Hiking Cerro Ilaló

We decided at the last minute to go hiking at Ilaló, a volcano located just to the east of Quito.  We followed the not so great directions in our guidebook and after a few wrong turns we eventually found the "trailhead" (really it is a bus stop where we weren't even sure we could park).  We asked a couple people and they assured us that we could park there though.  I guess it isn't like bus stops in the US where you'll get ticketed and towed if you park there!

So we drove to Tumbaco, the goal is to find the intersection where there's always a bunch of people crossing the street.  This is the "main" intersection in Tumbaco.  It's maybe a traffic light or two past the Puma gas station on the left.  If you get to this cool looking mural on the left you've gone a bit too far.  You could turn right here though and then turn right at the next road and then turn left to get on the road going up to the trailhead.

So going back to the main intersection...once you are there you want to drive just a bit further (200 meters or so) and turn right on the next road.  Go a little more than 1 km and the road forks, take the right fork and go a bit further.  Here you will see the church with the blue domes on your left.  From here you want to continue uphill.

Next you will see a sort of open area with a bus stop - this is where you should park.

The "trail" which is really a cobblestone and then finally dirt road is straight uphill from this open area.

Follow the cobbled road up and up and up...

Enjoy the views along the way...

I think this is Volcán Antisana in the background

A beautiful field nestled into the hillside

You will reach a junction where the road kind of ends and you can go straight or turn left - you want to turn left up this trail...it leads to a farmer's front "yard" but he is friendly and he assured us that we were on the right track.

Then you continue past his house and look for orange flags that mark the way

The trail gets really narrow at this point, keep huffing and puffing your way up

And finally you reach the giant cross!

This took us about an hour and a half but you can keep going up for another hour or so to reach the summit, it was hot and we decided to save the summit for another day.  Round trip it was a little less than 4.5 miles with 2000 feet of climbing.

We headed back down for some pizza at Ali's (right side of the road as you're driving from Cumbayá to Tumbaco), it was fancy but they seemed okay that we were in our workout clothes.  The pizza was good but as is usual for Ecuadorian pizza it was very light on the sauce!