The Quilotoa Loop

The Team - Out On Quilotoa

After some time back at work, all of a sudden one week, Ecuador´s independance day sprang up without me really noticing. The country kindly moved the public holiday to a Friday and luckily for me, as well as a few million Ecuadorian´s, we all suddenly had a 3 day weekend. Decisions on what to do came and went like England´s aspirations of winning a world cup, before it was finally decided that we should all head for the Quilotoa Loop.

The Quilotoa Loop is a bumpy ring-shaped road that travles from the Panamericana far into the backcountry of the Cotopaxi Province, in the central part of the Andes. The road passes a number of indigenous towns with colourful markets and local fiestas, but essentially, the road loops around Quilotoa - a huge and spectacular volcanic crater lake. I headed off with Elena and many of the guys from the hostal for a fun packed adventure. We only had a few days so we couldnt do everything on the loop - but we were going to cram a fair amount in, at least as much as we could.

The first part of the journey was to bus it down from Quito to a rather loud and smoggy city, Latacunga, which if nothing else has done remarkably well at surviving several eruptions from the ever-looming Cotopaxi Volcano. Latacunga is the access point to the Quilotoa loop, so from here we then took the stunningly beautiful scenic bus ride onto the small and windy road that reaches our destination.

We eventually reached a small town where we stocked up on our supplies and then took a pick-up truck taxi onto the start of one part of the loop where you can trek. It was going to take a few hours but eventually we would end up at the town of Quilotoa, perched above the crater lake. Immediately after setting off on our trek though, one of our amigos got into a spot of trouble with a local. This part of Ecuador is home to one of the largest numbers of indeginous locals. Here they dont speak Spanish but their ancient language of Quichua. Each is dressed in very traditional clothes, and most of them out on the farms here often have a small llama attached to their arm. Here, the people conform to centuries-old ways of life. If you want to see some real South America - this is a good place to start. Unfortunately Chase decided to take a photo of one of these llamas and apparently, also ended up taking a snap of one of the locals by mistake too. Immediately we have two old ladies chasing after us demanding money for the photo. When Chase refused, they grabbed him and wouldn´t let go. We eventually managed to escape but only just, after one of them managed to through a large stick at him. They followed us on our trek for maybe an hour after that incident.

After some amount of time walking, we eventually reached a small town. It´s not on any map that we could find but I remember it being called Cocha or something similar to that. Due to the festival period, the entire town were out having a huge town fiesta. It was quite amazing. Horse parades and dancing, lots of eating of weird local dishes and much consuming of alcohol was generally the main activities on show. In fact most of the town was completely drunk by the time we got there. We joined in with the festivities mainly by also drinking. Eventually everyone crowded round a large fenced off area before letting out some bulls. It wasn´t a bull fight, i.e. they didn´t have matadors nor did they kill the bulls. It was purely for entertainment, in which they would let a bull into the arena and then drunk locals would test their nerves by teasing and mostly running from the bull. To get into the spirit of the whole thing, myself, Chase and Nate (another American we were with) decided to give it a go. I can tell you, it was pretty scary getting in with a two ton bull. At one point it came straight for us, and I can honestly say that I have never run so fast in all my life. The locals took great amusement in watching us foreigners running from their bull. After enough scary encounters we carried on with our trek.

It was another good two hours walking, on dried up river beds and through the lush countryside of the Andean mountain range. The views were stunning, before we eventually we made it to the town of Quilotoa. Perched above the crater lake, Quilotoa is a small town (population just 150) with stacks of hostals, though most are ramshackle type places. We stayed in an old looking building, which was part of a farm, but which had a large enough room to house us all and a fireplace, which was much needed. At 3900m above sea level (almost half the height of Mount Everest), this place gets cold, especially at night. Most of that night we spent huddled around the fire, eating and drinking hardy food to warm the bones.

The following morning we went to check out the crater lake. Its a gasp-inducing sight. This once was a dominating volcano that eventually blew its top. Its sides collapsed in on itself and all that was left was a large deep crater. Over time it filled up with water, now leaving a huge crater lake. The locals call it the eye to the sky and if you ask them how deep the lake is, they will tell you its bottomless. I would believe them too, except I work for the Instituto Geofisico, who constantly study this lake, so I know it is 240m deep!!! The lake is full of dangerous gases too, as they continue to seep up through the water from the depths below. The rim of the crater is about 400m above the lake, but feeling young and fit, we took the trek down to the water. Rocks here are naturally volcanic and ash in places makes your journey down some what hazardous. At the bottom, its an awesome sight, and equally peacful. It was nice just to rest on a volcanic rock in the sun and look out on the lake. Climbing round the side of the abyss and you can see some parts of the lake still bubbling with gas. This volcano certainly still has some life in it.

All of us are by no means young or fit people so there was no way that we were going to walk back up to the rim. Instead we decided to take horses to the top. Naturally I got the horse with the dodgy saddle, so most of my time was spent trying to stay on my horse as the saddle wobbled from side to side at the amusement of everyone around me. It was a windy road up and the horses certainly like to get close to the edge when-ever they can, I think just to scare the hell out of their load. It was a fun ride up nontheless and definately more relaxing than going up on foot.

After more photos from the top it was finally time to head home. We took the bus back to Latacunga and eventually on to Quito. It had been another great trip, full of danger, excitment and volcanoes. This country is definately built for someone like me. However, it was time to stay in Quito for a while. I think my weekend trips would have to come to an end, just for now. For I had many things planned in this capital city, and I was sure that each of them would be as exciting as the last........