HIKING THE QUILOTOA LOOP

In Latacunga we met up with Wouter to hike to the Laguna de Quilotoa. And Katharina also joined our hiking group spontaneously. Early in the morning we took a taxi (which we bargained from 60 to 20$) to a small village were we started the hike. The first day we hiked for almost seven hours and the trail took us over 17 km to an elevation of almost 4000 m in Quilotoa. Up there it was really cold and it wasn't easy to breathe. None of us slept well that night - probably because the air was quite thin and it wasn't easy to breath. The next morning Miha also joined us on our hike and we were a great hiking group. We started to hike partly around the beautiful lake with great views before continuing the hike to the next village. The color of the water was an impressive color. All four days of the hike the landscape was amazing – deep canyons, green hills and small villages. We lost the trail that was described in our guide book a few times and had to find a new trail. That usually was no problem since there are many paths in this area that are used by the people living there to walk to there fields or the next village.

Unfortunately I had problems with the altitude and my stomach and didn't feel well most of the time. Therefore I couldn't really enjoy the hike nor the landscape. See Micha's blog for a more detailed description of the hike.

Back at the hostel in Latacunga we had to stay inside the whole day on Sunday since there was a census in Ecuador and people were not allowed to leave their houses. It was very weird and quite boring.

Wie kommt der Trabi nach Ecuador?

Since I still didn't feel well after doing nothing for a few days in Latacunga, I decided to go back to Quito to see a doctor. He gave me some pills and I spent another week hanging around at the hostel in Quito. Not a lot of fun. After the cold days in the mountains I needed some sun and more and decided to go back to Canoa for a few days, while Micha was going to climb Cotopaxi.