Ecuador backpacking itinerary

Ecuador was one of those countries I hadn’t researched much before coming out to South America. I had heard of the Galapagos but not much else and probably did not allocate the time it deserved. I had three weeks in Ecuador and this is some of the things we did. Ecuador lies south of Colombia sharing borders with Peru and Brazil. It’s a pretty small country relative to its neighbours and often gets over looked and doesn’t get the attention it deserves. If you love hiking, beaches, colonial cities and mountains, Ecuador is has it all. From the Amazon jungle to snow capped mountains, surfing beaches and Andean villages, it ticks all the boxes. Ecuador uses the US dollar making it slightly more expensive than neighbouring Peru and Colombia but still its very cheap compared to US or Irish prices. Some of the best value hostels so far have been in Ecuador. I arrived to Ecuador from Colombia via land. This was fairly easy to navigate and took about 5 hours on a bus from the border town of Tulcan to reach the capital of Quito. Quito Quito is the world’s second…