Cotopaxi National Park and Otavalo Market Day Trips from Quito

Because Quito sits at the crossroads of the Pan-American Highway through the Inter-Andean valley, two contrasting highland landscapes lie within 90 minutes to two hours of the capital. Travelling 50 kilometres south brings you into the high paramo and volcanic scree of Cotopaxi National Park, whereas driving 90 kilometres north across the Guayllabamba gorge enters the lake district and Kichwa indigenous weaving towns of Imbabura Province around Otavalo and Cotacachi. Check our weather guide and transport guide before setting out.

South to Cotopaxi National Park (5,897 Metres)

Dominating the southern horizon of the Avenue of the Volcanoes, Cotopaxi rises in a nearly symmetrical glacier-clad cone to 5,897 metres (19,347 feet), making it Ecuador's second-highest peak after Chimborazo (6,263 metres) and one of the highest active volcanoes on Earth. Within the 33,393-hectare national park, visitors typically stop first on the flat volcanic plain around Laguna de Limpiopungo at 3,850 metres (12,631 feet), where a flat loop trail circles shallow waters frequented by Andean gulls, yellow-billed teal, cara-caras, and wild paramo horses beneath the jagged crags of Ruminahui Volcano (4,721 metres). From the upper parking lot at 4,500 metres, a steep, gravelly zigzag path climbs 364 vertical metres in roughly 45 to 75 minutes to the yellow-roofed Refugio Jose Rivas at 4,864 metres (15,958 feet), right below the glacier snout. Acclimatise in Quito and on the TeleferiQo before attempting the climb to the refuge.

North to Otavalo Market, Peguche and Cuicocha Crater Lake

• Plaza de los Ponchos in Otavalo: Set at 2,532 metres elevation at the foot of sacred Imbabura Volcano (4,630 metres), the town of Otavalo is the cultural heartland of the Kichwa Otavalo people, renowned across the Andes for centuries of backstrap-loom and treadle-loom textile production. While weavers set up stalls on Plaza de los Ponchos (Plaza Centenario) every day of the week, Saturday brings the largest regional fair, when surrounding streets fill with handwoven alpaca shawls, tapestries, embroidered white blouses, and fedoras.
• Cascada de Peguche and Master Weavers: Three kilometres northeast of Otavalo, a eucalyptus forest footpath leads to the 18-metre sacred waterfall of Peguche, where Kichwa communities gather for ritual purification baths during the June solstice festival of Inti Raymi.
• Laguna de Cuicocha (3,068 metres): Fifteen kilometres west of Otavalo inside the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve, a deep blue three-kilometre-wide volcanic caldera lake sits at the foot of Cotacachi Volcano (4,944 metres), with two forested lava domes (Teodoro Wolf and Yerovi islands) rising from the centre of the water.