There seems to be several active volcanoes in Ecuador. Besides Pichincha volcano in Quito, there is also the famous and much more active Cotopaxi volcano, which has it’s own national park dedicated to it. Since it had been quite active recently, the national park was closed while I was there, so you could only visit the area around the park but still have a great view of the volcano. When it’s not so active, people could even hike up Cotopaxi.

I stayed at a hostel outside the park, which belonged to the hostel I stayed at in Quito and it was really great. They had lots of different hiking treks in the area and one of them was free for everyone. So we started with the waterfall hike as soon as we arrived and made our way through towards the river and up to the waterfalls. The water was freezing cold but since there was a brand new guide with us on the hike, he was forced to jump in as a sort of initiation ceremony.

The next morning, I woke up early to see if I can get a clear view of Cotopaxi but it was still a bit cloudy, sometimes at the base other times at the peak. We had to get going on the next hike up another volcano in the area, so we grabbed a quick breakfast and tied up our hiking shoes. The hike wasn’t too difficult but had some challenging uphill climbs near the end. When we got to the top, the clouds had already settled in the crater, so you couldn’t really see inside. But the crater looked like a bowl for the clouds inside, which was also cool to see. After coming back down, the clouds around Cotopaxi were gone and it was clear for all to see it in it’s full glory. We took our time and took a lot of photos before jumping in the jeep to move on to the next town.

The other guys in the jeep were going to a town called Banos but I wanted to go on another hike and see another crater before Banos. So I took the bus to the small town of Latacunga. This is the starting point for one of the most popular hiking loops in Ecuador; The Quilotoa Loop. Latacunga, is where you can leave most of your belongings stored at the hostel and take an early bus to the first town on the loop. The idea is to hike from town to town passing through 4 different towns and then take the bus back to Latacunga to complete the loop. I really liked Latacunga. It was small, simple and seemed like a very typical and authentic ecuadorian town. The people were hanging around the parks and enjoying life on the streets. It also had the highest concentration of hairdressers I have ever seen in my life. The 15 minute walk from the bus terminal to the hostel featured 16 hairdressers on the way!

After spending the night, I left most of my belongings at the Hostel and took the early morning bus to the Saquisili market, which was on the way to the first town. The market had a mix of foods, equipment, used clothes, livestock and souvenirs. It was fun to walk through as the market was spread out throughout the whole town. But of course I had no space to buy anything, since I was carrying everything I will need for the next 3 days and will be hiking with it. I got on another bus to take me to the town of Sichgos, where I started my hike.

Since the towns are all at the top of mountains, hiking from one town to the next meant that you had to hike down hill first in to the valley, where there was usually a river, and then hike back up to the next town. This wasn’t very clear to me on the first day as I just enjoyed the hike down hill, but by the second day you stop to enjoy the downhills as much, since you know you will have to hike every step back up! Not only that, but the route I decided to take meant that every town is a few hundred meters higher than the town before it, so it meant that on any given day, there was more uphill hiking to be done than downhill. Anyways, I had gotten a paper with directions for the hiking trail from the hostel in Latacunga, but they were somewhat vague. So I tried to make the best of what I understood and ended up crossing the river too early and spent half of the trail to the second town on a gravel road. The first half was very scenic however, as I was surrounded by the green mountains with the trail leading me in between the mountain side farms. After one last steep uphill climb, I arrived at the second town of Insinlivi and checked in to the Llullu Llama (little llama) Hostel, where I met four other hikers going in the opposite direction. I was actually quite surprised by how few people were on the trail, I was expecting to see a lot more. The hostel served us a very delicious dinner and everyone went to bed early in preparation for the next day. The directions I got from the llullu llama were much better and the second leg of the hike was also the most beautiful. I made my way down to the valley and along the river before crossing it using a log bridge and continuing along the riverbank. The route then passes through a really small town before going almost straight up hill!

I had a hostel tip from one of the couples I met at the hostel the day before, so once I got in to the third town of Chugchilan, I headed to Mama Hilda only to find myself the only guest there that night!

I started the third day very early again, as I wanted to make it to the Quilotoa crater lake before the clouds came in. This part of the hike was marked quite clearly and also passed through a larger town before hiking straight up again. At one point there were signs in different directions going up and I had to decide on one of them. Of course I found out later that I had decided on the most difficult way. I ended up climbing the last 100 m uphill through sand dunes :-/

But every difficulty made the view from top that much more impressive and as I write this now, all I can clearly remember is how great the view was and not how difficult it was to get there. I can also remember how cold and windy it was up there. I had to wear all the clothes I had with me, around 5 layers of clothes, but I was really glad to have made it up there right before the clouds came in. After about 10 minutes of standing there in front of this lake inside a massive crater, you could really see how more and more clouds came in fast and seemed to stop and linger above the crater. It was a really awesome view and experience, especially how much the views and perspective changed as I walked around the top of the crater to make my way to the town of Quilotoa. Every few meters you just had to stop again and appreciate the new perspective on this amazing view.

Once Im finally made it back to Quilotoa, I took the the bus back to Latacunga and the first thing I did there this time was get my hair cut of course 😉