Quilotoa — volcanic crater lake
Image by Marisa04 from Pixabay

Quilotoa

  • Elevation3,800 m
  • 2 min read
  • 0.861° S 78.897° W

Interesting facts

  • Before its great eruption around 1280, Quilotoa had been quiet for about 14,000 years.
  • That eruption was one of about eight major explosive episodes in the volcano's history, the first of them some 200,000 years ago.
  • Ash from the 1280 eruption was carried across much of the northern Andes.
  • One phase of the 1280 eruption was driven by magma meeting water, suggesting a crater lake already existed when it began.
  • The lake holds about 0.35 cubic kilometres of water, and fumaroles still vent gas on its floor.
  • Hot springs rise on the eastern flank of the volcano, another sign that it is dormant rather than extinct.
  • Travertine deposits found up to 10 metres above the modern shoreline show that the lake once stood considerably higher.
  • The name is usually explained as Kichwa for 'princess's tooth', from 'quiru' (tooth) and 'toa' (princess or queen).
  • The highest point of the crater rim, on its south-east side, reaches about 3,914 metres.

Why it is worth it

From the rim of Quilotoa the ground simply falls away. Below lies a round lake about 3 km across, filling the crater of a volcano in Ecuador's central highlands, its surface a startling green that shifts towards turquoise or deep teal with the light and the clouds. The colour comes from minerals dissolved in the water. The lake sits at about 3,500 metres, some 250 metres deep, while the rim around it rises to more than 3,900 metres, so the whole basin feels like a bowl carved into the roof of the country.

The calm is deceptive. Quilotoa is a volcano, and the caldera is the scar of a violent eruption around 1280, about eight centuries ago, rated 6 on the volcanic explosivity index, the scale of the great historic eruptions: its pyroclastic flows and mudflows travelled far enough to reach the Pacific Ocean. After the eruption the collapsed crater slowly filled with water, producing one of the most photogenic landscapes in Ecuador. The country around it is high Andean farmland and grass, cut by deep valleys, and it is as much a part of the experience as the crater itself.

The rim is the place to be at first. A trail runs all the way around the crater, about 10 km of sandy and sometimes steep walking with changing views down into the water; a shorter path drops to the shore in about half an hour, and the climb back up, some 280 metres of ascent in thin air, takes one to two hours, though mules can be hired for the return. Quilotoa is also the best-known stop on the Quilotoa Loop, a network of roads and trails linking highland villages around Latacunga. Nearby Tigua has a tradition of folk painting on sheepskin, along with brightly painted masks; the gallery of Julio Toaquiza, remembered as the first of the Tigua painters, is the place to see it.

Getting there

The lake lies next to the small village of Quilotoa, in Cotopaxi Province. The nearest town is Pujilí, about 25 km away, and the provincial capital Latacunga is the usual base: direct buses from Latacunga take about two hours, or buses towards Quevedo stop at Zumbahua, from where it is about 14 km by taxi to the crater. Cotopaxi International Airport (LTX) at Latacunga is about 32 km away. The village has simple guesthouses, and mules and guides can be arranged there.

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From the encyclopaedia

Quilotoa is a water-filled crater lake and the most western volcano in the Ecuadorian Andes. The 3-kilometre-wide (2 mi) caldera was formed by the collapse of this dacite volcano following a catastrophic VEI-6 eruption about 800 years ago, which produced pyroclastic flows and lahars that reached the Pacific Ocean, and spread an airborne deposit of volcanic ash throughout the northern Andes. This last eruption followed a dormancy period of 14,000 years and is known as the 1280 Plinian eruption. The fourth eruptive phase was phreatomagmatic, indicating that a crater lake was already present at that time. The caldera has since accumulated a 250-metre-deep (820 ft) crater lake, which has a greenish color as a result of dissolved minerals. Fumaroles are found on the lake floor, and hot springs occur on the eastern flank of the volcano.

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