7 days in Ecuador: Quito, Mindo and Amazon Lodge in Yasuni National Park

Are you planning your trip to Ecuador and looking for a perfect itinerary for 7 days in Ecuador? In this article, I will share our itinerary for one week in Ecuador, visiting Quito, Mindo Cloud Forest and even the Amazon rainforest, where we stayed for 3 nights in a lodge in Yasuni National Park. This 7-day itinerary for Ecuador is perfect for people who enjoy visiting a lot of different locations and love nature and bird watching! Sounds interesting? Keep reading! 

Before we start, here’s a quick overview of our itinerary:

Our itinerary for 7 days in Ecuador (the overview)

Day 1: Arriving in Quito, driving to Mindo

Day 2: Birdwatching in Mindo, visiting Mitad del Mundo, evening in Quito 

Day 3: Flying to Coca, staying at Napo Cultural Center in Yasuni (Amazon adventure)

Day 4: Amazon rainforest

Day 5: Amazon rainforest

Day 6: Flying back to Quito, exploring the city centre

Day 7: Quito in the morning and flying back home (through Lima)

Quick links:

I’ve been told many times that having the most important links in one place helps to simplify the booking and planning process, so here you go; here are the most important links mentioned in this post:

Mosquito-proof clothing for the jungle: Craghoppers Range

Hotel for the first night in Quito: Ibis Quito

Hotel for the second night in Quito: Hotel San Fransisco de Quito

Hotel in Mindo: Casa Divina

Tour 1 in Mindo: (Zip Line) https://viator.tp.st/OpAf1Rw5

Tour 2 in Mindo: (Bird Watching) https://tripadvisor.tp.st/cv4cauAx

Car rental: check availability

Jungle flights

Jungle lodge: Napo Cultural Center

Quito walking tour: book here

Is it safe to go to the Amazon Lodges in Ecuador?

Many people are wondering whether it’s safe to visit the Amazon in Ecuador and generally, it’s pretty safe. It’s actually way safer than I have imagined. By “safe”, I mean safe from deadly diseases, parasites, insects and snake bites. Yasuni National Park, where we stayed, is free from Malaria, so you don’t need to be too worried about it. However, there are plenty of other tropical diseases – you always need to be cautious and wear appropriate clothes.

What to pack for Ecuador (especially the Amazon jungle part)?

When you book your lodge in Yasuni National Park, they usually send you a packing list and some recommendations in terms of clothing. If you’re booking a short tour (4 days – 3 nights) just like we did, you definitely need 2 pairs of fast-drying pants or trousers (however you call them where you’re from) – and no, you can’t buy them in Ecuador unless you want to pay 2-3x the price you would pay back home. We found the same brands in Quito as the ones we had seen in Cotswolds Outdoors in London but for 2-3 times the price (over $100-120), so make sure to buy them in advance to avoid disappointment! 

I would recommend buying special anti-mosquito trousers (they really worked for me – I only got 1 bite on my leg) like these ones and long-sleeve anti-mosquito shirts like this one. I recommend bringing 3-4 shirts with you, as it’s really hot and everybody sweats a lot in the jungle! 

Also, make sure to bring long socks with you, as you will be wearing rubber boots 90% of the time. Don’t bother with bringing special shoes, as you will mostly be wearing provided rubber boots and nothing else (except for some sneakers or sandals when going to eat at a lodge restaurant)

Alright, now let’s start with the itinerary for 7 days in Ecuador: Quito, Mindo and Amazon adventure in Yasuni National Park

Day 1: Arriving at Quito Airport, driving to Mindo, a night at Casa Divina

Quito airport experience & picking up our rental car

Quito airport border control experience was pretty smooth – unlike the experience, we had in Bolivia on our last leg of the trip (nothing major, but it took ages). It took us less than 20 minutes to pass all the border checks and pick up our bags in Quito. Quito airport is pretty small, but it’s super modern and actually very nice. 

The only slightly negative experience was our car rental experience. We rented cars in Central and South America before, and for some reason, the experience is always pretty bad – you either get a much worse car than the one you booked with no refund under the pretence that your “booked” car is not available and your only option is to accept this new worse car, or you have to pay extra. We always agree to a worse car – this time, we got a manual instead of an automatic (even though we booked an automatic and paid extra for it) – our only option was to accept this manual SUV or downgrade to a compact automatic car which would not be able to drive where we needed to go. All car rental companies have terrible ratings and reviews in South America, so you should have some pretty low expectations. Ah, and they wanted to charge us an $8000 (USD!) deposit for this car even though it was $800 in our contract, and they only agreed to charge us $800 when we sent them the copy of our booking confirmation – so make sure you have internet access, or you have all the documents printed, so you don’t get tricked like that.

Driving from Quito to Mindo

After we picked up our car, we drove to the nearest shopping mall that had quick-drying and mosquito-proof clothing as we quickly realised that what we brought with us (1 pair of anti-mosquito trousers and 2 shirts each) was not enough for 2 days in Mindo and 4 days in the Amazon jungle. We found a few stores selling quick-drying tourers suitable for the jungle, e.g. The North Face etc., but everything was way more expensive than in London – e.g. the same trousers we bought in the UK for £50 ($65) were $130 in Ecuador, so we regretted not bringing more appropriate clothes with us! Lesson learned! 

Tip: Even though it might seem logical to buy jungle clothes in Ecuador, it’s cheaper and easier to buy them in your country and bring them with you.

After a quick lunch, we finally started our drive towards Mindo. Mindo is one of the most beautiful places in Ecuador and it takes around 1.5 to 2 hours to get there depending on where in Quito you’re departing from and on the traffic and weather conditions. It’s actually faster to get there from Quito airport than from Quito centre.

The road to Mindo is very scenic! You will pass very tall mountains, beautiful forests and a lot of stunning views. There are also a couple of cafes on the way; however, I would probably recommend eating something before starting a journey to Mindo. 

Exploring Mindo

Mindo is a small town famous for its Cloud Forest – a very special ecosystem, a tropical evergreen forest, which is home to a very high number of birds. You can find Mindo at the top of worldwide rankings for bird spotting. The town itself is very small and unassuming. It’s not very manicured as well – the roads are unpaved, and many stray dogs are running around. 

Casa Divina

We arrived in Mindo around 4pm and while it was still light, we decided to walk and explore the trails of our hotel, Casa Divina, after a quick check-in. Casa Divina is an amazing family-run guesthouse founded by an American woman and her Ecuadorian husband. Both of them and their kids work at Casa Divina and are very knowledgeable and friendly. We had a night jungle tour around the Casa Divina with the founder as well. 

There are 2 short trails on the territory of Casa Divina and we walked one of the trails (although somehow we managed to get lost and did an entire circle around the property and even ended up on another trail of another property and spent an hour up in the forest instead of 15 minutes). 

Where to eat in Mindo

There are a few good dining options in Mindo. We had a quick dinner in the Persian House, and the food was lovely! Monmot Bistro and Fuera De Babilonia are also good options for lunch or dinner in Mindo. 

Day 2: Birdwatching in Mindo, visiting Mitad del Mundo, evening in Quito 

Birdwatching in Mindo

We spent the entire morning of our second day in Ecuador birdwatching. In order to see most birds, you need to wake up very early. Casa Divina has a fantastic rooftop terrace and a small spot where they lay fruits every morning, so the birds come to the property for a morning feast. While the terrace of Casa Divina usually opens at 7am, we asked to open it a bit earlier and went there already at 6:30 in the morning. 

In the next 1.5 hours, we saw many amazing birds, including toucans and guans! While some of them came to eat fruits, some others were just flying around. At 8 am, we had breakfast downstairs, looking at the Colibri in the garden, and at 10am, we left Casa Divina and went to our next destination.

The best things to do in Mindo in 24 hours

Mindo Zip Line

Even though Mindo is a tiny town, there are plenty of things to do. The first thing on our itinerary was the zip line. The zip line in Mindo was amazing. It’s usually quite busy, so I recommend booking in advance. You can book it online here. The zip line consists of 10 different tracks of different lengths and difficulty levels. All of the tracks have different views as well!

Mindo Cable Car

Mindo Cable Car can bring you to the famous Nambillo Waterfall, so you don’t need to hike there if you don’t feel like it or don’t have enough time. The cable car is also pretty amazing – it has open cabins, so you can easily observe the surroundings, take photos and look for birds! You can book your ticket in advance here.

Cocoa and chocolate tasting and tours

Mindo has a really good climate for growing cocoa beans and making chocolate. If you want to learn a bit more about how cocoa beans are grown and how chocolate is made, you can book one of the cocoa and chocolate taking tours like this one.

Alternatively, you can visit a cafe like Mindo Chocolate and try chocolate there as well as buy some chocolates at the local store.

Butterfly sanctuary – Mariposas de Mindo

Another popular attraction in Mindo is the butterfly sanctuary.

This one you can visit without pre-booking. It costs around $6 per person to visit and even includes a small tour. You can see 3 types of butterflies there, and there are so many of them, thousands or more!

Take a birdwatching tour / see cock-of-the-rock.

Some people come to Mindo to see the famous and very rare bird, cock-of-the-rock. In order to see them, you actually need to wake up extra early and hike for a while. You will have higher chances to see cock of the rock if you go with a guide, and it might be the best option despite the fact that the tours are pretty expensive. You can find out more about these tours here.

Heading back to Quito, visiting Mitad del Mundo 

We spent the first half of our day in Mindo, visiting some of the best attractions, then had lunch there and around 2:30 pm, we headed towards Quito. On our way, we decided to stop at another world-famous attraction, Mitad del Mundo! 

Mitad del Mundo is a line which separates the North and the South Hemispheres. Well, in reality, the actual line is somewhere 200 meters away in the village, but in Mitad del Mundo, you can visit a museum, put a few stamps that you can stamp your passport with, eat something at the countless restaurants and buy some souvenirs at the local stores. And, of course, you can take a lot of photos! 

Spending an evening in Quito 

We arrived in Quito around 6pm, checked in at our hotel Ibis and spent some time resting in the room. Then it was already time to go for dinner, and we found a very nice street food market very close to Ibis Quito! 

Days 3-5: Taking a flight to Coca, starting our Amazon Adventure at Napo Cultural Center

Flying to Coca

The highlight of our trip to Ecuador was our 4-day experience at an Amazon Lodge located in the heart of Yasuni National park. In order to get to Yasuni, we needed to take a flight to Coca Airport, switch to a speedboat, and spend another 2 hours there to reach the lodge. Usually, the lodges arrange the speedboat, but they can also help you with the flights. In our case, we just booked flights to Coca directly with Latam airlines. 

The flights to Coca usually depart in the morning and land in Coca around 9am or 10am. The flight is usually very short – we only had 5 minutes with the seatbelt sign off – the rest of the flight was either the accent or the descent. 

Coca to Yasuni National Park

Upon arrival at Coca Airport, we took a taxi to the river port, where all the speedboats to lodges depart from. The taxis usually stand and wait for people at the airport, so there is no problem in finding one. Make sure to bring some cash with you as there are no services like Uber or Cabify in Coca. The ride to the river port only takes about 5 minutes. 

At the riverport, our guide was already waiting for us! However, we had to wait for another hour, as we were scheduled to depart in the same speedboat as another couple, going to another lodge (Napo Wildlife Center). Keep that in mind if you book your own flights (most customers might arrive on the flights suggested by the lodge). 

The boat ride to our lodge, Napo Cultural Center took less than 2 hours and was very enjoyable as it was a very hot and sunny day (it does get cold on a speedboat when it’s rainy or stormy, as we found out on the way back). We were also offered a very lovely lunch box so we arrived to the lodge pretty full. 

Napo Wildlife Center is located 2 more hours away, so the couple who went there, continued their journey by speedboat for 15 more minutes and then changed to a kayak, where they stayed for 1.5 more hours. 

Our experience at Napo Cultural Center – an amazing affordable amazon lodge in Ecuador 

When we arrived at Napo Cultural Center, we were greeted by the leader of the community, who offered us a few snacks and refreshments. Throughout our stay at Napo Cultural Center, everyone who worked there was incredible – very friendly and polite! From our amazing guide to the chef at the restaurant and people from the community, everybody made us feel very welcome!

I wouldn’t go deep into our itinerary, as it differs depending on the season, the weather and the number of people in the group. We were incredibly lucky to arrive on the dates when there were no other arrivals, so we pretty much had our guide to ourselves – he was our private guide! There was only one other guest at the lodge during our first two days – he came there for a long time for research purposes and had his own guide.

Which activities to expect at Napo Cultural Center

Pretty much every day at Napo Cultural Center follows a specific schedule. You wake up usually pretty early in the morning (all the bird activity happens in the morning). By 7:30am, you will have already finished breakfast and changed into an outfit fit for venturing outside the lodge. These early hours are always the best, in my opinion, as it is not so hot yet. 

During the morning trips, you can either go to the clay licks or to one of the observation towers if the weather permits. You can also stay at the lodge, visit the women in the community, and see them perform their traditional dances and rituals. 

Then you usually go back to your room for a quick change and head out for lunch in the common area of the community’s main building. After lunch, you usually have an hour or two to rest to avoid venturing out during the hottest hour of the day. 

Around 3 or 4pm, you meet with your guide again and venture out for a shorter walk/ride to an observation tower or a walk around the community’s territory to look out for birds. 

Then you have dinner around 7pm and after dinner, you are usually free or you can also have some activities like a night jungle walk. There are rarely activities after dinner, so you usually get some time to rest.

What to pack for a stay in an Amazon lodge in Ecuador 

When we were planning our trip to Ecuador, we were puzzled about what to bring there, especially in April, as April tends to be the rainiest month in Ecuador. We were planning to bring only one pair of fast-drying long trousers and a couple of shirts each, but after a trip to Mindo, we realised that it’s definitely not enough. As I mentioned before, shopping options for these garments in Ecuador are very limited, so bringing enough clothes with you is much better and cheaper.

I recommend at least 3 pairs of fast-drying trousers, 3 shirts and 3 pairs of socks for this itinerary. You don’t need a hat or cap as lodges like Napo Cultural Center generally gift them to you. As for clothes, you will be wearing rubber boots 99% of the time. You will also be provided with a raincoat by your lodge. 

For fast-drying trousers and shirts, I recommend the brand called Craghoppers – they are sold on Amazon worldwide as well as in stores like Cotswold Outdoors. One of their lines also has mosquito protection – and I can tell you that’s true; they are already treated with some sort of mosquito repellent.

I also recommend bringing a waterproof backpack like this one and a waterproof case for your phone. Try to bring some binoculars and a couple of flashlights with you as well. 

Did we enjoy staying in Yasuni National Park? How many days are enough in an Amazon lodge in Ecuador

Overall, we really enjoyed Yasuni National Park and Napo Cultural Center. It was truly an unforgettable experience, one to remember forever. Some moments were absolutely surreal – for example, seeing the rainforest “breathe” with water evaporating after a severe rain storm or walking around the local community and seeing hundreds of the most beautiful birds! There were also underwhelming experiences – e.g. not seeing any parrots in the clay licks, not being able to get to the second clay lick because of the storm, and getting absolutely soaked and cold in a kayak – but even these moments were unique and memorable.

It’s difficult to say how many days you should stay in an Amazon Lodge in Ecuador. Everybody has different interests and plans. I’d say that we were happy we stayed 4 days and 3 nights – it was just enough to be able to see everything we wanted to see! There were shorter tours – only 3 days and 2 nights, but considering a long journey to the lodge, it sounds a bit too short. 5 days and 4 nights would be a bit too much for us already, as some activities start being repetitive. 

Day 6: Flying back to Quito, exploring the city centre of Quito 

The journey back to Coca

On our 6th day in Ecuador we had to wake up very early, around 5:30 am to be able to catch the speed boat to Coca. Our guide travelled with us – and just like on arrival, they packed a nice breakfast for us, which was very thoughtful. 

The return journey wasn’t as pleasant as the journey to the lodge. The weather was pretty stormy and somehow felt very cold. That’s why in the packing lists suggested by the lodge you can find a warm jacket. It’s hard to believe that you might need a warm jacket in a rainforest close to the equator, but yes, you actually do, especially early in the morning while sitting in a fast-moving boat. Luckily, we had hoodies and scarves prepared for Quito (Quito isn’t very warm due to its high elevation), so we felt prepared. 

We arrived to the airport with a couple of hours to spare. Coca airport is tiny, there isn’t much to do there. However, there are two cafes where you can eat something in case you’re hungry or just have a cup of coffee. 

Exploring the Historic Centre of Quito

On arrival back to Quito around 11:30 am, we no longer had a rental car and had to take a taxi. Uber works very well in Quito, however, taxis from the airport are a bit pricy. We paid around $30 to get to the city centre (which took around 50 minutes because of traffic).

We left our bags at our hotel – we booked Hotel San Fransisco de Quito. It was very affordable and looked just like the “Casita” from the Encanto cartoon! However, if you have a bigger budget, these two hotels might be even a better option:

Hotel Casa Gangotena or Plaza Grande Hotel

Quito has some of the best preserved and most impressive historic centres among all South American and Central American cities. The city centre is huge and has so many stunning buildings. If you have an opportunity, I recommend joining a walking tour that would bring you to the main highlights in the city. You can check the prices and availability of a walking tour around Quito here.

The main things to see in Quito

If you prefer to explore Quito on your own, I recommend seeing/visiting these places:

• Basilica del Voto Nacional
• San Francisco Church
• El Panecilo
• Iglesia La Compañía de Jesús
• La Ronda street – there are a lot of nice traditional restaurants there, plus the street is very pretty

Also, a lot of hotels in Quito (like the one we stayed at) have beautiful terraces overlooking the city. You can usually take some amazing photos from these terraces! If your hotel doesn’t have one, you can perhaps visit a panoramic restaurant or a cocktail bar instead!

There is also a teleferico in Quito, and it leads to a hill with some stunning views! If the weather permits, definitely head there as well!

The safety in Quito: how to be safe

Unfortunately, social inequality is quite strong in Quito, and crime is on the rise in the capital. It is not advised to walk in the city centre of Quito after dark – a lot of tourists get mugged. If you’re walking there after dark, you might be stopped by the police and escorted to the hotel where you’re staying. The hotels also close their doors after dark. 

I also recommend being careful in the city centre of Quito, even during the day and making sure you don’t walk around with your backpack or bag open, making you an easy target for pickpockets.

Day 7 in Quito: breakfast and flying back 

On our last day in Quito, we had to wake up pretty early, have breakfast and head to the airport to catch a flight to Bogota and then to Lima. The journey to the airport took around 40 minutes this time, a bit faster than during the day as the traffic wasn’t as heavy yet. If you’re departing during the day or even worse – between 5pm and 7pm, the traffic might be very heavy. In this case, make sure to allow at least 1 hour 20 minutes for your journey to the airport. Besides, the airport in Quito is very nice, and you can easily spend some extra time enjoying the shops and cafes in the airport.

Summary of a week in Ecuador: Quito, Mindo and Amazon Lodge

I hope you enjoyed our blog post about spending a week in Ecuador! This 7-day itinerary for Ecuador focuses on the most impressive places for bird and nature lovers. 

During these 7 days in Ecuador, we had a chance to explore Quito, Mindo and head to Coca for Yasuni National Park and a proper Amazon Lodge experience. Even though 7 days sounds like a lot, we were not able to see some other amazing places in Ecuador, like Cotopaxi, Quilotoa, Banos and Galápagos Islands. To see everything Ecuador offers, you can easily spend 2 weeks in Ecuador. However, this itinerary might be a good option if you only have a week in Ecuador, especially if you like bird watching.

Some other posts you might like:

5 days in Peru: Lima, Cusco and Machu Picchu

5 days in Bolivia: La Paz & Salar de Uyuni 

3 days in La Paz: the best things to do and day trips from La Paz

Weekend itinerary for Lima: the best things to do & restaurants to visit