Laguna Yahuarcocha

Location:
Ibarra, Ecuador

Hiking

V!VA User‘s Description

A pleasant side-trip from Ibarra, if you’re looking to escape the city, is Laguna Yahuarcocha. Sitting on the outskirts of the city, amidst mist-enshrouded rolling green hills, this peaceful glass-top lake was the site of a bloody massacre of the indigenous Cara people by Huayna Capac and his Inca army. The 1495 grudge-match marked the climax of a seventeen-year military campaign. In Quichua, the lake’s name translates to “lake of blood,” so chosen to recall the twenty to fifty thousand bleeding bodies that turned the lake waters crimson. Crystal-clear water, quietly lapping totora reed shores, and the occasional call of resident herons now greet visitors, who come to relax in the peaceful, almost-picture-perfect setting (someone got the bright idea to construct a massive race track around the lake; competitions are held in September when Ibarra erupts in fiestas). 

Getting There
Getting to the lake is easy: head to Oviedo at the corner of Sánchez y Cifuentes and hop on a bus (every 15 min, $.25), or walk, following the path that heads east from Oviedo, over the bridge and along the Panamericana. Another, less trafficked route is