Cotopaxi

From Quito we spent three days in the beautiful Cotopaxi National Park.

Our hostel in Cotopaxi was absolutely beautiful, with amazing views of Cotopaxi Volcano and other surrounding mountains! It was really social, so we made friends with lots of other travellers. They even had llamas that you could feed, and ponchos to wear around the hostel! Our room was a hobbit home which was very cozy (but very contentious given Em hasn’t seen all of the Lord of the Rings movies, and therefore wasn’t worthy).

The view of Cotopaxi from our hobbit home!

We did two hikes from the hostel which were both amazing! On our first day we hiked to a waterfall with all of the new arrivals to the hostel that day.

On our second day we hiked to the summit of Pasochoa. The hike involved climbing 700m (from 3500m to 4200m altitude) which posed a bit of a challenge as we weren’t completely acclimatised! Despite the hike being reasonably difficult due to the altitude and steep climb, all 7 of our group (plus the guide and two of the hostel dogs) made it to the summit!