My niece and I stayed at Cotopaxi Sanctuary Lodge from November 21st - 24th, 2025. This is a very difficult review to write because I would love to be positive - and in some ways I can be positive - but due to a number of factors, I have to give it 2 stars. I'll start with the positives. Cotopaxi Sanctuary Lodge (CSL) has a 5 star location. The staff were superb - so attentive, responsive and nice - and since we were the only guests at the lodge during that time, we had Way more than enough attention! The staff were all lovely, but the real star of the show - the Hidden Gem of the Andes - was Darwin, the chef. I have been lucky enough to go to a number of top restaurants in my time such as Raffles in Singapore, The Peninsula in Hong Kong, Wolfgang Puck and Chez Panisse in San Francisco and Maxím's in Paris. Darwin is as good or even better than any of those chefs, and there he is, hidden away in the Andes! What a star! If you're a foodie, you'll love him. His wife, Ligia, is a very good and knowledgeable guide, and we spent a very nice morning out in nature with her and Jessica, who is as sweet as love. Unfortunately, our trip was overshadowed by a bad experience with our horse riding guides Washo and Fernando Herrero who were reckless and irresponsible with our safety and actually endangered us. I am an average rider, and my niece is very experienced but new to Western style riding. We had spent the evening with Fernando the night before and found him charming, interesting and knowledgeable. We had already decided to do a six week tour of Ecuador, Columbia and Peru, and went to bed that evening convinced we had found our guide for our next trip. We were very excited. We changed our minds the following day. In the morning when we showed up to go riding I reminded Fernando that since I was recovering from an old injury, I had to listen to my body and would tell him if I couldn't continue with the ride. He assured me that that would be fine, and he or Washo would bring me back down the mountain and let my niece continue with the other guide. It's a long story but in a nutshell, when I told him I couldn't continue because my back was in pain, he refused to take me seriously, urged me to keep moving, so I tried but had to stop again. He wouldn't/didn't/couldn't listen and I wound up in tears. I explained in both English and rusty Spanish and both guides saw me crying and heard my explanation. Fernando was very forceful ("We're Going to canter" etc), I was in pain, up in the Andes and at a disadvantage, so I gave in. When he finally took my tears and protests seriously, I agreed to continue at a walk. Walking was fine and my niece and I enjoyed it, but at this point our enjoyment had more to do with putting on a brave face and making the best of it than true enjoyment. However, Washo - who knew we were supposed to be walking - decided to take off at a canter without warning us and caused my niece's horse to bolt through the forest where the branches were forearm thick with no give in them, and she couldn't look up to control her horse because the big branches made it too dangerous. Also, she could see that the terrain was deeply rutted and rocky, so she had to think about her horse's risk of breaking its leg if she steered it out of the trees. And here's another important thing - our tack was in poor repair and her stirrups were awful - dangerous. (The guides both had good tack on their horses.) She had told Fernando multiple times that her stirrups were bad but he kept putting her complaints (and my back pain) down to bad riding form and not the equipment itself. She has a photo showing the bad stirrups., and you can see they were dangerous. (Re bad riding - Fernando fell off his horse 3 times, once from a single step forwards - my niece even thought he had fallen off for fun, but nope. So I don't think he was the best judge of riding.) Another crazy thing is that his horse was only 4 years-old with only 6 months of riding experience. He was not a suitable horse to lead guests into the Andes. When we stopped for a break, I did some yoga for my back which helped. Then Fernando held his arms out to me and asked if he could do something for me. I assumed he wanted to give me a hug to say he was sorry he made me cry and pushed me past my comfort limits but nope. He spun me round, picked me up and squeezed and shook my back like a chiropractor. Only problem was that he's not a chiropractor, didn't know my old injury and hurt me worse! We got away with it thank God, but it was a Crazy thing to do up in the Andes with no medical help available. Later, his horse spooked my horse and we had another close shave. Then my niece's horse got distressed, was short of breath and kept spinning around to go back down the mountain. She checked and the horse's nose was streaming blood. She told the guides but they said it happened and to push on. No doubt it does happen, but the horse clearly didn't want to go any higher, threatened to rear up and an inexperienced rider couldn't have handled it. And, on the way back home Washo decided to canter off without warning us Again. There are a lot more details of that ride but that's enough for those of you who've made it this far. When we got back, my niece went off and cried her eyes out and later we had dinner on a tray in our dome (brought to us by the lovely Jessica and Darwin) because of my back and our mutual disappointment over what should have been an incredible day. I'm writing about the guides because Jessica told us they wouldn't necessarily be banned from the place in future, and future riders really deserve to know. I don't know why they were so reckless with us, because I'm sure they've been great guides in the past and probably will be in the future. But future guests deserve to know about our day with them. In the meantime, we learned that our previous guides who we Loved - Carlos and Mairon Iza - offer tours in other South American countries too, so we're going to do our 6 week tour with them! We're going back in March, 2026 and can't wait! So, I'm sorry about the 2 stars, but I have to tell the truth. In the meantime, thanks to the lovely staff who tried to make up for our bad time there. And for all foodies, Darwin is a 1000 star Gem!

This is a truly special place and we had a truly special experience. The staff are so kind and treat you like family; they gave us their utmost attention to ensure we were comfortable each morning, before/during/after excusions, and each night. We truly appreciate their kindness and exceptional service. In addition to the lodge staff, the guide we had, Jordan, was so great and it felt like we were hiking with a friend. The amenities at the lodge are wonderful and very comfortable. We had amazing food prepared by the chef & staff – everything was natural. It is probably the best we have ever eaten! We will treasure the experience we had here, and are very grateful for it.