first up, if you've landed here from a googlesearch looking for instructions/details about the hike, go down to the comments section on this entry to see my annotated version of the excellent instructions i found HERE.
leaving quito last saturday morning was a fucking nightmare. it took me 6 buses to get out: six buses. six. why? because i'm an idiot. that's right: i am the real deal. bus number one was a shortcut to the correct bus number two to take me to quitumbe bus station in the south of quito, and if i'd stayed on it, there would have been no problem (and no adventure!). just get on that trolleybus and stay on it is my advice. where i went wrong was in listening to a lady (that stupid fucking lying whore!) on bus number two who told me that i needed to get off and backtrack (using bus number 3) to get to quitumbe. where i got was NOWHERE, from where i took bus number 4 to NOWHERE #2, and from NOWHERE #2 i finally hopped onto bus number 5, where the driver told me that we'd pass by quitumbe station and when we did he'd let me know. thank goodness! i was so relieved i just collapsed in a seat in gratitude. half an hour later the guy in front of me tells me that we'd passed quitumbe ages ago. WTF? i hopped off bus number 5 (dagger stares at the driver) and found myself on the side of a highway with a hundred other people trying to flag down a bus to latacunga. i felt that it had not been a good start to the day.
getting that final bus was easier said than done. though flagging down a bus on any road on any other day of the year would have been simple, saturday was the first day of the mama negra festival, the highlight of the latacunga calendar, and thousands of people from quito were heading down, so that all the buses passing us were full and sealed. that's right: sealed with sticky tape over the door to show that they were so full they couldn't take another passenger. oh my goodness.
and then, a miracle: some dude took an off-duty urban bus and decided to make some money with it, rocking up to our little outpost on the highway and saying the magic word: latacunga. i ran as fast as my gringo legs would take me and clawed my way through the crowd onto that wonderful, final, latacunga-headed bus number six. amen.
5 minutes later, my bad mood was heimlich-manoeuvred out of my system: the bus zipped down from the quito plateau, and in front of us, the snow-covered peak of the cotopaxi volcano emerged from the clouds. what a sight. my head snapped back from the warm hit of a full body eye-gasm.
and then we were in latacunga. to be honest, after 2 weeks of the cuenca festival, i didn't give a shit about mama negra, so after an hour of wandering through the seething mass of humanity, i was happy to jump on the single daily bus out towards my destination: quilotoa.
what can i say? the scenery during that ~3 hour journey was unbelievable. green hills covered in patch-work quilt fields, running streams, gorges and big skies. the best part was the final 13km on the back of a pick-up truck with some school kids, holding on to the wooden crossbeam feeling the wind in my hair. i felt alive. ahhh...i loved it.
the quilotoa lake sits in a volcanic crater that is about 3km in diameter at its shoreline. i had heard that it was one of the most beautiful sights in ecuador, but i was not prepared: it was incredible. standing there on the volcanic crater rim with the lake at its base and the iliniza volcanoes in the background, i experienced the rare pleasure of multiple eyegasms.
i still had the afternoon, so i descended quickly for a snooze by the water's edge. at 4000m altitude, going down was a completely different story to getting back up, and the vertical ascent back to the rim was pure punishment. take that thighs! the crater is very sandy, and this very fine cloud of sand that surrounds you while you walk not only made its way into my eyeballs, arse-crack and lungs, but somehow made its way into my camera, where - much to my chagrin - a single speck of dust landed right in the centre of my lens - the back of the lens - and no amount of shaking or cursing could dislodge it. what this meant is a little bit more editing on photoshop of the photos you see here, and then a quick camera swap when the g-man arrives tomorrow: perfect timing!
i got up early the following morning for the hike to chugchilán, which i'd heard would take 6 hours. the first hour was a hike along the volcanic crater rim, and under a luminous but overcast sky, was hiking perfection. from there there was a descent through pine forests into a small village, then down a steep-walled gorge to a little river and back up again to the final destination town of chugchilán. highlights included crossing a small bridge which splintered under my weight, leaving me lying in the dry river-bed a metre below surrounded by broken wood with a few cuts and scrapes and in a mild state of shock (but very happy that i didn't get impaled or worse by the remaining bits of bridge). the people i met on the way were wonderful, the scenery was wonderful...what can i say? it was all good.
i arrived in chugchilán 3.5 hours after leaving quilotoa, which was earlier than i had planned. i found the people there to be quite unpleasant, so it gave me a whole afternoon of roaming the mountains above the town and watching the clouds slowly descend over the forests and farms. if i had had a magic button to instantaneously explode the heads of all the aggressive barking dogs that were chasing me around, i may have had a spiritual experience. as it was i was left admiring the scenery and dreaming of that magic button.
i had dinner that night (and the previous night actually) with a bunch of western europeans of various ages. it got me thinking that i'm really into their mindset. it's the acceptance of individuality and willingness/ability to have a logical discussion that really appeals to me. maybe it's about self-identification.
what prompted me to think about this was the contrast. we were the only 4 people in the hostel who weren't part of a massive (young)-australian-dominated tour group. oh my fucking god. now i'm going to put myself out there and say that groups of young australians are not just bad: they're the worst. they are the fucking worst. i love australians, i am australian, and i'm proud to be one. but when young aussies are in groups, they are simply awful. awful awful awful. they are worse than groups of young americans. they are worse than groups of chinese. they are even worse than groups of young israelis (how is that possible?!). i just felt so ashamed of their disrespectful, loutish behaviour. i thought: c'mon mate, you've commented loudly about her pussy about 50 times, isn't that enough? i thought: loud burping and farting in public is funny only the first (20) time(s). i thought: can't you even learn the spanish fucking word for thank you? the others looked at me as if i were to be held accountable, and i was left dreaming of a magic button...
i headed back to latacunga, and then quito, on the 04:30am bus, a magical journey through mist-covered mountains that revealed themselves in various stages of exquisite beauty as the sun rose behind the rain clouds.
i'm back in quito now for the final few days of ondrej vs ecuador. today marks exactly one month since i arrived in this country, and what an amazing month it's been! tomorrow night my favourite frog in the whole world arrives, and it will be time for part two of the south american journey: G+O vs ecuador: an adventure that promises to be truly epic. peace!
was you ever bit by a dead bee?
6 comments:
YOU CERTAINLY DON'T NEED A CUIDE ON THIS WONDERFUL HIKE. I JUST FOLLOWED THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW (WHICH I LINKED IN THE BODY OF THE BLOG) AND HAVE ADDED A FEW COMMENTS IN CAPITALS THAT I THOUGHT MIGHT MAKE THINGS CLEARER. THE COMMENT IS IN TWO PARTS
This 7.5 mile trek is one of the most astonishingly beautiful day hikes in Ecuador. The hike takes approximately 5 hours, andtakes youpast Quilotoa’s volcanic crater lake, down into the valley through the town of Guayama, and finally up the canyon into Chugchilán. While the hike is not extremely challenging, pay close attention to the route and, as always, the weather. The route begins in the tiny town of Quilotoa. Signs were used to mark the hike, but they have since been removed or blown over.
From El Mirador- the lookout over the crater (across from Pacha Mama)- look left across the lake to where three sandy patches will be visible along the ridge. Your aim in this first section is to make it to the third sandy spot- the lowest along the ridgeline- where you will descend from the ridge into the valley. From El Mirador, walk to your left along the ridge on the well-defined path. At the beginning of the path, a sign with helpful hints also has a map painted on the back of it. (COULDN'T FIND IT BUT DIDN'T NEED IT) The path will wind along the top of the ridgeline, giving the hiker breathtaking views of the emerald lake and patchwork valley. While you walk through more than three sandy patches, be sure you have reached the lowest sandy spot before turning down into the valley. Thisthird sandy patch has a rock cairn in the middle of it, with an empty signpost sticking out.From the sandy spot you will be able to see your next objective, the small town of Guayama.
I ARRIVED AT A LARGE SANDY AREA AFTER ABOUT 40 MINUTES, AND IT SEEMED TO ME TO BE THE 'THIRD SANDY SPOT'. IT WASN'T. IN FRONT OF IT WAS A STEEP PEAK (RATHER THAN THE GRADUAL INCLINE OF THE THIRD SPOT) AND I COULD NOT CONVINCE MYSELF THAT I COULD SEE A VILLAGE WHEN I LOOKED DOWN THE VALLEY. ONCE YOU GET TO THE THIRD SANDY SPOT, THOUGH THE CAIRN AND SIGN ARE MISSING, YOU WILL HAVE NO PROBLEM CONVINCING YOURSELF THAT YOU CAN SEE THE VILLAGE AND THE WINDING PATH DOWN TO IT.
Take the path that descends straight down the hill, past a small house. Once you reach the bottom of the hill, a road will take you through the middle of the town. The wee village has few amenities, though there is a basic shop with drinks and a small hostel (Hostal El Chucurito, $5 pp) in a house at the far end of town bya cemetery.
At the farend of town, the road will curve left pastthe cemetery. You will find the continuation of the path to Chugchilán at the third right.
AFTER PASSING THE CEMETERY, WALK ~ 10-15 MINUTES - YOU WILL PASS BY THE PLAYING FIELD, THEN CURVE RIGHT THROUGH SOME FIELDS, LEFT THROUGH A DUG-OUT AREA OF ROAD, AND FINALLY AROUND THE HILLSIDE UNTIL YOU REACH A LEFT-BEND IN THE ROAD WITH A LOOKOUT OVER THE ENTIRE VALLEY TO THE RIGHT. THIS IS THE ONLY AREA WITH A PATH DOWN INTO THE RIVER BASIN, AND THE ACCESS POINT IS ABOUT 5 METRES TO THE LEFT OF THE LOOKOUT POINT.
In the final section of the hike, the path will wind through beautiful pastures and then steeply down into the river basin, before climbing up into the town of Chugchilán.
The path is obscured a bit in one spot, where three options present themselves in a small grassy clearing. Take the middle route that looks like a tunnel, which leads down into the canyon on a narrow path with tall steep rock walls. Once at the bottom, just keep following the well-trodden trail past local dwellings and up and into Chugchilán.
I COULDN'T FIND THIS TUNNEL, BUT THE PATH DOWN WAS QUITE CLEAR. AFTER CROSSING THE RIVER, THERE IS A FORK IN THE ROAD NEAR A BARBED-WIRE FENCE. I TOOK THE PATH TO THE LEFT ALONG THE FENCE, BUT I SUSPECT THAT THE PATH TO THE RIGHT ALSO LED UP TO CHUGCHILAN. EVENTUALLY YOU'LL REACH A ROAD AND THIS CAN BE FOLLOWED UNTIL YOU SEE THE TOWN OFF TO THE RIGHT, AND A SIGN NAILED TO A TREE POINTING TO THE TOWN AT AN INTERSECTION.
The hike in this direction is mostly downhill, however the final section is steep and challenging. It also can be difficult to find your way on this hike, especially if the weather is cloudy. Only undertake this adventure if you are confident in your sense of direction. Make sure that you have enough time to complete the hike before the afternoon weather moves in; never leave from Quilotoa after 1:30. If you have any doubts, hire a local guide for $10-$15 in either Quilotoa or Chugchilán, or ask locals along the way. Andino people are friendly and will point you in the right direction!
The walks or rather hikes seem quite strenuous. You'll come back with the thighs of an incredible hulk. Any signs of high altitude sickness at 4000m asl?
I look forward to G+O travel stories.
Dad
@dad: not after spending the last 4 weeks above 2500m in quito and cuenca!
xxx
How exciting that G is coming!
Stephen
@s: yes...we are both very excited... :)
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