Birding Tour in Ecuador with Dana Tours

It was a dream of many years for us to visit Ecuador and the Galapagos. There are many options both on the mainland and in the Galapagos and it can be a lot of work to negotiate the best prices with the tour operators. After a lot of research, we chose to do business with David Brito of Dana Tours LLC. We spent most of February 2020 in Ecuador. We first took the East Slope birding tour visiting a few very good birding sites east of Quito. Then we flew to the Galapagos for a fantastic cruise on the northern and western parts of the islands. That was followed by a week in the Choco region for their specialty birding tour. David Brito organized everything for us: driver, birding guides, hotel reservations. Everything was absolutely perfect. Byron, our driver, was one of the best driver we ever had on any trip. He was very prudent and we always felt safe on the tortuous roads of Ecuador. But he was also very interested in birding and birds were often first found by him (good spotter)! Julia, our main birding guide, is very experienced and a pleasure to travel with. She was able to satisfy the diversified needs we had as a mixed group of birders-photographers. She definitely knows her birds! The last week was spent at Las Terrazas de Dana Lodge in Mindo. We did 3 days of intense birding, one day off and 3 more days of birding. Every day we would leave the lodge very early in the morning and Byron would drive us to a birding spot with a breakfast in a box. Lunch was taken in a local restaurant or at the birding spot and in the afternoon we would visit another site. Back at Las Terrazas for supper for a very good meal. The cook sometimes went out of his way to prepare us some special meals not on the menu like a very good paella! David, his sister Ana and Christian always made sure everything was perfect during our stay. All details were taken care of and we always felt spoiled by so much attention. At this lodge, the rooms are very large and comfortable. We could have spent much more time there! In fact, we very much appreciated our day off there because it gave us a little more time to appreciate the lodge, its ground and its pool. While I was preparing this trip, I sent quite a number of emails to David. Every one of them was answered promptly. We are very happy we chose David Brito to organize this trip for us. I would not hesitate one second to do business with him again. I highly recommend him!