Hallo, welcome to the
PARKS AND TRIBES website about
national parks ecotours in Ecuador.
Let us you tell more about the fantastic national parks of Ecuador, that no
travel agent will ever tell you. Why? Very simple, because they have no idea, as
no travel agent in Ecuador knows more than 3 or 4 parks at best, they simply
have no idea what the parks system of Ecuador has to offer. We on the other hand
know almost all 56 of them.
How is that possible you ask? BECAUSE WE WERE PART
OF THE TEAM THAT SELECTED THE AREAS TO THE NATIONAL PARKS SYSTEM!
Who are we?
We are
Dr. Flavio Coello, former director of the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve and current
professor or ecotourism and national parks management, Dr. Randy Borman,
official member of the
Cofan Tribe and Dr. Daan Vreugdenhil, aka the "Parks Man", member of the
former United Nations team that selected the National Parks System of Ecuador.
Nobody knows the national parks and reserves of Ecuador better than we do.
Ecuador's National Parks System
Let us tell you a bit more about the parks and nature reserves of Ecuador:
Ecuador has some of the richest national parks systems in the world, with the
greatest varieties on earth in
climate
zones of Ecuador, landscapes and species of
native animals of Ecuador and
flowers of Ecuador. In other words, Ecuador is the most biodiverse country
in the world calculated per square kilometer. And yet........ hardly anybody
visits the national parks. So we decided to develop different National Parks
ECOTOURS ECUADOR representing the highlights of
Ecuador's national parks system.
Rising to the highest parking lot
in the world: the 1st mountain shelter in
Chimborazo Park at 4800m.
More and more national parks in Ecuador are getting modern quality visitor
centers like
Cajas National Park.
WHY VISITING THE NATIONAL PARKS OF ECUADOR?
Ecuador is the world's climatically most diverse country with tropical
rainforests along the North coast and in the Amazon, deserts along the south
coast and Galapagos and the Andes mountains in the middle, creating a great
variety in
climates;
There are 56 parks and reserves, each with interesting nature and beauty that
can't be found anywhere else;
The most interesting vacations are those that combine culture and nature;
Ecuador has both;
Ecuador is a small country and you can easily visit a different park everyday;
Nowhere else in the world can you find so much different life forms and
ecosystems at such short distances;
There are somewhere around
1650 species of birds recorded for Ecuador, most of which live in the parks
and reserves;
With 9
climate zones, there are always parks that can be visited during an optimal
season;
Parks vary from rain-drenched
Amazon
parks, to
semi-deserts on the south coast, from chilly high elevation areas to coastal
mangroves, from cloud-forests to cactus jungles, from lakes to mountain tops;
Your visit is essential for the conservation of the parks and reserves of
Ecuador.
On excursion through the dry forest of Machalilla National Park.
The Vecuña, one of the rare Andes species is always visible near the glacier of
the Chimborazo Volcano.
10 REASONS TO MAKE THE NATIONAL PARKS ECOTOURS
ECUADOR WITH PARKS &
TRIBES:
First of all, because nobody else organizes such tour;
Only Parks & Tribes actually knows the majority of the protected areas of
Ecuador;
We trained a limited number of guides to accompany the tours;
We always strife for the most economical solutions in a pleasant 3 star hotel
environment;
It is the mission of Parks & Tribes to help protect the protected areas of
Ecuador;
The only tour operator with an Indian tribe as shareholders (Cofan
Indians);
Our mission is to protect, not to make money, therefore we strife for economical
prices so that more people can participate;
Our jungle biologists started organizing national park tours in the nineteen
eighties because we were concerned that many ecotourism operators of ECOTOURS
mostly organize tours outside the national parks, taking their guests to easily
reachable patches of secondary forest. By doing so, such tour operatos actually
compete with the really important official nature reserves. We want to bring you
to the national parks, where you can enjoy the best nature in Ecuador.
We also feel that national parks need to create employment and economic
opportunities for communities living near the protected areas. By organizing
national parks tours, we let you enjoy the most fantastic nature of the country
thereby contributing to the conservation of Ecuador's fantastic national parks
while helping local communities at the same time. So, by coming along on our
tours, you get to see the best of the best Ecuador has to offer, while
conserving pristine nature and helping communities.
We try to organize our tours as economically as possible, but you should be
aware that hiring transportation with a guide costs us about $200 per day. So
you can calculate that we are not making a lot of money on our
pricing.
Cuicocha Crater Lake near Otavalo is one of the most scenic
lakes in the country.
On excursion watching wildlife and birds from the water.
Ingapirca is a splendid Inca monument that equals many of Peru's monuments in
the Sacred Valley.
The Andean Fox is the largest mammal predator after the Puma. The latter
however is very elusive, while the Andean Fox is frequently seen in Cotopaxi
National Park.