Cotopaxi National Park Tours & Trips

Roughly 75km south ofQuito, along the Pacific Ring of Fire, lies the staggeringly spectacular Cotopaxi National Park, Ecuador’s largest and most-visited national park, a picturesque playground of sweeping plains, rocky mountain trails, and glassy lagoons ruled by the imperious snow-capped Cotopaxi volcano, the highest active volcano in South America. Despite the high altitude, the park is a haven for hardy flora and fauna, its halcyon horizon home to wild horses, huge herds of guanacos and white-tailed deer surveyed by Andean fox, puma, and soaring condors.

Cotopaxi National Park tours are brimming withoutdoor adventure. Don your warm clothes and hike through extraordinary landscapes, happen across the hidden Inca fortress of Pucará del Salitre, and stroll the shores of the Limpiopungo Lagoon, its serene surface a shimmering mirror to the vanity of the volcano. Full day tours horseback riding and mountain biking are also common, and there are a host of homely haciendas from which to set up your basecamp and get a taste of the authentic Andean life portrayed so famously on the folk art from Tigua.