After visiting the Cayamba equatorial monument we headed off to the Cotacachi Cayapas nature reserve. On the way we saw huge plastic green houses, these have thousands of roses in them which is very big business in this part of Ecuador. The day time temperatures are fine for roses but the night time drops too low for them to survive.
We arrived at the reserve at about 1130am and even though it is at 12000 feet it was too warm to see many birds which was a shame but Henry our guide could recognise the bird calls, we caught glimpse of a couple of tanapers and scarlet breasted one and a yellow tailed but they were too quick for identification for me. We saw a few sparking violet ear hummingbirds.
We saw some beautiful flowers whilst we were walking in the reserve.
At the top the view of the lake was amazing, according to Henry between the 2 islands Jacques Cousteau went down and got to 600 feet before he had to abandon the dive. It is a crater lake which filled with water after the ice age, nothing can live in the lake because of it’s sulphur content. I found it quite hard walking above 12400 feet the altitude made it hard to breath, it was also very hot – but the view from the top was worth it.
