Self-Drive Ecuador: The Avenue of the Volcanoes

Ten nights through Ecuador, self-guided, along the Avenue of the Volcanoes.

The name is Humboldt’s, who travelled the valley in 1802 and counted the peaks on either side of it, and the drive still earns it: a corridor between two Andean cordilleras with Cotopaxi, Chimborazo and a dozen other volcanoes standing over it.

Quito opens it for two nights with a guided walk through the colonial core, which is the largest and best preserved in the Americas. The car is collected on the third day for Cotopaxi National Park and the drive to Quilotoa, a crater lake in a collapsed volcano. Banos follows, a thermal spa town below Tungurahua with a long list of adventure activities, then Alausi down the Panamerican, and Cuenca for two nights by way of Ingapirca, the largest Inca site in the country. Las Cajas National Park closes the route, a high paramo of lakes and bare rock, before a flight back to Quito and on to the Galapagos, the Amazon or home.

The pre-booked hire car, the accommodation and the guided walks in Quito and Cuenca are included; international flights are not and the remaining inclusions were not itemised on the operator’s page. The price shown is per person for two sharing, excluding flights. Altitude is a consideration throughout, since Quito sits at 2,850 metres and the route goes higher. June to September and December to January are the drier windows. Eleven days is enough to drive the length of the avenue and still have Cuenca and the paramo at the end of it, and the option to fly straight on to the Galapagos or the Amazon makes it a natural first leg of a longer trip.