off on our final day with a goat farm, some goat cheese and getting that experience.
Speaker A:And we experienced a phenomenal restaurant.
Speaker A:Do you want to maybe talk a little bit about the restaurant that you're took us to?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So we went to a restaurant that's called Chamuico and Samuel, who is the owner of this restaurant, he went to Spain to work as a worker.
Speaker C:But eventually he got a job in a restaurant and he learned a lot of cooking techniques and stuff at a Michelin star restaurant.
Speaker C:So eventually he decided to come back to his land and he established a restaurant there.
Speaker C:So he's been improving his cuisine with dishes that are prepared with local products, actually local products from his family and from the surrounding areas.
Speaker C:So he's actually supporting the conservation of products that are getting lost and also using some of the techniques that he learned in Europe to make new things in Ecuador.
Speaker C:So the type of gastronomy that you get there is a fusion between his knowledge and the local products.
Speaker C:It's really, really cool.
Speaker C:And then you can try different flavors and different colors and different smells because he's like mixing all of these different things.
Speaker C:Really, really cool experience.
Speaker A:We got Charlotte, I think it was about a six course meal and the presentation was phenomenal.
Speaker A:And it was really interesting too, the community that his restaurant is based within.
Speaker A:And I'm trying to remember the name of the community we were in.
Speaker A:I mean, that was another great example of a place that's just very unique culture.
Speaker A:And a lot of people from the highlands who have come there and have their own culture.
Speaker C:Yes, these Saraguru were what we call Mitmaq.
Speaker C:Mitmaq were people that the Incas decided to move away from their place.
Speaker C:So either they were a community that had a lot of problems.
Speaker C:So they said, we're gonna move you and you're gonna be in a different place.
Speaker C:So they took them priority from Bolivia and they established in this area.
Speaker C:It's an hour away from Cuenca.
Speaker C:And they are the.
Speaker C:It's interesting because as you're driving, you start seeing some people that are just different and it's this culture that is only in this area.
Speaker C:So the Saraguro are very interesting people, very organized, very peaceful, very friendly.
Speaker C:And so this is Saraguro, the town of these people.
Speaker C:So when you go to this restaurant, people come actually in Serbia with the original dresses and they talk about their food and their traditions.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's really cool.
Speaker A:I thought another huge highlight of our trip was the time that we spent with the Shuar.
Speaker A:Do you want to talk a little bit about that experience and what that's like, paint the picture for people what they would experience there?
Speaker C:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker C:I think the visit to the Shoar was incredible because we got to be and to experience the culture of these Shuar people.
Speaker C:The Shuar were called the Jibaros.
Speaker C:They're part of a group that's called the Jibaros that includes four different cultures in the rainforest.
Speaker C:The Jibaro people were known for being isolated in the rainforest and they were not conquered by the Incas or the Spanish, mainly because they had poles on the outside of their territories that held shrunken heads.
Speaker C:So, yeah, people wouldn't really get close to these communities because they were really, really scared of having their heads shrunken.
Speaker C:And eventually they managed to keep their culture and keep their language and their dresses and their gastronomy and all of their cosmovision.
Speaker C:So the visit to this community was interesting because they showed who they are and what they are made for and also the type of dresses that they use.
Speaker C:They explained all the dresses that they use.
Speaker C:They also explained the food, how they go to the forest and what do they find there.
Speaker C:So one of the days that we visited, we were walking on an event was happening at the forest.
Speaker C:A little worm or a little caterpillar from a butterfly had spotted sprouted those days.
Speaker C:So it was in the trees and they started calling them.
Speaker C:So these people would like, say, hoo, hoo.
Speaker C:And the little worms or little caterpillars just telling, like, shaking their.
Speaker C:So they have this deep knowledge of the forest that allows them to actually find things that we wouldn't really see, because none of us saw these except them.
Speaker C:And they were like, oh, we eat these things and they are here.
Speaker C:So the rainforest, even though it's a place that it's always green and it doesn't have snow or anything, it doesn't change.
Speaker C:It has these little events.
Speaker C:So they showed us their knowledge of the forest.
Speaker C:They also showed the spiritual context where they live in what they believe.
Speaker C:They did a small ceremony with tobacco, trying to show us how they connect through the plants, through the medicine plants, to the knowledge of the forest.
Speaker C:And then we also talked about their longer language, the dances, the.
Speaker C:They taught us a bit of dancing and music.
Speaker C:So it was a very deep connective experience that allowed us also to get to know incredible people that are really, really friendly and luckily not doing any shrunken heads anymore.
Speaker C:So I think this was like a part of the culture, and they acknowledge it.
Speaker C:That's something that they used to do, and now it's basically the way of protecting their ancestry.
Speaker C:That's.
Speaker C:That's, I think, the most important thing.
Speaker A:And they didn't actually talk a lot about it, but they did mention a little bit that ayahuasca was part of their spiritual ceremonies and stuff that they do there as well.
Speaker C:Yeah, ayahuasca is an interesting thing because for these people that have been for thousands of years in the forest, ayahuasca is a plant that doesn't work on its own.
Speaker C:And somehow these people found that they could mix this plant with this other plant and the compounds of ayahuasca would be activated so they could drink it and have a spiritual hallucination experience that would allow them to also understand what was going on.
Speaker C:So shamans and people that work with these medicine plants can actually heal people through going deeper into their emotions or their feelings and also understanding what's going on.
Speaker C:So ayahuasca is a thing that they do, the shamans.
Speaker C:It's not something that you do every day because it's very powerful.
Speaker C:And I don't think it should be seen as a drug also, because drugs actually will get your hook on them.
Speaker C:Ayahuasca doesn't get your hook on you.
Speaker C:You take it once and you want to take it anymore.
Speaker C:So, yes, this is something that The Shuar, the Jivaros and I think most of the rainforest cultures actually do.
Speaker C:So it's kind of an interesting thing.
Speaker C:It's like the medicine of the forest for sure.
Speaker A:It was definitely, I mean you could see this as an area where sustainable tourism is very important.
Speaker A:It's very community based tourism.
Speaker A:I mean you're very much on this trip that you have designed.
Speaker A:Interacting with the local community very directly each stop of the trip.
Speaker A:What kind of people do you think this trip appeals to?
Speaker C:I think this trip is good for families.
Speaker C:I think families and kids would really, really appreciate all the experience either the rafting that is not a difficult rafting and something family oriented.
Speaker C:The visit to the Shuar I think will change the minds of the visitors.
Speaker C:Families, kids, elders.
Speaker C:I think it's made for everyone.
Speaker C:I don't think there's a person that wouldn't really enjoy this place unless it's someone that doesn't really want to be outside.
Speaker C:But I don't think that's the idea.
Speaker C:I think we all need at some point to see some green and green actually makes us feel very nice.
Speaker C:So I would say it's made for.
Speaker A:Everyone and very much, I would say like the people who are into culture adventure.
Speaker A:This isn't an all inclusive in Cancun.
Speaker A:This is a bit more adventurous for sure, but at the same time you're still staying in beautiful places each evening.
Speaker A:I thought particularly the rafting lodge we stayed in was great.
Speaker A:My room had a bathtub over the river and a net that you could sit in overlooking the river.
Speaker A:It was beautiful and really some unique accommodations.
Speaker A:We saw a really unique new accommodations being built on the cacao farm that we visited as well.
Speaker A:Some new infrastructure that's being built there.
Speaker A:So definitely a more adventurous trip but still lots of, you know, comfortable at the same time too.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Light adventure I guess, light adventure say because if we want to focus it into a more hard adventure we could do it but we wouldn't include all the people.
Speaker C:So the idea with this tour is to be able to include most of the public.
Speaker C:And also I think the other place is Copalinga, this forest lodge where you sleep inside of these cabins in the middle of the forest and you have birds waking you up in the morning.
Speaker C:So these type of experiences actually get people in touch to the natural area.
Speaker C:I do believe that the Rio Vida Lodge in Hualaquiza is a place that actually gets you to understand the river and the forest and the community.
Speaker C:It's a place where you, you can rest of the noises of the city because you have the river in the backside and the birds.
Speaker C:So this place is not only about sight, but also about listening, about feeling, about everything.
Speaker C:It includes all the senses.
Speaker A:And if people want to find out more about southern Ecuador and about this trip specifically, and they can probably find you out on Instagram, where should they find you?
Speaker C:So my Instagram page is 2 degrees because we're located 2 degrees south of the equator.
Speaker C:So 2 degrees expeditions.
Speaker C:2 degrees expeditions is the name of our company.
Speaker C:We focus on tourism, ecotourism in the south of Ecuador, but of course we operate in all the countries and we do Galapagos tours and we also do rainforest highlands to actually connect to this beautiful city that is Cuenca.
Speaker A:And you were mentioning to me too that you could even organize trips connecting people from the south of Ecuador down into Peru and back as well.
Speaker A:So if they want.
Speaker C:Peru is our neighbor and our friend country.
Speaker C:So we're actually making tours to connect to the south part of Peru, to the north part of Peru, and that could actually get you to Cusco and to Lima and to other places.
Speaker C:So we are trying to make to connect the Ecuador with Peru as a whole country.
Speaker A:Well, it was an amazing experience and thank you so much for sharing your culture and sharing the experience with us over the last few days.
Speaker A:It's been great.
Speaker C:Yeah, thank you, David.
Speaker C:It was amazing to have you on the tour and I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as I did.
