COTOPAXI TO BAÑOS (Central Ecuador). The Volcano Run. 42 780 Km

After almost 6 months of traveling north, it was finally time to turn around and head south for a while. And with that we said a final goodbye to Quito and started down the valley along the line of the Ecuadorian volcano system.

First stop: Cotopaxi. The hostel we stayed at in Quito has a sister hostel just outside of Cotopaxi National Park (You can see the Cotopaxi volcano above). So we took an easy direct transfer from one hostel to the other with plans to stay for a few days. We had already heard so many good things about this hostel it was hard to believe that it could all be true. But then we arrived. The image above is from the door of our cabin.

On arrival to the hostel, all incoming travelers were welcomed with a cup of mulled wine and a briefing of activities in the area. We then had a spectacular lunch followed by a small hike up through the nearby waterfalls to get oriented and get a different view of the park.

At times literally walking up through the water system, we put on gum boots for the walk so we could get better access to some sweet spots such as this.

Arriving back we stopped off to meet the local Llamas on the hostel property before setting in for the afternoon with a few drinks, some games, snacks, and another fabulous hostel cooked meal. One of the nicest things at this place was the lack of internet and wifi so people were forced to talk to each other and play games. As one of the 20ish year old kids said "this must have been what it was like back in the day before iphones and stuff"

The next day we decided on the softer option of cycling at 3850m. It was meant to be all downhill but the first 10 minutes or so weren't so downhill, or so with the wind. And whilst we did get some downhill after that, the road didn't really allow for going to fast. Which in the end was a great thing so we could cruise past Cotopaxi Volcano and the surrounding national park slow enough to enjoy it. The bike ride finished at a trout farm where we caught our own lunch before the owners of the farm cooked it for us.

We had been told the view of Cotopaxi is often quite clouded over, especially in the mornings and afternoons. We had been pretty lucky so far but that afternoon the clouds came we wouldn't see Cotopaxi again for 2 days.

The day after our bike ride, I elected for horse riding whilst Claire went hiking again but this time up to a 4200m peak. The horse riding was gorgeous, but like Claire's hike, some of our visibility of the area was hemmed in by the clouds.

The following morning however. Shazam. This was the view from our bedroom window. Alas it was the last day there and it was time for us to move down the road.

After an overnight stop in Latacunga, we headed 2hours east to the Quilotoa Volcano and its lake. There is an entire "Quilotoa Loop" walk, which is actually more like a line between towns than a loop, but given that it's all above 3500m and parts above 4000m, we elected for the one day hike around the rim of the Volcano.

The picture above is about 1/3rd into the hike and if you can zoom in you'll see Claire is the little black dot 3rd from the left. The Volcanic crater was MASSIVE and took us about 5hrs to circumnavigate. The lake is around 400m below us at this point.

It was a fabulous day and we would have loved to do some more of the "loop" but instead we are moving on once again a little further down the road to Baños.

This little town is nestled in between mountains, cliffs, and waterfalls in the cloud forest at around 2800m. It has become an adventure activity capital of sorts for Ecuadorians and other tourists where you can white water raft, zipline, bungy jump, skydive, hire quad bikes, and swing off bridges.

Our first day we thought we'd get some hiking in around town. After receiving a map from the hostel, we planned what we thought was a little walk and then back in time for lunch. Unfortunately the map wasn't to scale and lacked distance and altitude markings. The first part of the walk took us past the cemetery up to Santa Maria, who looks over the town (view above).

After a few wrong turns we made our way along the side of the mountain till we could see the other end of town and then we started heading for Casa del Arbol. What we thought was just around the corner was about 5km away and another 600m up. We didn't know too much about the place except there was a tree house and a swing.

And that's pretty much was what it was. Again we were a bit unlucky with the weather but on a cloudless day it is possible to see Chimborazo, the highest volcano in Ecuador. As it was we had to except a swinging in the tree.

On our final day in Baños we joined a tour to cruise down the highway to see various waterfalls that came off one side of the mountain range to flow into river in the valley below. And this it seems is where the adventure money is. Along most of the canyon (20km or so) were tour operators selling zipline trips over the valley, 10m swings, and bridge jumps. We were happy with the just taking in the view.

One of the Zipline options: From this lookout to the white house.

As well as the adventure stuff, we stopped to see the Jesus face in the rock (above - can you see it?) before we went to the final waterfall of the day where after a 1km hike down you arrive at one of the most powerful waterfalls we have visited for a while.

With on final evening in Baños we went out to take some photos of the main square church before dinner. This was our last stop on the Volcano Run before heading to the coast and we would be up early the following day to catch a triplet of buses.

Funny thing the day we left though. As our 6am bus wound up through the mountains on the way to the coast. The clouds had gone and we got a spectacular view of Chomborazo but the cameras were packed deep. Oh well, we'll just have to keep that one for us.

On to Montañita!

42 780 Km (16667Km Flights, 8426Km Sailing, 17 319Km Bus, 170km Hiking, 36Km Horse riding, 150Km Train, 12Km Bike)