Quilotoa
After leaving Cotopaxi, Mo, Jesslyn, and I continued our journey south within Ecuador. We stopped in the town of Latacunga for the sole purpose of hiking around the nearby Laguna Quilotoa. The town of Latacunga itself is nice, but nothing special. It seems to be a pretty typical South American town, with the requisite plazas, churches, and Spanish colonial architecture. Street vendors sell everything from socks, to fruit, to pieces of cake, and we even saw a couple of goats for sale on the sidewalk. We ate chugchucaras, the typical dish for this city. It has chunks of fried pork, boiled hominy, toasted corn, popcorn, mini cheese empanadas, plantain chips, and a huge piece of pork rind. It sounds better than it actually was. The highlight of the town was the hotel we stayed at. It wasn’t all that fancy, but the staff were incredibly friendly and helpful. The owner even drove us to the bus station early in the morning and showed us which bus we needed to get on to get to Laguna Quilotoa.
Laguna Quilotoa is an 800 foot deep, two mile wide lake in the crater of a volcano, which formed after the last eruption only 800 years ago. This was one of my favorite hikes ever. That’s a big statement, but the explanation is simple. The entire hike is on the ridge of the volcano, therefore, you have near-360 degree views the entire time. Most of the hiking that I have done involves hiking to the peak of a mountain, and hopefully being rewarded with a view from the top. However, bad weather is common at the summit, limiting your time to enjoy it, and very often there is no view because it is socked in by clouds. It was pretty windy at Quilotoa at times, but luckily it was a very clear day. It was a difficult hike; we sucked wind as we climbed up and down the contour of the ridge in the high altitude (our highest point was 12,800 feet). Toward the end of the five hour hike we were treated to the sight of some baby pigs foraging in the dirt, and some children tending a flock of sheep right on the edge of a very high, very shear cliff.
Look closely, there is a sheep hanging off the edge.
Mo and Jesslyn
These guys have a nice view.
Baños
We said goodbye to Mo in Latacunga as she headed back to Quito for her flight home, and we set off for Baños. No, not the bathroom, the town. Baños actually means “bath” literally, but just like we in the US say “bathroom” for the room with the toilet (even if there is no bath), in Spanish the “bath” is also the room with the toilet. I am sure there have been many jokes at this town’s expense already, so I will move on. Baños is considered the adventure capital of Ecuador. It doesn’t quite live up to other adventure towns such as Queenstown, New Zealand, but there are a number of adrenaline pumping things to do, the most popular of which is zip lining over the huge gorge. We thought that canyoning would be more fun, so we signed up not knowing exactly what that meant. In town we put on our wetsuits and hopped in a van for a 30 minute ride, after which we donned harnesses, helmets, and life jackets. After a quick briefing on how to rappel we were doing just that down the side of a cliff next to a raging waterfall spitting in our faces. About 10 feet away from the bottom, we pushed off the rock and let go of the rope and plunged in the chilly water on our backs. As we traveled along the canyon, we jumped or rappelled down. In one place, we jumped about 25 feet in to a pool below. Jesslyn was not a big fan of this one, and required a bit of coaxing to do it. There were a lot more smaller jumps, on which I very ungracefully executed front flips. The first time, I heard the gasps as those looking on thought I wasn’t going to make it all the way around and land on my head. The subsequent jumps garnered only chuckles by Jesslyn as she got a kick out of how un-gymnast-like I am. Anyway, canyoning was an absolute blast.
We also checked out one of the hot baths for which the town is named. The baths are supplied with hot water from the 16,400 foot Tungurahua volcano that towers over the town. The many signs indicating evacuation routes are a reminder that this is an active volcano which last erupted in 2014. Oh yeah, the baths... Um, well, we showed up and opted not to shell out the $3 to go in. It was more like a public pool with loads of splashing kids, not exactly the relaxing spa experience we had imagined. We also visited a huge waterfall near town and did a long hike in the countryside surrounding the area. Baños was a good short stopover on our way to volunteering at an animal refuge in the jungle. We’ll tell you all about that next time.
~ Jake
Me almost down one of the cliffs.
Look at that smile.