Press

	Hacienda Zuleta would be my current lodging, and what a lodging it is: a 300 year-old ranch, parked on 5,218 acres between the pacific coast and the immense Amazon Lasin, that has been the private home of two presidents of Ecuador.   Download

Outside magazine

The magazine calls Hacienda Zuleta one of the world’s “Top Ten Finds”. Here’s what they said about us:
“Surprising, isn't it, how often you can work the conversation around to the fact that you've slept in a house that belongs to the presidential family? Never mind that this particular president, Ecuador's Galo Plaza Lasso, has been out of office since 1952. His descendants will treat you like a member of the family at Hacienda Zuleta, a historic retreat in the Andean cloud forest about two and a half hours northeast of Quito. The adobe hacienda, built in 1691, is the centerpiece of a 4,000-acre working farm that includes a dairy, cheese factory, organic garden, tree nursery, trout farm, embroidery workshop, and condor-raising project. Most guests saddle up one of 90 horses and ride out through pine and eucalyptus forests and high-altitude grasslands to pre-Inca archaeological sites amid magnificent volcano views. You can also hike, cycle, or take tours to nearby indigenous villages. The nine guest rooms are appointed with Spanish Colonial antique furniture, down comforters, and linens embroidered by local Indian women. And unlike in the U.S., you don't have to make a political donation to sleep at the president's house...”

- Bob Payne

Condé Nast Traveler says:

“This beautiful late-17th-century hacienda is much more than a place to stay; it's a full cultural-immersion experience. If you score one of the nine rooms at the compound owned by the descendants of former president Galo Plaza Lasso, you become part of the family for the duration of your visit. This is one of only a handful of haciendas in Ecuador that are also working farms—dairy cows and sheep are tended here, and barley, quinoa, potatoes, wheat, and organic vegetables are grown on the property. This produce, plus fish from the on-site trout farm and cheeses, butter, and cream from the huge dairy, are incorporated into the food prepared by the family's genius chef, Jose Maria Pumisacho—making the dinner table here one of the best in the country. After the evening meal, you can ask whichever of the 21 Plaza Lasso cousins are available to take you round the estate to see the impressive gardens and cheese factory, or retire to your Architectural Digest–worthy room, decorated with framed, embroidered Zuleteño yokes and cuffs. Next day, arrange to take one of the hacienda's 90 horses (the Plaza Lassos have their own breed) out to the phenomenal mountainside Condor Rehabilitation Project, where the family is working to save the great Andean bird from extinction. You can also visit nearby pre-Inca archaeological sites like the Caranqui Pyramids.”

- Condé Nast Traveler