Create your Trip Journal [click here]We arrived late on a saturday night into Quito, so decided to take advantage of our free welcome cocktail from the Nu House Boutique Hotel. We called it a night at around midnight, but from the sound of it, the rest of the city was up well into the morning!
At around 7:00am, ok closer to 8:00, but who's keeping score (I call this ''south american'' time), our guide Marco picked us to up drive us about 30 miles south to Ecuador's second highest peak - Cotopaxi volcano. It's about 5,900 meters high, and you can climb to the top with proper glacier climbing gear (ice axe, crampons, etc.). We weren't that committed, so we just did a short (but still tough at that altitude!) hike up from the parking lot up to the refuge, which is at about 4,900 meters. From there, it was back down to the van where we got out some mountain bikes and rode all the way to the bottom for a much-needed lunch! Marco then dropped us off at the Hacienda he also manages where we had an awesome dinner cooked by his sister and wife!
After a delicious breakfast, we were on the road again toward Laguna Quilotoa - an enormous volcanic crater lake. The ride was amazing in that we got to see the beautiful countryside, but it was also incredibly dusty as the road was under construction almost the entire way there. The view from the top of the crater is amazing. We were able to hike down to the water (about 400 meters below) - a very dusty 45 minutes or so! You have the option of taking a horse back up, but we figured we needed the exercise so we hiked back up, which took well over an hour (maybe close to 2). Again, we were very ready for lunch and then the long, dusty ride back to Quito. When we arrived in Quito, we were just in time to see Ecuador beat their neighboring rivals Peru in a World Cup qualifying match. The square by our hotel was packed with fans!
