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Otavalo beyond the Indigenous Market
Casa Mojanda is located three miles from the town of Otavalo, at an altitude of 9,500ft in the Andes of northern Ecuador; casa Mojanda is Deeply committed to principles of ecological and community-based tourism, Casa Mojanda is set on a mountainside in 25 acres of beautiful farmland and forested gorge where the style of building and working has a minimum impact on the natural environment.
Casa Mojanda is an ecologically oriented inn and farm (Its kitchen serves healthful and creative home cooked meals served family style and based on traditional Ecuadorian and international recipes and made from our own produce harvested daily from their organic gardens. They grow their own wheat, quinoa, corn and potatoes, and get fresh milk daily from Dominga, our cow. Guests are always welcome to spend time in the garden and kitchen)
To the east and northeast of Otavalo are several small weaving communities such as Peguche and Agato. Cotacachi, a small village about 15 minutes to the north is also well known for its leather craftsmen.
Nearby Lake Cuicocha sits inside and old extinct volcano on the southern flank of mount Cotacachi. The lake offers the most accessible native vegetation in the Otavalo area. Given its high elevation the temperature are brisk in the early morning, but the advantage is that if you are lucky, you will see the summit of mount Cotacachi resplendent with a coat of fresh snow.
Cotopaxi Volcano Program
El Porvenir's main goals is to support conservation and knowledge of the paramo ecosystem, promoting sustainable practices; this is why the hacienda received Smart Voyager's sustainable tourism certification in December of 2007; they care about the conservation and has taken every precaution to give voyagers a memorable, educational and thrilling adventure, without harming the wildlife of this special environment.
They are part of Fundación Páramo, a non-profit organization that focuses on conservation and ecosystem protection actions in the paramo of the region surrounding Cotopaxi Volcano. Major projects that have been carried out over the last 10 years are the management and control initiatives Cotopaxi National Park buffer zone.
Some of the conservation and sustainable development projects that they support are reforestation, donation of libraries for local schools, ecology club with the local schoolchildren, education to eradicate fires, protection of wetlands, and waste management.
We invite every traveller who books a holiday via us to send in a review. Because we don't run the holidays they're completely independent and unedited... remember to read between the lines though, as two people on the same holiday can have different views!
