Ecuador: Quito - Single Day Tours
Tour Overview:
Many people arrange their own trips to Ecuador, to visit the Galapagos, Amazon or Andes, and then find themselves with single days to fill. These day trips have been designed to fill in those gap days. Tropical Birding have a series of guides based in Ecuador and are connected to a network of guides in country, so usually have people available for these single day tours.
These day trips from the Ecuadorian capital Quito highlight some of the key sites that you can visit in a single day tour. The sites can be visited for birders, looking to see the most species, for Birders With a Camera, looking to see plenty of species and photograph them too, or Photographers looking to focus on shooting a selection of photogenic species only. If you are interested in any of these, please contact the office and we can doctor the day to suit your individual needs. They can be taken by advanced and beginner birders/photographers alike. All of the trips, except trip 5, include visits to sites with hummingbird feeders. It should be noted, if you have more than one day, it is recommended that you spend a night or more at Tandayapa Bird Lodge, where some of these and others sites can be covered better over several days, in order to expand the possibilities of what you can see or photograph. If you wish to see some of the options for several day tours in Ecuador, please check out the Tandayapa Bird Lodge packages.
Tour 1: The High Andes - Antisana
This is one of the most popular day trips, as it combines easy birding in the open grasslands of the high Andes, with some of the most dramatic landscapes close to Quito. While the birding is at high altitude, at around 3800m/12,470ft, this is done along paved roads, at slow pace, with only short walks from the vehicle, and is therefore not physically challenging. Birding will be in high grasslands, known as paramos, and lunch will be taken at a local café with hummingbird feeders in the garden, and views of the Andean Condor roosting cliffs nearby. On clear days, amazing views of the 5,753m/18,875ft-high Antisana Volcano are possible too. This day trip offers some of the easiest birding of all the day trips, and along with Papallacta some of the best scenery of them all.