Cotacachi

Cotacachi is a smaller, calmer town than its more famous neighbor Otavalo, twenty minutes down the road, and it has built its own single-industry identity just as thoroughly around leather as Otavalo has around textiles. The main street, 10 de Agosto, is lined block after block with leather shops — jackets, bags, boots, belts — some genuinely excellent family workshops that have been at it for generations, others selling imported goods relabeled for the tourist trade. Telling the difference took me longer than I expected.

Learning to Tell the Workshops Apart

I spent a morning asking around and eventually found a small family operation set back from the main strip, where the owner cut and stitched a jacket by hand while explaining, patiently, what separates their work from the mass-produced storefronts closer to the plaza — the quality of the hide, the stitching density, the difference between goods actually made in Cotacachi and goods trucked in from elsewhere and sold under the town’s reputation. I bought a belt directly from him rather than from any of the flashier shopfronts, at a price that felt fair on both sides of the transaction, which is not always how it goes in towns built around a single tourist-facing craft.

Laguna Cuicocha

The real reason to linger in Cotacachi beyond an afternoon of leather shopping is Laguna Cuicocha, a crater lake formed inside the caldera of the dormant Cotacachi volcano, roughly twenty minutes above town by road. Two small volcanic islands break the surface near the center, and a trail circles the entire rim — about five hours if you do the full loop — with the volcano’s peak visible on one side and, on a still morning, its reflection sitting almost perfectly on the lake’s surface below. I did a shorter section of the rim trail rather than the full circuit, with views down into water so clear and undisturbed it looked less like a lake than a held breath.

The Volcano Itself

Cotacachi volcano, which gives both the town and the lake their name, last erupted centuries ago and is currently dormant, its jagged, eroded peak visible from most of the town on clear days. Locals I spoke with treated it with the same mix of pride and wary respect I noticed around Tungurahua in Baños — a fixture of daily scenery that everyone is quietly aware isn’t necessarily finished.

When to go: June through September gives the clearest views for the Cuicocha rim trail and the best odds of catching that mirror-still reflection in the morning before wind picks up. Combine a leather-shopping morning in Cotacachi with an afternoon at the lake for an easy full day trip from Otavalo or Ibarra.