Arrive early evening, transfer to our hotel for dinner and drink. Overnight at a small city centre hotel.

Moring sightseeing in the old town – a designated UNESCO world heritage site – where we will visit various churches, the Grand Plaza and the Cultural Museum before taking lunch at a local restaurant. After lunch we shall be able to take a stroll through the Sunday Market and generally take it easy as the altitude will slow you down. Dinner at fun local restaurant.

After breakfast if the weather is kind we will take a trip up the city cable car for breath-taking views of the Quito Valley. (This will also help us to acclimatise).

We will then visit the Santa Clara market where our guide will explain about the different regions of the country and the produce that come from them before taking lunch and heading north to a family run hacienda frequented by the great South American liberator, Simon Bolivar.

The hacienda is a delightful place to unwind with picturesque courtyards, ornate fountains, terraces, citrus-graced gardens and numerous palm and monkey puzzle trees. Here we will spend a leisurely afternoon relaxing in Andean surroundings, or pay a visit to see the local master craftsmen – weavers and saddlers – at work. Traditional Ecuadorean dinner and overnight at the hacienda.

Leaving the historic hacienda we’ll get acquainted with our horses and tack, before riding to another charming working hacienda in the heart of a beautiful pastoral valley (6-7hrs). We ride past tiny hamlets of adobe huts, through woodlands, cross rocky gorges and wind our way around the patchwork fields of quinoa, potatoes, maize and tree tomato orchards.

Magnificent views of the San Pablo Lake and the jagged Mojanda summit greet us as we ride across the slopes of the sacred Imbabura Volcano (extinct) - the focus of many Inca legends. Rising out of San Pablo Valley we’ll enjoy wonderful views across the lake, riding onto the plains beyond for some faster pace riding.

Following sandy tracks, we then descend into the Zuleta valley with dramatic views across to the hanging valleys and rocky ridges above, ending up in a tranquil valley seldom visited by tourists.

This hacienda – owned and run by a charming family for 4 generations – is a working dairy farm and home to some fine Andalusia Stallions which we will be able to inspect before riding out through eucalyptus woods, climbing into the open grasslands (4-5 hrs).

Taking the steep paths and following the gorges we enjoy spectacular views (including some pre-Inca earthworks) before riding across the Pesillo plains, into the Cayambe Valley. The valley is dominated by the snow-capped Cayambe Volcano, which straddles the Equator Line.

Arriving at a typical village square we leave the horses and drive on to Hacienda San Fransico, an old Jesuit farm recently converted and full of old world charm where we will stay for the night.

In the morning we are reunited with the horses to continue our trek. Today offers a very varied route including some tricky sections where we dismount and let the horses negotiate the rocky riverbeds on their own, then into the Cotopaxi National Park (6-7hrs). We pass through a working hacienda (ranch) and have to carefully negotiate the pastures – this farm is famous for its feisty Spanish fighting bulls!

The scenery is spectacular and we are surrounded by jagged rocky summits and snow capped peaks. Entering the park the land flattens out and we cross grassy plains to reach the small inn with spectacular views of Cotopaxi volcano where we will be spending the night, watching the llamas grazing and wild horses in the national park.

Today there’s a chance to enjoy some exhilarating canters as we ride further into Cotopaxi National Park. Approaching the perfectly conical shape of the snow-capped Cotopaxi Volcano (the highest active volcano in the world), the luna-like landscape formed by both glacial and volcanic activity is fascinating, with arid plains scattered with huge boulders thrown out by the volcano (currently dormant!).

We often meet the herds of wild horses that roam the park and they gallop alongside us. Today we also cross a 4,100m pass before descending into the Machachi Valley, where we stop for the night at a converted farmhouse.

Though perfectly comfortable, this hosteria caters to the adventure travel market – offering hiking, mountain biking and rafting – and is probably the least salubrious of all the accommodation. That said we always have a delicious barbeque here.

Today we ride south through the ‘Avenue of Volcanoes’. The views are breath-taking, with the rocky Ruminahui peak, Corazon Volcano, the twin Iliniza peaks sprinkled with snow and a host of other summits lining the central valley (6hrs).

The wide sandy tracks and grassy paths are ideal for some more fast-pace riding as we ride the length of a valley scraped out by glaciers at the end of the Ice Age.In places we ride over layers of pumice stone – deposited by the volcanoes – and during the ride the horses expertly negotiate two steep gorges.

Riding through small villages we get to meet local ladies wearing brightly coloured, pleated skirts and traditional hats. Children chase their llamas, pigs and sheep off to open pastureland. We leave the horses in good pastures and take a short drive to another comfortable, hacienda with fires in all the rooms, the original part built in the 1600s.

We once again leave the adobe huts and patchwork fields behind and climb up into the remote ‘paramo’ (unique Andean vegetation) (7hrs). Enjoying views of several of the snow capped peaks of the ‘Avenue of Volcanoes’: Chimborazo (Ecuador’s highest peak), Tungurahua in the distance and Cotopaxi, we cross the beautiful grasslands, without a house in sight and enjoy a delicious picnic lunch.

Crossing over a ridge into a valley we spot our isolated hacienda in the distance. Very few people manage to visit this stunning place and the wonderful tranquillity and huge expanses of open space, almost uninhabited, is appreciated by all.

Today we ride to a ‘tambo’ built out of Inca stone, following a river bed close to the jagged Quilindana summit, admiring the crater lakes below. A good chance of seeing the mighty Andean condor, deer, the Andean fox and high altitude hummingbirds (hillstars) as well as large birds of prey soaring overhead.

We occasionally meet a lone ‘chagra’ (Andean cowhand) with his trusty dog riding out to check the cattle. Or, if we are really lucky (as we were in Feb 08), we might see a mini round up as a group of chagras collect their fighting bulls from the mountains and coral them near our hacienda. Either way as we have a free afternoon we will try to organise a lasso demonstration. There is also a chance to fish for trout in the nearby river. The house we stay at tonight is cosy and as there is no light pollution the night skies are spectacular and packed with stars (including the southern cross).

Leaving the tambo we follow a rocky riverbed then carefully traverse some marshlands between a series of small lakes. Andean duck and also Ibis are often seen here, among the wild iris.

The valley then opens out and we follow a lava flow with strange conical hills ‘popping out’ at intervals – these mounds are formed by volcanic hotspots and create quite a bizarre topography. Once on the grassy plains we can canter alongside the wild horses that roam the area, until we arrive at our accommodation for the night, a place with probably the best views of all of Cotapaxi.

We ride out for a final day in the wild open ‘paramo.'. After some fast paced riding, we climb up scree slopes and over rocky outcrops close to the summit ofSincholagua, witnessing the peculiar geological features such as drumlins, hillocks, mud and lava flows produced by ice age activity and the various eruptions of the mighty Cotopaxi volcano.

Passing through Andean woodlands, we spot various Andean wildflowers –Indians’ paintbrush, gentians, deer’s head, lupins - all seemingly too fragile to survive in the highlands. Saving the biggest adventure to last we then cross a 4 200 metres pass for our final breath-taking views of Cotopaxi before descending Sincholagua, to arrive back at the farm where the horses stay.

Here we will say farewell to our local guides and our trusty steeds and drive over a high pass to the eastern side of the Andes to the Papallacta thermal springs. Arriving in the late afternoon we will have plenty of time to wallow in the hot water before a delicious final dinner.

After a relaxing morning in the various hot pools and the option of a self-guided walk on a trail into the surrounding hills, we have lunch and then depart back to Quito.