Hostal Adventure Climbers

A good-value place to stay in Latacunga, especially as a starting or ending point for the Quilotoa Lake trek. There are lockers for your bags, and the woman running the hostel was very nice. She also has a friendly dog.

It worked really well for one night before the hikes. I had a dorm room with just one other person, and the room itself was decent. Breakfast was pretty small, though they’ll store your luggage for a fair price. For a longer stay, I’d look for somewhere closer to the center.

The rest of the staff were lovely and the service was very good. The hotel itself is fine for what it costs, but I can’t overlook what happened when we asked the receptionist how to get to Cotopaxi. We said we wanted to go on our own and only needed directions for public transport. He kept insisting we had to pay another $40-50 for a guide, claiming it was the law and we couldn’t enter the park without one. We’d read in several travelers’ groups that this wasn’t true, and his approach felt very unprofessional. Earlier, he’d also told us to wait in our room before checking in because he had things to finish on the computer. Too bad, given how kind the other staff were.

You can see Cotopaxi, Il linisa norte, and corazon from the rooftop, and the staff are friendly and helpful. For copotax national park, you can go without a guide or entrance fee, but you need your passport to resister. Take a bus from the terminal toward Quito and tell the driver “copotaxi nationalpark”; they’ll drop you on the road to the park. From there you can hire a taxi or hitchhike to the gate. We hitchhiked, and at the parking lot there are lots of people, so you can hitchhike again to reach your destination. Some locals, especially guides, say you must hire a guide to enter, but that’s BS, so ignore it. You can also hike volcan corazon and volcan ruminahui without a guide.