Lagunas de Mojanda

South of Otavalo there are 3 lagunas out in the middle of nowhere on top of some mountain. I talked to the owner of the hostal and he said that the road is easy to follow and its all downhill heading back to Otavalo. Well not thinking I took a taxi (Friday) to the lagunas and it was all uphill. It cost $10 for the taxi. I walked around for close to 2 hours. It was quiet and peaceful, actually quiet is not true because the sounds of the birds and insects are quite loud - there just is no sounds of civilization. I only went to 2 of the lagunas - the first is supposed to be the best and it was a long walk to the other. I met 4 guys from Quito - 3 on mountain bikes and the fourth driving the sag wagon (pickup) - they offered me a ride down and I should have taken them up on it - although I am glad I did what I did. Riding down with them though would have given me the opportunity to get to know some more people from Ecuador which is really what I like to do. The lakes are at 3700 meters which is about 2 miles. I forget what the elevation of Otavalo is. The guide book says the lakes are 17 km south of Otavalo and given that my hostal is sort of in the north central part of town I figure I walked 20 km - but maybe more as I walked steadily down which means I was moving at a decent clip yet it took me 3 hours 15 min to get back (Its Monday and I still hurt).

The big laguna



















The second laguna - much smaller



















me









The 3 cyclists and me. They were taking turns taking pictures with only 3 people in them so I offered to take their picture together.







The road for the majority of the way is stone - very hard to walk on.








It was cloudy but the scenery on the way down was gorgeous.









my road