The Quilatoa Loop

Thanks to an invite from my spanish teacher, Gabi, I was included in a trip organised by her spanish school to go to Quilatoa this last weekend. Danilo also came with me, so on Sat morning we met everyone else who was going on the trip - there was Sarah, a Californian girl travelling for a gap year between high school and uni and had already spent 2mths in thailand, 5 months in China and now in Ecuador; Paul, another american who was a maths major and was telling me how proofs are "f-ing sweet" and algorithims are "awesome", but calculus is just "ugly" (so funny) and is now in med; Geoff, a canadian guy and another volunteer doing work in hospitals and with doctors; Robbie, canadian doing some work with missionaries; Soren, a german guy and there was another german girl; Sofy, the teacher who organised the whole thing, her friend, me and Danilo.

It seemed kind of awkward at the start because not sure if we should talk to each other in spanish or english - but obviously it all soon broke down into English, so a lot easier. Anyway, we headed to the bus terminal, where I was very glad that I was in an organised group because not sure if I could have done it by myself becuase it´s kind of confusing, and got onto a bus to go to Latacunga - a city south of Quito, where we would change buses that would then take us to Chugchilan where we would stay and is close to the Quilatoa trail. Here´s a map for reference:

Anyway, all is going well and I´m sitting there on the bus having gone about 10-15min from Quito, happily watching Blades of Glory, when there´s a bit of ruckus happening at the back of the bus. This man had gotten up to leave the bus, when another guy stepped in front of him, shouted to the bus driver to "Close the doors!" and began pushing this guy around accusing him of being a thief. It was a bit confusing and I wasn´t paying too much attention becuase couldn´t understand what was going on, until the man who had intervened, held up my bag asking who it belonged to! That totally freaked me out and I instantly got up to take my bag back and searched inside it to find that everything of value had been taken - my camera, wallet, phone, ipod and headphones!!!! I couldn´t believe it - i couldn´t believe how stupid I had been to put my bag above me, but I only did so because everyone else in our group did and even Danilo who is a local, did it, so i thought there was no harm. Anyway, the bus came to a halt and not sure whether by coincidence or they had gone until that point, but there was a police station right outside and Dani rushed out to talk to the police and I was just sitting there shocked. I couldn´t believe that it had only taken me 3 weeks to get all my stuff stolen. I knew it was inevitable at some point. At least i backed up my photos that morning before we left because I guess I was consciously preparing for such an event to happen.

Anyway, I realised that i should get off the bus too and go and talk to the police and see what was happening, since it was my stuff that was taken - by this point the thief was sitting in the police station, which was just a single room with a desk in it and few chairs around the edge, in handcuffs and the police, the man who intervened, and Dani were all shouting at him and yelling about it all and one cop punched him in the chest (not that hard, but enough to give me a shock that I had just seen that) and then all of a sudden, my phone appeared! The cop had reached into the guy´s pockets and out came my phone - man, I was so relieved! There was more talking and shouting and the guy who had started out denying that he took anything, was now saying that yes he took my wallet and phone, but my camera was taken by his other friend who had snuck it out in the bundle of papers he had come onto the bus to sell. About 20min later after my phone had surfaced, the man who had intervened, came into the station with my wallet! I was like, what the? Where did that come from? He said that he had found it on the back seat where the thief had been sitting. So now, I had my phone and wallet back and I was just waiting for when my camera might suddenly reappear again. The cops took the thief away in their car, and Danilo said they were taking him to find his friend that he claimed had taken my camera in his paper bundle. By this point, I was so glad to have my wallet and phone back and relieved that I had backed up my photos before leaving, that if my camera couldn´t be found, then I was at least resigned to that fact, since I do have insurance and all. But anyway, we waited and about 30min later, they came back and the cop had my camera, ipod and headphones!!! I now had gotten everything back - sooooooooo lucky. I couldn´t believe it.

What had happened was the guy had got my bag during the bus trip, obviously started going through it, and then every item he found he was throwing out the window so that when he got off the bus, as he was just about to if that guy hadn´t stepped in the way, he would have walked back along the road and collected up all my stuff. But he obviously only had time to chuck out my camera and ipod before the guy stopped him. Phew - I have no idea what I would have done if that guy hadn´t actually gotten up to say something.

With my camera and ipod back, the cops were really intrigued and were playing around with them like they´d never seen either one of those things before. So there I am, with the thief sitting there nervously in handcuffs to one side, one cop listening to my ipod, the other playing with my camera, looking through my photos, taking photos (this is his photo):

It was all kind of bizarre.

Anyway, so after having gotten everything back, the question was now what to do with the guy who stole it all in the first place. Danilo and one of the cops went into the back room and were talking pretty secretively, and then Dani came out and talked to me saying that we now have two options for what to do with that man. The first, he said, was that I or we, meaning every cop, Dani and me, "could beat him and then he goes" or the other is to go to the next jail, "fill in a lot of paperwork and he can go to jail for 2 days". Beat him? Just to clarify, to make sure I didn´t just imagine that that was an actual option, I asked if that meant physically punching or kicking or whatever, and Dani said, "yes of course". I was so confused - I didn´t want to beat this guy up. I didn´t want to beat anyone up. I couldn´t believe those were the two options - I was like, is there a third?

Danilo´s parents soon arrived and there was more yelling at the man and I´m not sure what was going on, except that I was now feeling really embarrassed that this had all happened to me and how stupid I had been to put my bag up the top and not watch it. But I guess after they got sorted whatever it was to get sorted, we then left that station to go back to Quito. I have no idea what happened to that man - as we left the station, I saw the cops leading him into the back room and I really hope that they didn´t do the first option. That would have been so horrible - I just wanted him to be let go because I was just so grateful that he had brought all my stuff back. Ah well... that´s the Ecuadorian justice system. Seems very swift in its punishment and can´t really be bothered with paperwork.

OK, well back to the actual trip - because obviously all the police stuff was taking a while, the bus and everyone on the trip had to leave and continue on, so Dani and I were left behind not knowing if we could catch up to them or that was it. Anyway, because miraculously I got all my stuff back and pretty quickly too, we decided to try and catch up with the group in Quilatoa and just catch the next bus. So that´s what we did - this time I kept my bag on my lap the whole time and we headed to Latacunga. At first, Sofy called us and said that we would miss out on the horse riding because we were too late and we would just have to see them for dinner in the hostal, but later on, we found out that they missed the connecting bus in Latacunga, so in fact we could still catch up to them before they arrived at the hostal, which we ended up doing (just - bit of a complication with the connection, but we made it). I was so glad to be back with the group - I really didn´t want to let that whole thing with my stuff, ruin what was planned for the weekend.

So we had 3.5hrs on this little bus that was packed and I felt so bad for all the people who had to stand. I know I definitely couldn´t have becuase the ceiling was so low that I would have had to bend my head like almost horizontal just to stand up. It was quite a ride - my first South American bus trip, and it lived up to the expectation of the bumpiness and how perilous it all seemed for most of the time. The roads are literally dirt and dust is swirling in and around the bus, it´s absolutely totally bumpy and we´re winding around these narrow mountainous roads where I tried really hard to not look down, but it´s hard to do when the edge is literally right next to the bus and nothing to stop us from sliding down, except the skill of the driver.

This is one of the many really cool views from the bus:

But we made it - finally and we trekked up a bit to our hostal where our horses were ready and waiting. So off we went - here´s Danilo on his first ever horse ride (he was bit nervous): There weren´t enough horses for the 10 of us plus the guide, so crazily, we all got a horse and the guide accompanied us the entire way (2.5hrs up and down mountainsides) on foot! You can see him there running beside us. Man that guy was fit.

It was an incredible ride - my horse was crazy and kept walking on the very edge of the mountain´s precipice, which was soo scary, but I had to trust obviously that the horse isn´t stupid enough to walk off the edge or fall off or anything, so I tried not to think about it and take some photos becuase the view was sooo beautiful!

It was so cool how we were above the cloud line and everything.

The second part of the trail was going through the Cloud Forest (the namesake of our hostal), which was exactly as it sounds. My horse didn´t like me very much though and kept dragging me through every tree branch it could find (grr... - got heaps of berry stains on my jeans to prove it), but that´s ok - it was just so cool to be in this really quiet, cloudy forest with babbling brooks :) and beautiful countryside everywhere. When we came out of the forest, into this big open plain, the horses just started going for it and we were all galloping and racing, and it was soooo much fun! It was dark by then, and going back down the mountain in the dark with my crazy, seemingly suicidal horse walking right on the edge, was even scarier, but Robbie, Sofy and I made it into town first, and it was then a race to the hostal with each of us shouting "siga siga!!" to our horses (which means go go!) and racing through the town, with the local townspeople just staring at us like idiots, but it didn´t matter - it was really cool and so much fun. This is Sofy and me after the race, back at our hostal.

The only bad part was coming off the horse - oh the pain and wobblyness (as seen here by Dani):After dinner, provided by the hostal, these little girls from the village came and did their local dances for us, which was really cute and ended up with all of us dancing with them round and around in a big circle. I then learnt how to play the most popular Ecuadorian card game, cuarenta which I´ll have to teach everyone when I get back and then it was off to bed.

The next morning, we had to leave at 6am, so no sleep in at all (this is me outside the hostal)

And it was off on another bus trip to go to Quilatoa. That bus ride was all fine except for one thing:

This is the face of total fear. Fear brought on by the fact that a boy had just gotten on and was now sitting right behind me....holding two large chickens! It´s like the bus ride from hell!! If those chickens had gotten loose, i think i would have lost it. Seriously, I was seriously freaked out and couldn´t wait to get off - it was the scariest sound every time those chickens clucked... *shudder* every time I think about it, it gives me shivers....

Managed to get off that bus without incident (very very relieved) and we arrived at Quilatoa. I had no idea what to expect and so when we walked up to this observation deck and I saw the lake, wow - it was sooo amazing. Here´s a huge panoramic pic:

We then began our hike, which said on the sign to take between 4-6hrs. The first part of the hike was to go around the laguna, which meant walking basically right on the mountain´s ridge the entire way, and got a bit precarious in parts, but you just had to make sure you didn´t slip and fall and you´d be right. Here´s some pics:

Llama sighting
We could stop at almost any time and grab us some beans for a snack, that just grew everywhere on the mountain, as shown here by Paul and Soren.

An amazing view of the valley on the other side of the lake.

A group pic.

We then left the mountainous ridges surrounding the lake and began our descent, which was totally crazy! We literally ran and slid and tried desperately to maintain some control in order to not end up tumbling down the mountain - it was actually really fun. There were these long sections that were so sandy and steep, where we´re all going basically as fast as we can. It´s kind of scary at the start, but then becomes really fun and then gets kind of sore with my toes starting to pain a bit because of all the pressure from running down and constant braking. But it was definitely more fun than the big uphill ascent that came after. Anyway, more pics:

It was strange, at one point, the whole area was just like a sand dune on any beach - was really weird and not sure why it was like that.


It was so beautiful becuase a lot of the hillsides were covered in wildflowers, especially these purple flowers - really picturesque.

Then finally at the bottom of our insane really rapid descent, there was a house with these indigenous kids just standing staring at us gringos.

This is the amazing view of the valley that we descended into before climbing up again to reach Chugchilan on the other side. If you can see on the bottom picture, the windy path on the left, that´s the path that we went down. This descending hike was really really narrow - you could literally only put one foot down at a time, yet we still did it at a running pace. I´m surprised no one twisted their ankle.

On the final ascending part of the hike, man i felt so unfit. I was so breathless and struggling up each hill, and meanwhile the guide is behind me trotting along happily, whistling a tune, and carrying not only my jacket, but another girl´s and also another girl´s backpack. He just skips ahead of me to the front of the pack, and then back again, all the while I´m trying not to collapse. Crazy. This is a pic of me standing on this log bridge, just before attempting to scale this sandy hill that you can see on the right - you literally had to grab onto tree roots poking through the sand to hoist you up almost vertically.

Anyway, 3hrs and 45 min later (we beat the suggested 4-6hrs all thanks to our insane running!), we finally finally arrived back at our hostal. Not that I´ve done many, but that was a really difficult, crazy, but totally fun hike. I´m totally feeling it today though - the 2.5hr horseride plus an near4hr hike the day after definitely tests fitness and muscles and I´m really really sore today.

After we got back, had a quick lunch and then scrambled to catch the bus to take us back to Latacunga, which was another incredibly bumpy, nausea-inducing trip, but despite that, I still managed to play cards and stay distracted for the whole time, which was pretty cool. On the next leg though, from Latacunga to Quito (that leg never goes smoothly), we´re happily playing poker in the bus, and then all of a sudden the bus slams on its brakes but it´s too late, and the bus goes crashing into this little Corolla in front of us. So, there´s more delay and it´s getting really late, so we hop out finally and catch the next bus going to Quito and finally arrive back at about 8pm. Quite a weekend! Never a dull moment.