In Otavalo Valley lies Laguna de Cuicocha, which means The lake of guniea pigs in Kichwa language. It is 3 km wide, positioned in the crater of an ancient volcano and contains three small islands, two of them being lava domes and one of them shaped like a guniea pig. The caldera was created by an eruption about 3100 years ago and the volcano is considered dormant since.
We took a ride on a small boat in the sunset being there and made a whimsical observation about ourselves: We have been very surprised about two 6-year-old boys taking out there plastic guns when seeing the white herons on the beaches of the islands and shooting at them. But I guess this is normal everywhere in the world and we just looked at it with our special Berlin-Prenzlauer-Berg-attitude.
hikeminded 
Those are some awesome pictures. I haven’t been to that volcanic crater, but I’ve seen the Quilotoa loop in Zumbahua which is and hour and a half away from Quito.
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Thanks for the compliment. After I came back from Ecuador I have seen that there are quite some awesome lakes in that region. One never can have it all … 😉
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