Quilatoa Crater Lake

Trip Start Jan 25, 2008

Trip End Jun 01, 2008

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Where I stayed

Tiana

(Shell hotels)

Flag of Ecuador Quilotoa, Ecuador
Wednesday, May 21, 2008

We stayed the night in andean town Latachunga before getting up early the next morning to catch a bus to the tiny village of Zumbahua. During the hour and half bus ride the already full bus stopped to pick up about thirty five indigenous folk complete with tribly hats and babies in blankets - we were sat at the front and had three lovely ladies crammed into the space in front of our feet. When we got to Zumbahua, we hired a truck with two other guys to take us up to the rim of the Quilatoa Crater lake. Our first glimpse of it was breathtaking, so beautiful we stood for ten minutes taking it in before making the descent to the lakeside. As we were making our way down the sun came out turning the lake a gorgeous emerald green colour.

We made it down just in time as just after we made it to the bottom the cloud started to descend on the lake making it look even more mystical

Quilatoa Crator lake

. The side of the crater was steep and while the others were happy to make the hour climb back up Katie had a lazy moment and decided to rent a mule instead! As we were waiting for the mule to be sorted a five year old girl appeared hearding half a dozen llamas. They came down to the lake for a drink and were barging each other about when one of them fell in and there was a lot of commontion trying to get him out again. Katie decided llamas were extremely ugly when wet!

Once we had all made it to the top of the crater again, by foot or by mule, we had some soup and a beer in a local cafe and caught the truck back to Zumbahua along with half a dozen other tourists. The stuck stopped half a dozen more times on the way back down, cramming some indeginous folk in too for good measure. Then it was an hour long wait in Zumbahua with the locals while the truck driver tried to convince us to take the truck all the way to Latachunga. He started ot at 5 dollars per person and went down to 2 dollars and although the thought of standing up for two hours in the freezing cold sounded great we opted to wait while Neil played with stray dogs and pigs to fill in the time!