Ecuador: The Avenue of Volcanoes

Having left the Galapagos we spent a night recovering from the lack of sleep, somewhat, in Guayaquil, before being collected by the excellent Metropolitan Tours, and being driven up to Cuenca.   Our first guide and driver kept us informed, hydrated and looked after us as we explored the historical city, dined out, visited Cajas National Park at both the humid-forest and then the paramo zones.  

From Cuenca we headed North to the ruins of the most significant Inca temple in Ecuador, at Ingapirca.   Lama grazed in a pasture just outside the site:

The ruins were impressive as was the detailed exploration of the history of the sites, both Inca and indeed before them:

We stopped for lunch just outside Ingapirca, watching a Black Flowerpiercer amongst some flowers:

The second half of our visit was overshadowed, literally, by a volcanic ash plume from the nearby Sangay volcano:

The pink skies were eerie, the falling ash affected sight, breathing and covered everything so it was a relief to be inside for the lunch and the drive onwards.

After Ingapirca they drove us to meet our next driver and guide as we headed North for Riobamba.

By this stage of our tour we realised that some of choices needed changing and to their credit, the guide, driver and indeed the company did everything we asked, even proactively suggesting changes based on our interests and tastes.

So it was we found ourselves walking up part of Chimborazo volcano, starting at 4,800m altitude, rather than walking through enclosed tunnels in Banos, in the middle of a national holiday!

We reached the 'lagoon' at the second stop, a height of 5,100m, this felt like a significant achievement, walking up a steep muddy track at that altitude in fog, drizzle and hail was a genuine accomplishment for us:

As we left the park some Vicuna were watching us, watching them:

The next day, another change to the original plan, we drove to the rarely visited Llanganates National Park, a landscape in the high Andes so vast it was hard to capture with the camera.

This was a view across a reservoir at one point:

We really enjoyed our visit there and were also looking forward to the next place, Cotopaxi National Park and the active volcano there.

We were a little nervous as the park had shut the previous week while the volcano let off some steam, literally.   We persuaded the park staff to let us drive through the park to our lodge, catching glimpses as we drove.

The next day however dawned cloudless and i was bouncing-off-the-walls excited at the opportunity to see the Volcano proper.   Even though we were supposed to go to Quilotoa that day we again changed our plans to head into the park to see the volcano first, we weren't disappointed:

Once we'd taken some photographs we carried on to Quilotoa arriving at the caldera a couple of hours later:

This next image of Helen looking into the caldera is from my phone, interesting how it increases colour saturation automatically:

The next day we visited Cotopaxi park properly exploring some trails, the lagoon, etc., but nothing as good as the previous morning.   We then made our way to Quito.

Our penultimate day of the tour started with a visit to a birding spot between Quito and Tandayapa where they'd set-up and indeed planted to attract hummingbirds, we weren't disappointed, I am particularly pleased with this Swordbilled Hummingbird in flight:

We briefly visited the main churches in the old town of Quito (no phtography allowed), then a regretably touristy spot at the 'Centre of the Earth' before reluctantly being dropped back at our hotel, with an afternoon to ready ourselves for the last major section of this trip, the magic circuit birding tour of Northern Ecuador...