The major sun festival or Inti Raymi is celebrated during the summer solstice of June. They start on June 21 with a ritual bath, which is a purification ceremony that is part of the agricultural calendar and the corn harvest rituals. It is one of the most renowned indigenous cultural traditions for it colorfulness, costumes, music and dances. In this Canton, the indigenous communities celebrate this festivity by symbolically taking over the city’s main square coming in from the four cardinal points, a ritual called JATUN PACHA.

Tasty food and drinks are prepared with the different kinds of corn, as well as roasted Guinea pigs, which are shared between the ritual dancers and their guests during the last week of June.

Ecuador occupies the ninth place among the countries with the largest number of mammal species. The endemic species alone add up to 38. Besides these, Ecuador has several other species of mammals, distributed throughout the country as follows: Oriental or Amazonian Tropic – 191 species; northwestern tropical humid bio-climatic region – 136 species; southwestern tropical dry bio-climatic region – 116 species; western subtropical region – 110 species; eastern subtropical region – 144 species.  In the temperate regions, we find 57 species in the west and 51 in the east, while the high Andean region has 49 species. There are 12 endemic mammal species on the Galapagos Islands, 24 in the ocean waters and 32 in the waters around the Galapagos Islands.

The grandparents of our grandparents tell that a long time ago, a huge and young volcano was Mama Cotacachi’s husband. One day, the volcano got sick and died. He was buried in this exact place (at the foothill of the Cotacachi). Mama Cotacachi was a very young widow but she lived alone for many years because of the deep love she had felt for this volcano.

All these characteristic of humidity, winds and topography joined give a numerous microclimates range as result and define infinity of different habitats whose contain flora and fauna species that somehow they have had to adapt. All these habitats convert Ecuador in a megadiverse country for the great abundance of flora and fauna species, it means that the concentration per area unit, square kilometres for example, of plants and animals is unique in the world.

A place of great botanical interest for its location at the north of Ecuador is the Cuicocha Lagoon that is a volcanic boiler whose surface is located at 3068 m over sea level. This receives the effects of the perpendicular rain and the horizontal one (fog’s humidity condensation). The walls, so much internal as external are covered by diverse kind of plants. In the center of the lagoon there are two islands which are compound by rocks and big stone blocks. These islands are covered by epifitas plants and in some areas by arboreas ones.

The enchanting Cuicocha Lagoon is located on the northwestern range of the Ecuadorian Andes, in the Cotacachi Canton, Province of Imbabura, 110 km to the north of Quito, and at 3,064 meters above sea level. It is also known as Tuis-Cocha or “Lagoon of the Gods”.

Cuicocha is 12 km away from the city of Cotacachi, on the hillside of Cotacachi volcano, knows by the Kichwa population as “Maria Isabel de las Nieves” or “Mama Cotacachi”. There is a paved entrance road.

Cuicocha is a young volcano that started its activity 4,500 years ago producing volcanic mud flows (lahars), pyroclastic flows as well as lava domes, covering a huge area of NW South America with ash rains. This massive activity continued until 1,300 years ago.