Ecuador · Provincia de Cotopaxi
Where to Stay in Latacunga, Provincia de Cotopaxi
Latacunga is a highland town of central Ecuador, a grey colonial city of volcanic stone at the foot of the great Cotopaxi volcano.
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Where to stay in Latacunga
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Where you stay in Latacunga turns on the town or the volcano. The streets around the square keep the churches, the markets, and the old arches within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the colonial town. The grey square lies cold and still.
Cotopaxi rises to the north. Out toward the volcano and the high valley, the town gives way to the paramo grasslands, the crater lakes, and the snowy peaks. A room out of town trades the streets for the high moors, the volcano views, and the road up to Cotopaxi.
The white cone fills the sky. Stay downtown for the square, or out for the volcano. From the paramo it is a short run back down into Latacunga.
About Latacunga
Latacunga is the volcano town of the Ecuadorian Sierra.
What is Latacunga known for?
High on the Andean plateau below snow-capped Cotopaxi in central Ecuador, it sits in the valley of the volcanoes, and it keeps an old colonial centre built of grey volcanic stone, the great white cone of Cotopaxi rising over the plain, the wild Mama Negra festival of masks and dance, and the green crater lake of Quilotoa in the hills nearby. The white volcano towers over all. The high plateau lies cold and clear.
What are the main landmarks in Latacunga?
Cotopaxi is the wonder of Latacunga. The great snow-capped cone, one of the highest live volcanoes on earth, rises white and perfect over the plain north of the town, the emblem of the valley, on the sky. A grey square holds the centre.
The old colonial square of volcanic stone, with its arches and churches, stands at the town's heart, while the Mama Negra festival, the crater lake of Quilotoa, and the volcano park mark the country around Latacunga.
What is the history of Latacunga?
Latacunga has risen again and again. An old crossroads on the high road of the Incas, it was refounded by the Spanish in the high valley, and it grew as a town of workshops weaving the wool of the plateau. The volcano struck it down.
Time after time Cotopaxi burst in fire and flood and buried the town, and each time the people built it up once more from the grey stone the eruptions left. Grey stone made a handsome town. From the volcanic rock the builders raised churches, arches, and a fine colonial square that still stand below the peak, a town the colour of ash under the white cone.
Old faiths mingled here. The people kept a great festival, the Mama Negra, where Spanish, Inca, and African ways come together in masks, music, and dance, and Latacunga lived on below its volcano, keeping its grey streets, its markets, and its feasts. The white cone still smokes over the town.
Latacunga keeps its stone streets and its volcano in the heart of the Andes.
Where is Latacunga?
Latacunga lies in the central Sierra of Ecuador, high in the Andes on the valley floor below Cotopaxi. The city sits at nearly nine thousand feet in a long high basin walled by two ranges of the Andes, on the Cutuchi river below the snows of Cotopaxi, with volcanoes rising on every side. Snow gleams over the plain.
The high valley lies cold.
What is the climate of Latacunga?
Latacunga has a cool, dry highland climate. Cool days and cold nights hold the year round on the plateau, with dry bright spells and rainy months but little real warmth, chilled by the altitude. The nights turn sharp and cold.
Days stay cool and bright.
How do you get to Latacunga?
Latacunga sits in the central Sierra of Ecuador, on the road between Quito and the south. The Panamerican highway and the railway run to it down the valley of the volcanoes, and a small airport serves the town. Buses climb the high road.
Quito lies north up the valley.
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Updated August 2026