Latacunga is just the jumping off point for the "Quilotoa Loop", our goal destination. We stayed one day in the town to get prepared for the hike, and then took off on an early morning bus the following day. The loop takes 1-4 days depending on what combination of buses and hiking you do, as well as how much of the loop you do. We aimed for doing the full loop in 3 days (and we actually did it!)
It didn´t take long on this adventure for excitement to strike. The bus was supposed to be 25 cents from Latacunga to Saquisili. I was misinformed and paid 60 cents for Keegan and I, which the bus driver accepted. Keegan was sitting in a different seat and didn´t realize I had paid for him, so he paid another 30 cents. The lady sitting next to Keegan was OUTRAGED that the bus driver overcharged us. I heard her talking to Keegan and I told her that, indeed we had been ripped off. She turned to Keegan and aggressively said "te ayudo" (I am going to help you.) She starting inciting the passengers around us and the outraged mounted. She demanded the bus driver give us the extra money back and he eventually (since he really had no choice) gave us 25 cents back. The lady seemed satisfied (she didn´t see how much I had paid, so she didn´t realize we were still short 15 cents) and we were definitely satisfied because.. yeah it was 40 cents.
So we get to Saquisili after about 20-30 minutes. We were really fortunate that the timing worked out such that we could visit the enormous Thursday market in the town. The market was particularly fun because it was in no way oriented towards tourists. Instead of every person trying to sell us some trinket, we were largely ignored and just got to be bystanders of the action. There are 7 or 8 plazas that host different aspects of the market. Because we had limited time (arrived at 9am and had to leave on the only bus out at 11am) and maps are definitely not available, we only found 3 of the plazas. However, in the three plazas we saw people selling everything imaginable, it was basically like Walmart, only with MORE stuff! One thing that you couldn´t find at Walmart is all of the live animals. There were tons of live animals for sale including rabbits and guinea pigs (yep, guinea pigs are an Ecuadorian delicacy! We actually never tried any because it is pretty expensive) and of course, chicken, cows, pigs, llamas, etc. The only thing we bought was lunch in one of the plazas, which was delicious and more importantly, incredibly cheap.
(pictures are limited because they had to be taken in stealth mode since we were trying to be as non-intrusive as possible.)
lunch
someone´s lunch, but not ours!
Beautiful views from the bus
So then, we boarded the next bus ($2) to Isinlivi, 3 hours away. When got off the bus and watched it drive away, we both secretly got a little nervous. I had verified in Spanish with the bus assistant and passengers that this was Isinlivi,but it pretty much looked like a ghost town. Two kids were playing across the street from us, and, as a Hail Mary, I asked them if they knew of a hostel nearby. They said, "yeah of course, just down the way" but we were still super doubtful. Sure enough though, within one minute we found the hostel which was actually incredibly nice and had a beautiful view of the valley. Not only was the hostel nice, but it was cheap and completely empty save for one super hospitable Belgian girl that was volunteering there. We paid $18 each which included a bed, unlimited and helpful trail maps (we lost the one we had originally been given basically immediately in Saquisili), a 3 course dinner and a full breakfast. The dinner was possibly the best thing we have eaten so far.
View from the hostel
llamas everywhere
(A funny aside: somehow I missed the fact that the dinner was three courses. The first course was a pot of lentil soup. I looked at how small it was and thought "Wow I am going to have to eat a lot of soup if I´m not going to starve." My fourth helping in, Keegan and the Belgian girl looked at my like I was insane and asked how I was going to have room for the rest of the meal. Oops! Big mistake too because the main course was some sort of delicious cheesy chicken lasagna thing. I made room though, I just fell into a food coma afterwards.)
We slept hard that night and woke up early to hit the trail. A lot of places online told us we should buy some small candy to give to the kids along the way, so we hit a store on the way out of town (more like part tiny store, part one bedroom house) where we were sold 20 pieces of candy for $1 by an adorable old woman. And then we hit the trail!
The map was wonderful and we didn´t get lost hardly at all. We were told to expect 4-6 hours of hiking. We were pretty proud of ourselves when we arrived at the next town in just under 4 hours! The hike was really difficult though, we started at 9,700 feet and ended at 10,500. The hardest part was that it started to downpour about 45 minutes out. We arrived in Chugchilan incredibly tired and hungry.
Chugchilan is the second most touristy of the towns on the loop (and by that I mean there are more than one option for hostels because people can arrive by car without actually hiking.) We opted for one that was mid-range expensive, $15/night including breakfast and dinner. The town of Chugchilan was tiny, but not a ghost town like Isinlivi. After a warm shower and a mini nap, we explored the town which took approximately 15 minutes and then went back to the hostel.
Nothing really eventful happened that night (the dinner was a predictable one course with dessert, so no problems there for me.) We slept like logs and prepared for the next leg of the journey. Foolishly, I thought this leg would be easier, but I was definitely wrong.
This leg of the journey was where the altitude gain comes in. We started at 10,500 feet and ended above 12,800. The part that you think is the hard, altitude-gaining part (15 steep switch backs) is actually NOT the hard part! That comes at the very end when you have to scale to the top of the volcano. It rained again, but not quite as bad as the day before luckily.
When the rain came in we were just outside of a small town, so we sought refuge under a covered cement soccer court to put on our rain gear. Some boys aged 7-9 were playing soccer and REALLY wanted us to play with them. I first placated them with candy, but eventually caved. I was so tired from hiking and the altitude I could only play for a few minutes before I was totally winded. They were happy to have the attention though.
We arrived in the tiny town of Quilotoa thoroughly exhausted. Mercifully, about 30 minutes out, you get a little teaser to remind you what you did this whole hike for in the first place! It pretty much takes your breath away when you get the first view of the lake.
We still had to walk half way around the crater but at least we would get to have this view.
We jumped into the first hostel we found, which was probably not the best idea. Quilotoa is the most touristy town and actually has some nice hostels, but we did not stay at one of the nice ones. For $10 a night (plus dinner and breakfast) we got a bed with a private bathroom, but no heating. A big issue since its pretty dang cold at night. We thought we were going to freeze, but luckily the bed had 5 huge, thick blankets on it, so we managed to stay pretty warm. It was actually really fun staying there though because it was much more like a homestay. We were the only guests and we ate dinner with the family (mom, dad, older brother around 18, younger sister who was 9.) We watched a Mexican tv show with them at dinner and got to chat with them in Spanish a bit too. (Great side story: the tv show they watched was actually borderline racist against the U.S.! One character was named "Super Sam" and he looked very similar to Uncle Sam. He fought unsuccessfully tried to fight villains with a bag full of money as a weapon, although he never defeated anyone- the main character always had to save the day, and he could always be distracted by someone telling him there was money to be found somewhere. Keegan and I watched for awhile and then we were like "hey wait!!)
We knew that we were too exhausted to hike down to the lake that day (I think my legs would have given out and they would have had to drag me out with a mule) so we just looked down from above as the sunset. Definitely not a bad view.
We got so lucky, the clouds cleared for just a few minutes so you could see some of the volcanoes in the distance!
The next morning, we felt a little better and headed down to the lake. I really wanted to rent kayaks to paddle out, but the place wasn´t open yet.We were trying to make a bus that left at 10am so we didn´t have time to wait around.
More llamas, for good measure.
Even the best laid plans don´t work out though. It was a Sunday, and on Sundays the bus schedule is different and consequently, no one seemed to know it. The 10am bus never came and we started to doubt whether we´d get on a bus. Lots of pick-up truck drivers will taxi people between towns so we hopped in one for $2.50 each. By the time we got to the next town, Zumbahua, we had picked up 4 more passengers (ya it was crowded.) From there it worked perfectly, we only waited about 5 minutes for the bus back to Latacunga. After about an hour and a half we arrived in Latacunga, retrieved our bags from the hostel, and found a night bus to take us to Guayaquil so we could finally pick up our new passports!!
For the visual learners out there: We went counterclockwise starting in the bottom right (Latacunga). The first day we took two buses. The second day we hiked. The third day we hiked. The last morning we took the truck and the bus back.
One last picture!! Agh, so beautiful!
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