Quilotoa and Banos
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| Cotapaxi from Lataguana. |
After a night in Latacunga, we boarded a bus to the Black Sheep inn outside the town of Chucchilan...well...we tried to board a bus there. At the bus stop in Latacunga, I showed a bus driver a map of where we were going. He ensured me his bus would take us there. About an hour into the trip, I stated to have my doubts. The bus stopped at the village of Quilotoa...about 25 km short of our destination,,,at the last stop of the day. What chose did we have in this remote area but to hitch hike.
We got to the Black Sheep Inn late in the day. What a great little spot. There is a popular hike called the Quilotoa Loop and Chucchilan is one of the spots to rest. Most hikers stay at the hikers hostel in town...if so, they are missing out on some fine accommodation.
Check out www.blacksheepinn.com/
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| The Black Sheep Inn |
The inn offers excellent meals, a variety of accommodation, a yoga studio and much more. They also arrange for tours...hiking and horse back riding. We did both. Our first day trip was back to Quilotoa and a hike down into the crater. This crater is an old volcanic cone with a beautiful coloured lake in the bottom.
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| Quilotoa |
The rim is at 12,500 feet and it takes about an hour to hike the trail down to the lake. We rented kayaks and went for a paddle. We also rented a couple of donkeys to take us back to the top! The next day we took to the highlands with a wonderful guide. We rode over the Continental divide and into the cloud forest. Lots of laughs but 5 hours on a horse was a bit too much for me.
Our next travel destination was the hot springs town of Banos. We were going to go back to Latacunga for the night but a festival called the Negro Mama was going on and we hadn't booked a room so we got up really early and caught the bus to Banos. We hit Banos in the middle of a national holiday and the place was packed with Ecuadorian families. We only managed to find some crappy hotel for a couple of nights until the town cleared out. We did get some great local hiking in and oddly enough, didn't bump into too many people.
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| Wonderful old church...service many times a day. |
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| Crushing sugar cane. |
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| East side looking back at town. |
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| Suspension bridge |
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| Cuy...or Guinea Pigs |
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| Enjoying coffee at the Luna Ruttan resort. |
We also rented mountain bikes and road downhill to the Devil's Cauldron.
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| Devil's Cauldron |
Banos had lots to offer...canyoning, white water rafter, trips into the Amazon and hot springs. Our final accommodation was the Chimenea Hostel...wonderful for $20 a night!
www.hostelchimenea.com/
Our next stop, the old city of Cuenca. On the map it looked about a four hour bus trip to get there but it took closer to seven. It is under 400 km away but the ups and downs and hairpins turns sure add to your driving time.
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