Ecuador Travel

The Ecuadorian Amazon is accessible by land, air and water, but different modes of transportation are going to offer varying levels of comfort and lengths of travel. If you can afford to fly, this is certainly the most reliable, pleasant and convenient option—but it’s also the most expensive. The three major domestic flight providers in Ecuador are TAME (www.tame.com.ec), AeroGal (www.aerogal.com.ec), and Icaro (www.icaro.aero), and nearly all of the flights take off or land in the bigger cities of Guayaquil and Ecuador. Icaro and TAME offer more flights to the Oriente.

TAME has the following flights to the Amazon:

ICARO flights from Quito to Coca are:

There are three major airports in the Amazon region: Francisco de Orellana Airport in Coca, Aeropuerto Lago Agrio in Nueva Loja and Edmundo Carvajal Airport in Macas.

Those looking to visit the Yasuní National Park should look into flights to the Francisco de Orellana Airport in Francisco de Orellana (formerly called Coca). Flights from Quito or Guayaquil take 35 to 55 minutes; there is typically one flight per day, seven days a week.

The Aeropuerto Lago Agrio near Nueva Loja is an ideal starting point for excursions into the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, but the airport is on the outskirts of town, so visitors will need to take a taxi from the town center. Flights leave daily and should be booked well in advance, as these flights tend to fill with oil industry professionals.

If you’ve got time to spare, journeying to the jungle by bus is a relatively easy and inexpensive option. Travelers from Quito can head to the new Terminal Quitumbe in the south of Quito, which has ticket windows that are conveniently arranged according to destination. Look for the name of the city or province you’re traveling to (most of the Oriente/ Amazonia windows are upstairs) and you can purchase a ticket in advance, or minutes before the bus departs. Because trips deeper into the jungle can last up to ten hours or more, many of these buses travel overnight with late night departure times. The positive of these buses is that they arrive in the early hours of the morning.

The main issue with bus travel in the Amazon region is the roads. Many of the secondary roads from major Amazon cities are unpaved and quite muddy, Building roads is a challenge in this area due to the rain and humidity all year long.

Since 2007 the main road, the Amazon Highway, has been completely rebuilt, with concrete,  The situation has improved dramatically, and the main cities are reachable via a good highway. There are still occasionally some problems with the road, however, the situation has shifted from a 8 hour trip from Quito to Tena to just 5 hours.  Although it rains all year round, the rainy season, from March  to August, is a particularly hazardous time to travel, because heavy downpours can wash out and destroy roads.

For this same reason, it isn’t recommended that foreigners try to drive themselves in Amazon region. It is hard to find any car rental centers in this area, so you needto rent a car in Quito, Ambato, Cuenca or other major city, because most jungle residents travel by Camioneta (flat-bed pickup trucks that serve as taxis), motor scooter, canoe, or by foot. The best and most strongly recommended way to explore the jungle is with private transportation set up through a tour or guide.

Visitors can also access the jungle via one of the region’s many rivers. Boats travel on the Napo River down to its connection with the Amazon in Iquitos, Peru. There are also riverboats that move between Colombia, Peru and Ecuador on the Putumayo River, but this is not recommended to do alone, due to the impact of the Colombian war against drugs. If you want to do this, always hire a tour operator to make this deep jungle experience more secure.