We’re back! Now that we’re weeks into our year-long adventure abroad, we’ve decided it’s a good time to check-in!
Before we get going, we want to explain our title, “The Daily Wax.” Many of you have asked: WTF is The Daily Wax?!?! The short answer is: way back in college, Mike and his friend Buck started a music blog under the same name. We’ve brought it back to life!
Another thing – the word “Daily” is slightly misleading as we don’t want to publish content daily. We want to make sure to enjoy our trip to the fullest extent, so we don't want to spend most of our evenings working on blog posts!
That brings us to today’s post, “The Weekly Wax.” We like this idea for two reasons; it has a catchy ring to it, and a week feels like a feasible update cadence. So, our goal is to put up a new blog post every weekend. Just don’t hold it against us if we miss one here or there!
Now, the fun part!
We stayed busy for the last two weeks in Ecuador, so we broke down the highlights into a series of posts below.
Each of these destinations could serve as separate day trips from Quito, as they’re all driveable in under three hours! We decided to tackle Otovalo and the Cloud Forest as individual day trips, but we made the rest of the destinations into a 4-day road trip. Heading south from Quito, we were able to visit Cotopaxi, Quilotoa, and Baños in one fell swoop.
We *highly recommend* renting a car (as long as you’re comfortable driving stick-shift). You can’t beat the thrill of navigating the beautiful countryside on your own.
Here are the 5 incredible day trips from Quito, in no particular order:
1.) Shop in Otovalo – an indigenous community with epic landscapes and host to the region’s most popular animal and cultural markets, which take place every Saturday. We also loved the Condor Park! (PHOTOS)
2.) Visit the Cloud Forest – the world-renowned Cloud Forest perched high in the Andes Mountains, and famous for its birdwatching. (PHOTOS)
3.) Hike or bike Cotopaxi – one of a handful of active, snow-capped volcanoes high in the Andes Mountains. (PHOTOS)
4.) See the Quilotoa Crater Lake – called Laguna Quilotoa, often visited during a 3-day hike through the surrounding area. The view of the massive crater lake formed by a collapsed volcano about 600 years ago is unreal. (PHOTOS)
5.) Bathe in Baños – a quaint town surrounded by lush, mountainous landscapes and known for its multitude of natural thermal baths. (PHOTOS)
Thanks for reading. Shoot us a note at hello@thedailywax.com anytime!
P.S. We are heading to Marrakech, Morocco in a few weeks. If you have recommendations, hook us up!