Tours-Xpress: Ecolocotal - Islas Del Rio

★ 4.5/5 $

My daughter and I climbing harnesses standing on a long, narrow suspension bridge of spaced wooden slats, strung high through the cloud forest canopy — My Daughter and I on the long canyon bridge at Ecolocotal

Duration: 1 Day
Difficulty: Easy
Operator: Tours-Xpress

We took this tour as a family and it was a lot of fun. You start off the tour by leaving from the central plaza in Cochabamba and taking a bus up into the mountains. The first stop was at the Iglesia de Melga, a beautiful old church in the mountains. There we stopped and had api with empanadas and learned a little bit about the history of the church.

From there we drove a few hours to get to Ecolocotal which is a fun adventure nature park. You start off with a short hike which leads to a rope bridge that isn’t very high and was fun for the kids to cross. There’s then a rope swing that swings out over a large drop. Unfortunately, this was closed when we went. My favorite part of this trip was a massive rope bridge that went over the canyon where the river was. You use a harness to hook into the bridge. The bridge was fairly wobbly because of the length and the boards were spaced out a few feet from each other so you were always looking down. I highly recommend doing this part of the tour because the view of the river was incredible from up there and it was a fun challenge. There are a few other things you can do along the way and at the end you can take time to swim in a calm part of the river. Just remember to take a change of clothes.

After Ecolocotal, we went to Islas del Rio which is another fun stop. We only stopped for 20 or 30 minutes but the highlight of this was a pond that had a few floating platforms that you could try running across. Just be prepared to get wet if you try it. There were other things you could do there but overall it is a beautiful place to stop and relax before heading over to get lunch.

For lunch, we were able to go to a local trout farm. The food was great but I had the feeling that the owner didn’t like foreigners that much. He was a bit crusty and not the nicest person to interact with.

After lunch, we went to Corani which is a pretty lake up in the mountains. From there you could pay $5bob to get a boat ride out to a small island in the lake covered in pine trees. It was a great place to go and take pictures before heading back to Cochabamba.

As for the price, we were able to go on their promotion of 2x1 and it ended up costing about $150bob (~$15usd) per person. Incredible deal considering that it includes transportation, food, and the guide.

The floating platforms at Islas del Rio. My daughter filmed me going across

Photos

My family posing on the stone steps below the Iglesia de Melga — The first stop – the steps below the Iglesia de Melga.

My family walking down a narrow staircase cut between two tall, moss-covered rock walls in dense green forest — The trail in Ecolocotal right before we get to the rope bridge.

A young boy in a dinosaur t-shirt sitting on a mossy stone step of the forest trail, holding up a peace sign — Luca posing for the camera

Two children on either end of a long log seesaw suspended by ropes from a tree, with other visitors watching from a bench in the clearing — My kids enjoying one of the spinning log swings

A man and a young girl smiling for a selfie in front of a landscaped stone waterfall spilling into a pool, with hills and low cloud behind them — My daughter and I enjoying the landscaped waterfall and pool as Islas del Rio

A hand-painted blue sign reading Bienvenidos a la Casita Campestre Criadero de Truchas, mounted above a large carved wooden trout on log legs — Casita Campestre, the trout farm where the tour stops for lunch.

An overhead view of a plate of fried trout with rice, yuca, fried potatoes and sweet plantain, beside a side salad and a bowl of green llajwa — Fried trout with rice, yuca, potatoes and plantain, and green llajwa on the side.