Econaturista
The day woke up rainy, again on our trip to Ecuador. The most attractive thing about this visit to Pululahua was to see if it would be possible to live inside a volcano crater. Our hopes of being able to see the crater of the Pululahua (Water Cloud) volcano were disappearing. The whole way it was drizzling, it was raining, and the sun came out a little.
But nature cooperated for a few minutes...
This volcano, called potentially active since its last eruption was more than 2000 years ago, is located in the Pululahua Geobotanical Reserve (3,383 hectares) less than 20 kilometers from the city of Quito, Ecuador, and 3 kilometers from the Middle of the World circle.
Unlike the other volcanoes that we see in Ecuador, this one is not shaped like a mountain, it is made up of three hills (volcanic domes) called: Pondoña, El Chivo, and Pan de Azúcar. Inside the crater of the Pululahua volcano, which is one of the few inhabited in the world, is the San Isidro Community that you can see in the photos. The residents, who are approximately thirty families, are dedicated to agriculture and hospitality.
Although for reasons of time, we observed from the Ventanillas Viewpoint (Volcano Viewpoint), during your visit you can be a little more adventurous by doing the “Sal si puede” Trail (1.8 kilometers). According to the sign, it is of medium difficulty and it takes 90 minutes to go down the stairs to the community.
The day we visited there were students from the Eloy Alfaro Military Superior School and their suffering faces when they reached the top made me think that they were extremely conservative when classifying the difficulty of climbing all those stairs. In the crater, you can camp, cycle, or horseback ride.