Rolo on Tour

(16) Doing the Quilotoa Loop

1 02 2011

Finally I knew where to go from Quito: I went to Latacunga to start the so-called Quilotoa loop from there. One hour after arriving there I had met Stephan from Holland and Maike from Germany and we soon discovered we had the same intentions, so shortly afterwards we planned how we were going to spend the next few days together.

It all started with a bus ride to the Quilotoa lake situated inside of a volcano at about 3900 metres of altitude. Having passed the following obstacle, we were ready to start:

Our first day we were hiking along the crater and we had magnificent views all the time.

The Quilotoa lake, just stunning.

We were quite surprised finding a „beach“ up there!

After that day I felt really sick (altitude ?), but the next day everything was fine again, so the adventure could continue. The next step was to hike to a village called Chugchilan and after having found the right way and going up and down several canyons, we arrived our destination for the night and I could learn some dutch card games ;-).

Discussion: Which one is the right path?

Keeping a tree from falling Bruce-Willis-Style

Our third and last day of hiking should bring us then to another small village called Isinlivi and it was another day of going canyons up and down.
All in all, all the hikes were great. Awesome views, friendly people and many animals (sheep, cows, dogs, horses, donkeys, lamas) on the paths.

What a donkey!

I like the dog´s expression 😉

Getting back from Isinlivi to Latacunga was not an easy task, as we had to ride on the top of a milk truck for a while. It rained and as we got up to 4000 metres again, it was quite freezing for some time. Luckily my clothes passed this rain-proof-test, so it was still quite fun :-).

Milk, me, Stephan and again Milk

All in all a really great trip, especially as we barely met other people. I wonder if it will be the same in 5 years, as it is already in the lonely planet….

A completely different experience was the city of Baños. You could not walk 5 metres without somebody asking you „Hey my friend, wanna do a tour tomorrow?“ Not my thing.

So after having made a bike trip to some waterfalls, which involved climbing down and up the tower which you can see below, I left this area again.