Cuizán

The original track to Quilotoa is a 3-4 day hike with overnight stops in small towns along the way where hostels offer accommodation including dinner and breakfast. To do this I would have to leave my big backpack in Latacunga and then go on the trek with my daypack. But as I wasn't to sure if I was up for this I had decided to go to Chugchilan with all my luggage and to Quilotoa as a daytrip from there. Chugchilan is the last town along the trek before Quilotoa. I talked to a few people in Chugchilan who had done the hike and decided to actually do it the other way around. Take the early morning bus to Quilotoa and then hike partly around the crater lake and then back to Chugchilan. Main reason for this decision was that there wouldn't be a bus bringing me pack from Quilotoa to Chugchilan and I would have to pay a taxi. But the fact that hiking from Quilotoa to Chugchilan meant mostly walking downhill was an welcome fact as well.
The hostel in Chugchilan was nice and as the other places had dinner and breakfast included. As I had to leave with the only bus the next morning at 6am they provided me a care package for the hike instead of breakfast. It got freezing cold as soon as the sun was down and almost everybody went straight to bed after dinner as it was the only warm place. My bed came with 4 blankets! This kind of freaked my out but going under the blankets wearing long pants and shirts I didn't get cold at night. The next morning I put on all the close I had - tights, leggings, jeans, shirt, long sleeve, 2 jumpers and my rainjacket. I could barely move but at least I wasn't cold. When the bus dropped me of in Quilotoa the little village was still asleep. The sun had just come up and the only ones I met where horses and donkeys. I walked through town towards the crater and the view of the lake inside the crater was amazing. I first walked along the crater counterclockwise for a bit to get to the highest lookout point. From here I turned around to walk around clockwise along the crater till the point where the path towards Chugchilan was. The color of the lake was unbelievable vibrant. I couldn't stop taking pictures. That's probably why this part of the hike took me the longest. I spend about 2 hours along the crater including breakfast on a bench overlooking the lake. Luckily it got warmer and warmer the higher the sun got and I could soon start taking of some layers of my clothes. Once I left the crater I got to a point where I could choose between the "secure" or the "adventurous" route. As everybody had recommended I took the "adventurous" route. I first walked down the volcano along a path leading through fields till I got to the little town of Guayama. A bit further I came to a lookout point overlooking a steep valley between me and my destination on the other side. As I had talked to a few people who had done this hike the night before I knew what was gonna come: a steep path leading down into the canyon. Down there I would have to cross the river and climb up again on the other side. "Even if it feels this can't be the right way, keep on going! You gonna make it. We all did."
I liked this part of the trek a lot. I was partly sliding down the sandy parts on my butt and got so much sand in my shoes but it was fun. Climbing up on the other side in the deep sand was quite exhausting but luckily not to far. After a while the normal path started of again and I could just walk the remaining half an hour up to Chugchilan easily.
I met my first alpaca along the way and a big black pig. But not a lot of people and only one other group of hikers going the other directions. I got back to Chugchilan around midday and treated myself to my first magnum ice cream in a long time (for some reason they had a lot of magnum ice cream everywhere in Ecuador so this was the first of many ;)).
Most of the people in the hostel had changed as almost everybody does the 3 day hike and only stays one night in each stop. One german couple was still there and we decided to travel to Baños together the following day. At dinner we started talking to the other people at our table. One of them had this amazing idea for a bar he wanted to open in Barcelona. He didn't want to tell me what was so special about this bar but in his mind "people will take flights just to get there for one night!". I offered him my service as an interior architect. Let's hope one day I will be in on this amazing project!
The next morning we took the same 6am bus to get out of Chugchilan. We were supposed to stay on the Bus till Latacunga but when we reached the turnoff for Quilotoa where I had gotten of the day before the Bus suddenly breaked a I felt us hitting something. Looking out of the window I saw a car standing on the other side of the street. The side of the car was quite damaged but luckily the driver wasn't hurt. Immediately after the crash both drivers started blowing their horn non stop. The little village that had been completely dead the day before around this time came to live and everybody came running - including little kids and lots of dogs. Everybody looked at the 2 cars and everybody had something to say. People were basically just shouting at each other.
I hadn't seen what had happened but apparently the car had pulled onto the street in front of the bus and the bus driver just didn't want to give way to the car and didn't bother to break in time.
There wasn't any police or anything just more and more people showing up. I think the dogs had the most fun. They ran around everybody happy that something was happening. It didn't look like we would be moving anytime soon.
Luckily another bus pulled up that was going from Quilotoa to Latacunga. We jumped of our bus stoping that one. Most locals stayed on the bus though. I guess they didn't want to pay another $3,- for the second bus. But I didn't care. It was freezing on the bus and I didn't know how much longer we would be standing there. The second bus brought us to Latacunga safe and sound where we changed to another bus to Baños.Read more