Activities

El Faro Escandinavo is primarily a place to relax, but we can offer some exciting excursions and activities such as:

Walk in the San Lorenzo cloud forest to look for the mantled howler monkeys.

This excursion takes us through a semi humid tropical forest, where we will find banana plants, bamboo, coffee and other fruit trees typical of this area. This is also the natural habitat of the mantled howler monkeys that we will hear and see during the walk.

Visit the village of Pile, home to the best Panama hat weavers

On this occasion we are going to have the privilege to visit a local family at their home in this rural community of Pile where the best hat weavers come from. They will explain and demonstrate the technique used to weave the toquilla hat that can take up to 3 months. We will learn about the different qualities and prices.
A main attraction is our coming in close contact with a typical family in a typical home on the coast of Ecuador. Here you are unlikely to see other tourists.

Visit the archeological site of Agua Blanca and Los Frailes beach on the Machalilla National Park.

In Agua Blanca we will see the site where a pre-Columbian culture thrived some 3000 years ago.
In this archeological site you will see how the Manteña culture buried their dead in ceramic pots that were discovered in 1982 by accident when El Nino rains washed away and moved some of the land in this area, leaving some of the burial pots exposed.

In the afternoon we will visit one of the most beautiful beaches of the coast at Los Frailes with its perfect bay.

Shopping excursion in the towns of Montecristi and Manta

Montecristi is the commercial centre of Panama hats. People here work at finishing and selling hats and different souvenirs made with straw, vegetable ivory and ceramics.
Manta is the 4th largest town of Ecuador and a major port. Here you will find a couple of shopping centers with photo and clothing shops, cash machines, drugstore and supermarket, etc. A small, but interesting museum tells of previous civilizations of the coast.