Elephant cave and Cotundo Valley

What about going to a cave in your vacations? the perfect place to do that is the ecuadorian east region, because there are lots of caves in the Archidona area.

Maybe the most famous are the Jumandy Caves, and they are really spectacular due to its size.

But we found the Elephant cave and the Spriritual Temple cave, located near the Cotundo Valley, famous because its petrographs.

From Quito you take the way to Papallacta, then continue to Baeza and go to the right at the detour, the way is in perfect conditions until you get the "Mirador de la Virgen" very near to "Las Caucheras", from this place to Jondachi (972m S 00°46.344´ W 77°47.483´) the road is not good (a 4wd car is a good idea).

You´ll see many rivers crossing through the road and there are lots of places for taking pics of the amazing landscape. There are many hotels and hostels in Archidona, but our election was "Hostal Belén" in Tena.

Tena is a small city with a river (Tena) crossing through it, a thematic park, many restaurants, etc. You can spend the night in the city and go to the caves the next day.

From Tena take the way to Archidona and continue untill a sign that reads" Cavernas, atractivo turístico" (780m S 00°50.490´ W 77°46.809´) or if you want you can call them first (5938727496).

You pay USD$2.50 and you have the chance to visit two caves, the Elephant cave is an amazing adventure because it has a small river inside, lots of stalactites and stalagmites. It takes around 1 hour to walk inside the cave, you go down 15 meters more or less so maybe this is not recommendable for claustrophobic people.

The other cave is called the Spiritual Temple, this one is bigger, very spacious so long time ago it was used for sacred rites, now even you have the chance to spend the night over theere.

If you want you can visit the Jumandy caves too, but there is a lot of people on weekends and holidays, so antoher option is going to Cotundo (767m S 00°50.558´ W 77°47.768´) wich is know to be the sacred valley of petrograhps. The community manage this place so when you arrive to the central park in Cotundo you have to talk to native guides for a complete tour, it takes around 2 hours.

Don´t forget to pack insects repelent, sunblock lotion, raincoat and your camera.

More pics from the caves and Cotundo in our gallery.