"Courting Coto ..." a Provincia de Cotopaxi Travel Page by richiecdisc

As Ecuador strives to become one of South America’s top tourist destinations the Galapagos Islands and the Amazon basin come unsurprisingly to the forefront. After all, they are amazing areas and are generally visited on some type of organized tour thus taking the danger out of Ecuador’s dubious reputation for risk. But it is the Andes that are the heart and soul of this emerging nation. No visit to Ecuador is complete without at least a cursory visit to this stunning region. Spectacular volcanoes dot the harsh windswept barren landscape like monumental blips on an otherwise sun scorched plateau while its indigenous inhabitants sway between their Incan past and western intrusion. Compacted into a ridiculously small region the Andes of Ecuador not only are the continent’s most easily explored but their close proximity to the sea, jungle and the nation’s capital makes them nearly impossible to not at least pass through unless your travel is entirely by air. And why do that when below you lies not only one of the planet’s great wonders but also one of South America’s greatest road infrastructures, one surely modernized but still a remnant of what the Incas utilized for nearly a century.