Quilotoa is a lake of shifting turquoise and emerald water filling a three-kilometre crater in the Ecuadorian Andes. The rim towers over it: the surface lies at 3,500 metres while the wall around it climbs to nearly 3,915 at three old lava domes, so you meet the lake by looking down into it. The water is 250 metres deep and stays close to freezing all year. Its colour comes from dissolved minerals and from gas rising through vents on the crater floor: turquoise in bright light, emerald later in the day, a heavy navy under grey cloud. The hole was dug by a single eruption around 1280 that buried the northern Andes in ash and sent flows of hot rock and mud as far as the Pacific coast.
Most people meet Quilotoa at the viewpoint on the crater rim, where the whole bowl opens at once and the wind pushes through tufts of pale páramo grass and orange chuquiraga flowers. A steep switchback trail drops to the shore in about thirty minutes; the climb back, in thin air near 3,900 metres, takes twice as long and leaves most visitors gasping. At the bottom a small dock rents kayaks, and you can paddle across water that stays close to freezing all year while the walls rise sheer on every side. For the Kichwa communities of these highlands the lake is a sacred place, and the village on the rim shares its name; the nearest town, Zumbahua, lies ten kilometres south. Quilotoa is also the trailhead of the Quilotoa Loop, a multi-day walk threading ridge-top paths, terraced fields and indigenous hamlets. Entry costs a couple of dollars, and the lake stays open all year.