“In conclusion, Cotopaxi is the best!” This is the final sentence of a recent writing assignment that Isaac submitted. (The full version is at the bottom of this post.) I’m not sure if it is good or bad, but Isaac doesn’t always seem to remember things how they actually happened. I clearly remember him crying for the first half of the climb and really losing it when he dropped a few M&Ms that were meant to help appease him. I do hope, though, that he remembers our adventurous day on a Cotopaxi National Park tour as “the best” because it was pretty awesome. 

But let’s back up and start from the beginning. 

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Booking A Cotopaxi National Park Tour

We booked our day-trip to Cotopaxi through Quito Tour Bus which you can easily book online. One easy way to find a tour like this is through Viator. Viator is such an easy way to find any tour that you need and have reviews that can help you decide which one would work best for you. They also have free cancellation because life happens, even on vacation. 

They have a few different options. Go with a big group, small group or private tour. Cotopaxi can be a bit fickle about showing himself, and so we opted for the cheaper option of doing a big group tour.

We don’t normally like to do large group options. Our reasoning was that we would have been disappointed if we went all of the way there, and it was in clouds the whole time, and we had paid extra. We did another tour with this company to Quilotoa and even though there were a lot of people, it was easy to get away from the group and still enjoy ourselves.

For the Cotopoxi National Park tour, we paid $49/adult and $40/child for a total of $178 + we ended up tipping our guide $20 at the end of the day. You’ll also want to bring a few snacks, plenty of water, and money for meals/souvenirs/etc. 

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Getting To Cotopaxi National Park

We were picked up at a hotel near our Airbnb at 7am. Super early for us, but it is a full-day tour, and you want to try to get there before afternoon clouds roll in. Since we were the northernmost pick-up location, we were on the bus first and sat through all the rest of the pick-ups as we slowly worked our way south. This is really the worst part of the group tour. We were prepared for this and sat back and enjoyed the coffees we brought. 

Cotopaxi National Park is about an hour and a half outside of Quito. After a quick breakfast stop outside of the city, we had arrived at our first stop on the Cotopaxi National Park tour. This was a small little visitor’s center. Our amazing guide, Jennifer, went through the museum with us and gave us history, cultural, and environmental information about the park. Cotopaxi, despite all the well-deserved hype, is not the tallest volcano in the range, but actually the second tallest. We even sang a little song about a native bird, Curiquingue. 

Next stop was in a valley where you could potentially have amazing views of Cotopaxi and the surrounding volcanoes. Unfortunately Cotopaxi never quite fully emerged out of the clouds for us, but some of the surrounding peaks were on full display while we were in this spot. It is a stunning setting!

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Hiking To Refugio Jose Rivas (The Best Part Of The Cotopaxi National Park Tour)

As we continued our drive winding up the base of Cotopaxi, we took in the amazing views and even caught a glimpse of the Curiquingue that we sang about at the visitor’s center. We were on our way to the trailhead to hike to the Refugio Jose Rivas. This refuge is where hikers that plan to summit the volcano will relax and rest before taking off at midnight for their summit attempts. 

Once at the parking lot, there are two paths to get to the refuge. The straight up version and the easier switchback route. We opted for easier on the way up since the refuge sits at 4864m or 15,953ft. We’ve never been that high before. Breathing was going to be difficult in the thin air.

As Isaac described, it was not an easy climb, but it was quick. I was surprised that it wasn’t harder actually, but I was moving at a snail’s pace walking with Isaac. Mike and Levi were not having Isaac’s meltdown, so they had continued on up. Impressively, Levi proved to be only mildly impacted by the elevation. He and Mike beat every other person on the tour up to the refuge easily. 

The refuge has a little cafe where you can get incredible hot chocolate and food if you desire. They also have stamps that you can add to your passport for reaching the refuge and also if you summit. We opted for hot chocolate and got our passports stamped for making it to the refuge. 

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The Rest Of The Cotopaxi National Park Tour

The way down our group went straight down. While we didn’t know what to expect from this, we were up for it. The first part was a little steep and you had to go slowly, but after that it was like walking down a large sand dune in the clouds. There may have even been a few snowballs thrown! 

After we arrived back to the trailhead, we piled into the bus headed back towards the entrance. We quickly stopped at a nearby lagoon (boring) before leaving for lunch. Before we left Cotopaxi National Park, we had one more bathroom break where Cotopaxi decided to show most of himself. It is a pretty breaktaking volcano. Just being close to it was exhilarating. 

Lunch was in a very beautiful location in the middle of nowhere. Literally nowhere. We drove for a while and then through this small town, by some cows and then we were there. So random. 

The Cotopaxi National Park tour was an incredible excursion even with it covered in clouds. Hopefully one day we can go back on a clear day… or make a summit attempt! 

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Exploring Cotopaxi By Isaac Smith