Montecristi & The Rain Forest

The paccoche rain forest has little to offer and the fish market is not terrible in short a very well organized good team but few interests for us.

An excellent tour! A great ‘sampler’ tour to experience Ecuador and the area around Manta for those of us visiting here for the first time! Very informative, interesting and a great guide (and driver). We arrived here via cruise ship and would HIGHLY recommend other cruisers take this as it was well organized and easy to do — at a more economical price point than a ship tour!

Our guide Mariss was fantastic - so friendly and knowledgeable. We especially enjoyed the fish market and the walk thru the preserve. The guide at the preserve was also excellent. The hat store in Montecristi was interesting but took too long.

For a short cruise stop in Manta a perfect experience. Good mixture of interesting sightseeing points.

This was a day full of nice and interesting experiences. I just loved everything that Manta and surroundings had to give

Fernando was a terrific host and great ambassador for Monte.Ecuador. we highly recommend you go with Fernando! The next time we are in Ecuador, we will definitely find Fernando for our next trip.

Fortunately, the tour is not intended as a juxtaposed succession of routes, spaces and repetitive information. There are people who love their work, and Fernando, the guide, is one of them. His punctuality, friendliness and knowledge enriched a personalized experience that included a visit to the coast, the seafood market, a shipyard, the rainforest and respective hat and chocolate factories. Iconic moments: a freshly captured cherna brought to shore in a small boat, a wooden skeleton being polished by a bunch of carpenters to become a boat; a shy herd of howler monkeys in the middle of the jungle; an on-site demonstration of the conformation of a Panama hut and a tasting of pure chocolate in a craft factory. In a few hours, and thanks to the empathy of the actors at every step of the way, the result cannot be better: a real journey of introspection to a Blanket that goes beyond the tourist postcard.

Best tour guide I’ve ever had super friendly, great conversations 100% recommend I was so happy with this trip it’s the best tour I have ever gotten

The tour was similar in scope and price to what was offered by the cruise ship, but going in a small group made this tour better. We enjoyed the stops, especially the hat factory. The museum was closed so the tour guide substituted with a stop at a vegetable ivory (button) family business. I would like to have went a little faster on the rainforest hike since it was hot and because there were no animals to be seen in the hot part on the day. Also, there were 2 ships in port and it would have been nice to group tourists from the same ship together, especially since we were able to input arrival info when we purchased the excursion. The trip was delayed by 45 minutes while waiting on the other ship to arrive. Eventually, we left without some of the guests after waiting those 45 minutes. My recommendation to the company would be to group by ship, give a 15-minute grace period, and then get going. Alejandro was a fantastic guide, both on the bus and during our stops.

Pros: great guide, smaller (20 person) van with water and great AC, well organized pickup at Terminal. Cons: No fauna seen on rain forest tour except for a beetle. That tour shortened by half. Montecristi downtown and shopping was limited solely to an intensely crowded hat “factory “ / shop. No amplification of tour guide commentary so you needed to be very close by to hear. Suggest seating near front of the bus.