Hacienda Zuleta is a Colonial Ecuadorian hotel in the Andean mountain range. It is at 9,600 feet (2,800 meters) above the sea level, and about two hours north of Quito, (unless your driver gets lost, then it is a little over 3 hours from Quito). It is actually much closer to Otavalo and had we realized we were going there during this trip we would have planned the Zuleta and Otavalo trips together.

Zuleta itself is a working farm of 4,000 acres (2,000 hectares) that for over 100 years has belonged to the family of Mr. Galo Plaza Lasso, a former president of Ecuador. It was chosen as one of the world’s “Top Ten Finds” by Outside magazine and named as one of the best Ecuador Hotels by National Geographic Traveler. The 14 guest rooms are all in the main building and each has its own fireplace which the staff lights in the evening. I love this place! The main building has the president’s library, several sitting rooms, 2 dining rooms and access throughout to beautiful gardens and outside sitting areas.

I absolutely loved our room and the doors that opened to a beautiful garden and sitting area. The wood fireplace was very awesome and really the only source of heat. As I mentioned previously, the staff lights all guest fireplaces at about 5:00 PM. Then during the dinner hour they put on more wood for you and, as an added touch, when they turned down the bed they also put hot water bottles – one on each side – in between the sheets for us. It was wonderful to climb into a cozy warm bed with the smell of a fresh wood burning fire and have a hot water bottle to warm your toes.

We did a little hiking around and explored the organic garden. I found a small calf mooing away begging to be tied someplace new with fresh grass. I didn’t dare move him but I did feed him several handfuls of grass.

I included a few photos of the stables, horses and the duck pond. We didn’t really have time for horseback riding this trip but we did make time to scare away the ducks (which we did every time we tried to get a picture of them) and to pet the horses.

We both love this place and wish we would have known about it sooner because we definitely would have spent a few more nights but our schedule was just too packed to squeeze in even one more night. This location is so quiet and peaceful it makes you feel like you are a million miles from the busy city life.