We’ve enjoyed exploring Ecuador on our vacations. Since we don’t have a car, we typically pack light, take a bus (twice we flew) to some interesting place, and stay in a low-cost hostel or AirBnB. We usually have lots of conversations with Ecuadorians as we see the sights.

When we cancelled our U.S. trip (see The Trip That Wasn’t), we looked at each other and said, “We need to take some vacation.” The need was two-fold: 1) it’s good to get away from work periodically and have a complete change of scenery and 2) we had vacation days we were going to lose if we didn’t take them before the end of the year.

Our next thought was, “But where can we go? We sure don’t want a stay-cation.” Because of COVID-19, we were avoiding public transportation, restaurants, and conversations with strangers.

“Maybe,” we thought, “we can find a cabin or cottage in the country, hire a taxi, and take all our own food. We can walk (or ride) on country roads and not see too many people.”

We ended up staying in this cute cottage, Casa Verde, for a week in August. It was one of three or four residences on a small organic farm. It was close (10-minute walk) to Quiroga, a small Quichua town and about a 40-minute walk from Cotacachi, a town which specializes in leather products. It was such a treat to have private transportation, and Scott even squeezed in his mountain unicycle.

We very much enjoyed the different scenery and setting. Most of the tourist sites close by were closed because of the pandemic, but Jody walked and Scott unicycled on the quiet country roads. We read a lot, relaxed, and were almost bored. It was a good, refreshing time.

During that week we reserved another AirBnb, the Hummingbird House, the second week of November. It’s close to Otavalo and probably within ten miles of Casa Verde. We’re looking forward to another restful week.

One of the fun things about traveling in Ecuador is how little it can cost. Our taxi was $50 each way and the weekly rate of Casa Verde was $155. The Hummingbird House will be $162 for the week. It’s  hard to beat that!