Ecuador's Avenue of Volcanoes is where the Andes reveal their wildest secrets

We're 3600 metres above sea level and for reasons unexplained, there's a canoe on the lawn outside the Chilcabamba Mountain Lodge where I'm booked to stay the next two nights. As incongruous as that sounds, even a boat so far from water fails to steal attention away from the sight of Cotopaxi, the world's highest active volcano that soars towards the heavens behind the lodge.

With an elevation of 5897 metres at its summit crater, Cotopaxi easily overshadows three neighbouring volcanoes - Sincholagua, Pasochoa and Rumiahui. But what's most remarkable about this perfectly symmetrical volcano, apart from its close resemblance to Japan's Mt Fuji, is that it's just 75 kilometres south of the equator. And yet, like Kilimanjaro in east Africa, Cotopaxi's summit is permanently crowned by snow.

What I've found since arriving in Ecuador five days earlier, on a tailor-made 10-day Contours Travel tour, is that it's nigh on impossible to get a definitive count of the number of volcanoes in the country. Estimates during my research have varied from 48 to 84. My guide, Pablo, nominates a total of 89 and insists that Ecuador contains more volcanoes, per square kilometre, than any other country. He also says that nine are active, whereas the usually reliable Smithsonian Institute lists a total of 36 "holocene" (active within the last 11,700 years) volcanoes inside the country's borders. Included in that are volcanoes on the Galapagos Islands.

What's certain is that Ecuador has one of the highest concentrations of volcanoes in the world - formed when the Nazca and South American tectonic plates collided 100 million years ago. The Andes mountains evolved as a result of this collision. But within those mountains, which extend along the western edge of South America from Venezuela to Chile, are two distinct ranges that run parallel to one another. Called the Cordillera Occidental and Cordillera Central, it is these ranges that contain most of continental Ecuador's volcanoes.

When the German explorer Alexander Van Humboldt visited the valley between the two cordilleras in 1802, he named it the Avenue of Volcanoes. Today, that "avenue" is traversed by a small section of the Pan-American Highway that connects Prudhoe Bay in Alaska with Ushuaia, at the southern tip of South America. It is along this popular tourist route that I'm travelling.

Like many visitors to Ecuador, my journey down the Avenue of Volcanoes begins in the capital, Quito, where I don't have to look far to see numerous lava-laden peaks. From my room at Casa Gangotena, a swanky boutique hotel whose history stretches back to the time of the Incas, the icy summit of Cayambe rises high above the terracotta-tiled rooftops and church domes surrounding the Plaza de San Francisco. Measuring 5790 metres, it is the third-highest peak in Ecuador.

Founded by the Spanish in 1534, the city of Quito clings to the eastern slopes of Pichincha, a craggy stratovolcano that covered the streets in ash when it last erupted in 1999. Though it sits two kilometres beneath the summit, the city's oxygen-stealing altitude of 2800 metres still makes for laboured explorations on foot and from the San Francisco Square, Pablo leads me down Simon Bolivar Avenue to Plaza de Santo Domingo, then onto the Plaza Grande.

In both squares, church domes and bell towers designed in a Baroque style of architecture that blends European and indigenous influences pierce the skies, while its uneven, cobbled streets demand we keep one eye on the path underfoot. Most impressive of all Quito's houses of religious worship is the Church of La Compania, which Pablo simply called the "golden church" for its dazzling gold-leafed altars, vaults and arches.

Tourism operators often market the Avenue of Volcanoes as a route linking Quito with Cuenca, 470 kilometres south along the highway. Both cities are large population centres and their historic town centres are World Heritage listed. Commercial airlines also conveniently connect the two, saving time on return journeys. Informally, however, the Avenue is bookended by the volcanoes of Imbabura and Chimborazo, Ecuador's highest peak.

Nestled in a valley that's blessed with mineral-rich volcanic soils nourishing an assortment of Tasmanian blue gums and native conifers, close to Imbabura, Hacienda Zuleta is the sprawling, ancestral home of two former Ecuadorian presidents. When we arrive, Fernando Polanco Plaza, whose bullfighting grandfather, Galo Plaza Lasso, was president from 1948 to 1952, greets us on the steps of his 16th-century farmhouse.

"Horseback riding is what Zuleta is known for," says Fernando. "We have sheep and dogs and cows, too. But I hate cows, and tomorrow is the day that the expert on cows comes. So, I'll have to talk about cows. It's so boring."

Fernando would rather talk about horses, or threatened native species, like Andean condors and spectacled bears. As would I.

The following morning, I'm driven inside an open-top Jeep to a condor breeding centre that's tucked away in a quiet, secluded nook at the foot of a mountain. Waiting there for me is French biologist, Yann Potaufeu, who has dedicated the past 11 years trying to preserve condor and bear populations and habitats on the property.

"We currently have three breeding pairs of condors, and on a good month we see 10 or 15 bears come through here. At the moment, we have three females with cubs.

"Condors are killed around here because of fearful misbeliefs about them killing cattle or stealing young girls," he adds. "We know of 22 condors around here that have died in the past five years. All were poisoned or shot. It doesn't sound like much. But when you remember there are only 150 in Ecuador, it's a lot, so anything we can do will help."

Otavalo is a 45-minute drive west of Zuleta, in a neighbouring valley beneath Imbabura. Its outdoor market attracts villagers from far and wide and most are dressed in traditional attire. Ponytailed men wear felt hats over white shirts, trousers and sandals. Women arrive in embroidered cotton shirts, pleated skirts, gold necklaces and red bracelets that ward off evil spirits.

The daily market in the Plaza de Ponchos is best visited on Saturdays, when vendor numbers jump and more people come to town. But since it's Thursday, tourists who have come to browse through stores selling colourful textiles, artworks and souvenir trinkets are thin on the ground. Vendors still tout their wares, though without being pushy, and I don't mind dipping my hand into my pocket to buy a T-shirt or a belt for my son. But even when I don't, store owners still manage a smile.

From Otavalo, greenhouses dot the hillsides as we join the Pan-American Highway and travel south through the rose-growing town of Cayambe that's named after the volcano. After skirting Quito's suburban sprawl, we eventually turn east off the highway in the direction of Cotopaxi. By midafternoon, we've reached the Chilcabamba Mountain Lodge, bordering the Cotopaxi National Park.

The only road that dissects the park from north to south passes by the foot of the world's highest active volcano. A sideroad snakes uphill towards a hut that's 4800 metres above sea level and is the starting point for hikers trying to reach the summit. Cyclists also come here to tear back down on mountain bikes, passing grazing vicua on the way.

Away from the roads, there are waterfalls and streams to explore on foot or on horseback, and the shallow foundations of an Inca fortress cling to a hilltop. I spend the day hiking to a natural spring where wild horses and deer come to drink and feed on fresh grasses, accompanied by ever-present views of the majestic volcano.

While the air is incredibly clear around the lodge next morning, affording magnificent views of Cotopaxi, it's hazy back down in the valley as we continue our journey south along the highway. Once again, though, it isn't long before we turn off and climb back into the hills, this time west of the highway.

The road to the Quilotoa volcano, where we're headed, passes through the small town of Zumbahua. Every Saturday, the town hosts a regional market that draws in farmers hoping to trade livestock, fresh produce, grain and legumes. Sectors are reserved for takeaway food vendors and hardware and clothing. Men in black fedoras huddle over a row of antique Singer sewing machines repairing trousers and shirts.

According to locals, Quilotoa's emerald-coloured crater lake has no bottom, which is easy to believe when you peer down into it from a terraced viewing platform high above the water. Hikers come to tackle the five-hour walk around the crater rim or to scramble down to the water's edge, where motorboats conduct tours of the lake. How they got there in the first place is anybody's guess.

After pausing to admire the artworks of painter Alfonso Toaquiza Tigua on our way back to the highway, we begin the climb out of Ambato into Chimborazo, the neighbouring province that's named after Ecuador's highest mountain. Hosteria La Andaluza, where I'm booked to stay, was built in 1771 when the traffic on the Pan-American Highway didn't whizz past its door.

Converted into a hotel 40 years ago, its current owner is an avid antique collector and the corridor outside my room is filled with early-20th century telephones. Gramophones and radios line the corridor upstairs and there's an alcove with vintage typewriters. In the breakfast cafe, the morning buffet is laid out on cast-iron stoves.

Strictly speaking, we've left the Avenue of Volcanoes behind us by the time we reach Cuenca the following afternoon. Commonly considered to be Ecuador's prettiest city, Cuenca spreads across a broad glacial valley that's fed by four rivers.

Like Quito, Cuenca's grid-patterned town centre is protected by UNESCO's World Heritage listing. Its cathedral towers soar high above grid-patterned streets made prosperous by exports of quinine and Panama hats. Despite the name, it's here, in Cuenca, where the hats have been manufactured for more than a century. But after US President Theodore Roosevelt was photographed wearing one beside the Panama Canal when it was under construction in 1906, the hat's popularity surged and the name stuck.

I spend a day visiting the workshops of craftsmen who make guitars, ceramic figurines and textile weavers in numerous villages surrounding Cuenca before returning to soak up the atmosphere on its city streets. Unlike Quito, Cuenca's flatter terrain and lower altitude are far more agreeable, and I don't find myself gasping for air nearly as much. But even so, there are still moments that take my breath away.

The writer was a guest of Contours Travel