Touch the Sky – Cotopaxi Volcano Excursion

Snow-dusted and commanding, Cotopaxi looms above Ecuador’s high plains like a sleeping giant. Your day begins with a guided drive through the páramo, where wild horses graze on golden grasses, and condors wheel in skies as vast as eternity. At the base, the air grows sharp and thin, each breath tinged with alpine clarity. You begin the ascent to the José Rivas Refuge, trekking along volcanic trails brushed by drifting clouds. The silence is immense, broken only by the whisper of wind and the crunch of stone underfoot. At a plateau overlooking sweeping valleys, your guides spread a gourmet picnic: Andean cheeses, quinoa salads flecked with herbs, warm bread, and steaming cups of canelazo—cinnamon-spiced cider that warms from within. As you sip, the snowfields of Cotopaxi glow under the high sun, its summit a vision of both majesty and menace. In this place, poised between earth and sky, you feel deeply humbled, yet somehow uplifted, as if the mountain itself has drawn you into its timeless embrace.