17 Dec, Quilatoa Loop

On the 17th, four women who I met at the hostal in Baños and I went to do what they call the Quilatoa Loop. This is a 200km loop that can be driven in a couple days with the bus. It has amazing views from the windows of the bus. Around every corner there is something new. I found it surprising that a bus would even drive on a road like that, but they do.

From Baños on the way to Latacunga, where you get off the Pan American Highway to go to Quilatoa I thought the bus driver must have been out of his mind. Out of his mind, maybe, surprising, not a bit. Riding the buses are one of the craziest things I´ve done here so far. But, that´s another story.

I will say however, that I think the buses was trying to drag race another bus, through Ambato. I have never seen two buses neck in neck on a narrow two way street battling for first, until now. I was somewhere around the back of the bus, but I was able to see some on coming traffic, a car followed by a dump truck. Good thing we were in the right lane. However, this is a pretty normal thing here in Ecuador.

We made it, alive, to Latacunga. From the bus, we had to walk a couple blocks to the bus terminal. Becuase Ecuadorians love to not let you know about safety issues, for instance, a power truck working on power lines, a man standing on a latter, no cones, nobody watching him, I almost walked right under him. Who knows what could have happend. Perhaps he could have dropped a tool on me or something.

Anyway, on our way from the bus to the terminal, there were no cones set up and no plastic down to let people know not to walk under an overhang which was being painted, one girl, Erin, walked right under it and got quite a bit of white paint all over her. Bummer.

Anyway, we got on the next bus from Latacunga to Quilatoa. The bus just went up and up and up. The mountains are so fascinating around that area. Then, we pasted throught the village of Zambahua. After being on the bus for two hour, we arrived in Quilatoa. From there, we were supposed to wait for another bus. Just then, a man who was driving a "camioneta" showed up and offered us a ride for $3 each. I say "camioneta" because real camionetas have orange lisence plates like every other public transportation,otherwise they´re white plates. This guy was nice and just offering us a ride, but why not charge, after all, the was headed where we were headed anyway.

Marina, the irish girl and I sat in the back of the truck the 45 mins. the Chugchilán, another village, where we were staying. We pulled up to the hostal, Mama Hilda´s, where Tarmara, a lady from Portland, had stayed before. You could tell it was high in elevation because it was a little hard to breath even just walking around.

When we arrived, we hung out a bit. Chugchilán was having some kind of festival as many villages just celebrate for one reason or another. A while later, dinner was served and we sat around and chatted after that.

We had to get up to be on the bus at 06:00 to take the bus back to Quilatoa for our next days hike so we all went to bed pretty early.