We almost didn't take the tour to Cotopaxi Volcano, which would have been a travesty. We organized the tour through Hostel Tiana (to avoid another experience with the driver from the tour company from the previous day) and the extra $5 was well worth the awesome guide (go, Diego, go!) and the jeep rather than the van, that was clearly meant for roughing it. Doing Cotopaxi and Quilotoa back to back, made for the most amazing two days EVER! After driving up to the base of the volcano, where we were given a small tour of the museum and had some cocoa tea to help deal with the altitude, we passed stunning landscape from where which we could view the volcano through the clouds. We also saw, what I thought was the most amazing thing ever; wild horses, a herd of them, including young horses grazing at the bottom of the volcano! After Diego towed a van out of a ditch ( he's my hero) we parked and then hiked 300 metres to the refuge- the slowest 300 metres of my life! The altitude makes it impossible to rush and one of the women in our group really struggled. After freezing for a bit in the refuge we made it another 200 metres to 5000 metres where the glacier begins! It was a bit scarey- if you slid down, the only thing to catch you are the rocks! After descending, we stopped to view an untouched glacier lake where we found, again, the wild horses which were frolicking about! BEST DAY EVER!