Quilotoa lake and the Cotopaxi

The Andes in Ecuador look like a gigantic ladder: two main bars going from south to north, formed by two chains of high mountains and spectacular volcanoes, connected by smaller mountain ranges, separating plateaus and valleys, each one slightly higher than the one before, until reaching Quito at 2.850mts.
Time for us to climb the ladder from Cuenca, reaching the beautiful valley of Latacunga, with active volcanoes on both sides!

We managed to find a very charming hotel...and even managed to get some sun, since the weather improved a bit. The next day we took a trip together with a charming girl from Barcelona, Laura, and a very pleasant gentleman from Chile, with the typical Latin name Waldemar. when we found out that our guide Alex was the drummer of a famous local band...we had a great time in the extraordinary Andean landscape listening to music in the car on our way to the beautiful volcano lake of Quilotoa.
We did not only climb down 300 meters down to the lake in bright equator sun, but rented a kayak for a little tour on the strange green, slightly salted glacier liken water. Hiking 300 meters back up was a good preparation for the next day, our trip to the Cotopaxi, the highest active volcano on earth...our last high mountain trip in this Sabbatical.
Due to time reasons we did not hike up all the way to the summit, we decided to go only up to the edge of the glacier, to touch glacier ice for the last time in this trip. Despite the rather cloudy day, it was a very beautiful ascent and the clouds opened up for a moment and the Cotopaxi showed its summit and perfect shape. After returning from the summit, we stopped at the Panamericana and flagged down, that brought us up to Quito.Read more