The Quilotoa Loop

I decided it was time for a more rural adventure, so I set off to do the southern half of the Quilotoa Loop. This loop which takes about 2-3 days to navigate -- by a combination of buses, hiking, and riding in the back of pick-up trucks -- takes you through the upper Paramo - a dry and cold landscape with desert cactus, canyons, and rocky peaks. You pass through farms which cultivate Ava, a green leafy vegetable much like spinach, known also as Mate in Argentina, where it is smoked to help with high altitude and respiratory functions. You see llamas (alpacas), sheep, and lots of very large hogs. In this hillside view you can see a typical house...thatched roof huts which are built into the mountainside to protect them from the elements and use the slope for refuge against the wind.

After a 2 hour bus ride, I arrived in Zumbahua where I caught a truck going towards the Laguna de Quilotoa, a crater lake, and the only official tourist attraction in the region. This photo of the peaks above Zumbahua is taken from the back of the pick-up which took me the 15 km to the Crater Lake.

It was a cool morning when I started the hike down into the crater. I had hired a little boy to bring his mule down later to bring me back up the mountain. It was breathtaking in more ways than one, and I decided the mule would be easier on my lungs than hiking back up to the top! I arrived at the bottom to take photos, opted out of the boat tour, and had a cup of tea with a couple from France. Then my mule showed up for the return journey. It had started raining a little while I was sipping my tea, but just when we got started up the mountain, the rain turned to a hailstorm. The ice pellets were hitting us pretty hard, so we decided to wait the storm out a while. A few minutes later, it passed and I got back onto the mule who at that point was drenched, cold, and unhappy. It was a wet ride up to the top, but well worth the few dollars spent.
After my cold and wet journey, I was ready for some hot tea. When I got to the little restaurant at the top of the Crater Lake, these women were serving lunch and hot soup. The lunch didn´t look to appetizing, so I opted for trying the Sopa de Ava. The two older women in this photo, Maria Latacunga and Maria Hortencia, were very pleased, and sat watching me while I ate. I had to run to catch the bus and we snapped this quick photo. I looked at it and started laughing at how huge I was next to them. I hadn´t noticed since we had all been sitting down while I ate my soup. Then all 3 of them started laughing as well!