Travelling in Ecuador: Laguna de Busa (Busa Lagoon)

The Busa Lagoon

The Busa Lagoon is a beautiful place to visit, enigmatic and majestic; it's guarded by the Hill San Pablo. It's located 5 minutes from San Fernando, and 20 minutes from Girón, a town situated on the way Cuenca - Machala. The lagoon surroundings are amazing: pine and cypress forests, antique rocks covered with moss, gorgeous flowers and plenty little animals such as mallards, llamas, hummingbirds and so many others. You can camp here, and now, there are little huts that you can rent if you want to spend the night, but let me warn you, it gets really cold once the sun sets. There activities like fishing (trout), renting rowboats to scroll through the lagoon, trekking arround the lagoon, and you can even light a fire in the authorized zones; but if you are an adventurer, you can try climbing the Hill San Pablo. You can bring food if you want to (please don't litter!), but there's a little restaurant where you can have luch or buy snacks, too.

The first time we went there, we had lunch, trout, in the restaurant and it was pretty good. We rented the rowboats (it was inexpensive because they rent the rowboats according to the time that you use them) and scrolled through the lagoon about 30 minutes; it was kind of hard because we weren't used to that kind of physical activity, but still, we a lot of much fun. After that, we walk around the lagoon and took photos; it takes about 45 minutes to go around it. There's a little park with a playground, if you have little children, but is right next to the lagoon, so be careful.

Busa Lagoon

Little Fishermen

Rock with moss

Trail

View of the Hill San Pablo

Path

Rowboat

The Busa Lagoon

The legend about the origin of the lagoon is cañari. The cañari people called the lagoon Leoquina (Lagoon of the Snake), because they believed they came from a giant snake (one of their godesses). The legend says that after the Giant Snake gave birth to the people, she was exhausted, so she came to the lagoon to rest, and there she laid forever, hiding at the bottom of it. This was a sacred place to the cañari people.