Lago Quilotoa - Hiking, Kayaking and Relajarse un poquito

After the jungle and the metropolis Quito our travel lead us further to the south of Ecuador. We were excited about the busride to Latacunga, that is said to be a beautiful travel alongside the stunning volcanos and mountains of Ecuador. Unluckily we didn't get a glimpse of the famous Cotopaxi volcano due to a lot of mist. We spent one night in Latacunga and tried to head early from there to Quilotoa. The Ecuadroian bus schedules are more a kind of proposal than an actual rule, this made us wait in a one hour delayed bus that was waiting to be sold till the last seat. This time the beautiful landscape didn't disappoint us at all and while Debi could enjoy the view out of a window, I was desperately trying to keep standing in this small bus that was following a curvey route (in a fit of modesty I gave my seat to a woman with a baby, that was salivating gratefully on my hands now).
We arrived in Quilotoa and at the end of the village we found a cosy, cute, little familial house of an indigenous family that was offering 3 rooms including meals. We dropped our bags, bought some snacks and set out for an unexpected exhausting hike.

The Quilotoa Crater was built by a volcanic erruption around 800 years ago. Since then the crater has accumulated a 250 m deep lake of the stunning turquoise water, due to dissolved minerals. Although the diameter of the caldera measures only 3 km it took us 5 hours to walk around it. Some of you might think it's because we got lazy during our travels but I assure you that this is not the reason. Imagine yourself doing a 10 km sandy and steep hike that goes up and down between 3500 and 4000 m, fog all around you and the thin air makes you breath like a trained chain smoker. Sometimes the fog lifted and we enjoyed for a few minutes the sun shining in our face and lighting up the beautiful colors of the lake. And then we kept on walking, walking and walking.


When we arrived back to our house, the family was waiting with a delishious dinner for us. We sat down close to the cosy fireplace in the living room/shop/dinnig room of the family and had our well-deserved meal.

The next day was a day to relax we decided and just walked the half-hour hike down to lake to do some kayaking. Unfortunately we hadn't thought about the way up that was a 1-2 hour hike back up the 280-meter vertical ascent sweetened by heavy rainfall. And if this wasn't enough, it seemed to be a insoluble mistery to get the information about the bus back to Latacunga, cause everyone seemed to want to make some money and gave us different information. At the end we found a very nice shop-owner that gave us a ride almost for free and we could keep our believes in humanity. It was a beautiful, adventerous and exhausting experience with a lot of surprise and a lot of authenticity - exactly what we were looking for!

 

Our "Hotel"