The bus came honking up the dusty track and we hopped on board, it was royal blue. Everything about it from the seats to the gold trimmed brocade curtains and the floor was royal blue. There were disco lights whirling and flashing in the front and Andean folkloric muzac pumping out of the many speakers. It was 6am, and this was the work and school run.




Typical school children (not taken on blue bus)


The bus was almost full with children in school uniform, and indigenous men and women on their way…to where ever. The ladies in this part of the Andes wear felt, modish style pork pie hats in either black, brown or olive green. They often have velvet skirts and are wrapped in bright coloured shawls and their long black hair is usually bound into a thick rope down their backs by brightly coloured stripy ribbon. The men tend to wear western style clothing.  The bus wound its way slowly up the bendy, bumpy track taking me Julie and our new Austrian friend George, whom we had met on another bus the day before towards Quilotoa and its huge volcanic crater lake.

Back tracking a bit, we had just spent a couple of days in the beautiful colonial city of Cuenca (2530m), which is a UNESCO world heritage site and home of the (misnamed) Panama hat. We had done the recommended cultural things, been out for a couple of nice meals as well as cooking for ourselves and also downloading movies on the hostels’ great Wi-Fi and sitting in bed watching them with a bottle of red wine.

Our next plan was to head for the central highlands in Ecuador for the Quilatoa loop. The loop is a bumpy road that travels from the Pan-American Highway deep into the back country of the Cotopaxi province.  It takes you through amazing countryside in an area dotted with snow-capped volcanoes and isolated Quichua communities. The only way round is by a combination of bus, truck and foot.

Our first stop was a rather uninteresting town called Latacunga, from where we boarded a local bus to Chugchilan (3200m).  The bus was full of local people from the small communities around the loop with their cargoes of great sacks of potatoes, maize, rice, pasta etc., most of which went on the roof of the bus, along with our rucksacks and surprisingly 2 live sheep.

Chugchilan is a small community about half way round the loop. We had decided to base ourselves there in order to be able to do some hiking and horse-riding. Our hostel was owned by a really friendly Ecuadorian couple and was a very reasonable $12 a night for our own double rooms, dinner and breakfast! Our vague plan was to get a bus back to the Quilatoa crater lake, about 10km away and then hike back to Chugchilan the next day.  Luckily we found a local guide because we had no map and due to the land being split by enormous canyons carved into the land by volcanic eruptions, it was not a straight forward route.

So back to the blue bus, our guide Bernardo met us on board and off we went back to the town of Quilatoa (pop150 and 3914m). Quilatoa is on the precipitous edge of the crater rim of Laguna quilatoa which offers stunning views into the deep green waters of the Laguna 400m below and the snow-capped peaks of Cotopaxi and the twin peaks of Iliniza North and south. Local people say the lake is bottomless, but apparently its 250m deep, there are no fish in it due to its salinity and sulphur content. We hiked round about a third of the crater rim and then headed down into the valleys below back towards Chugchilan.  Bernardo took us down tiny footpaths and through amazing country side. It’s a patchwork quilt of fields, mainly potatoes, maize, lupins, lentils, a type of broad bean and some cattle and sheep. We had been told it would take us 5 hours to get back, it took us 2.5 hours!  When we got back to the village a huge bull had literally just been slaughtered it was closely followed by a pig.

The next morning I was rudely awakened by a band playing right outside my window at 5.00am. After half an hour of trying to ignore the noise through my earplugs and with a pillow on my head I dragged myself out of bed and looked out the window. In the courtyard below was a brass band and a scattering of locals, fellow hostel guests in their sleep wear and the hostel owners all dancing. If you can’t beat them join them! So out I went to dance and was plied with little plastic cups full of the local home brew!  It was impossible to refuse. It was also fairly foul!

A couple of hours later I was on the back of another horse heading up the mountain!  Julie and I had booked a half day horse riding tour of the local area. It took us up to the highest point of the mountain above Chugchilan; from there we had 360 degree views all around. It was stunning! On one side we were above the clouds which parted every so often to reveal the cloud forests below. 

From there we headed down to a local cheese factory. It’s a cooperatively run business making by hand a variety of local cheese ranging from the fresh “squeaky” cheese that is a little like a cross between feta and halloumi to washed rind cheeses similar to very mild cheddar and also a type of rubbery mozzarella. It was really fascinating to see how they were all made.

On the ride back from the cheese factory, whilst descending a narrow and steep downhill path, Julie’s horse took fright at a falling branch and threw her off! Luckily she wasn’t badly hurt.

Once back at the hostel, preparations were in full swing for the fiesta. The kitchen was buzzing and there was a group of people sitting outside shelling great sacks of broad beans! We offered to help and earned ourselves lunch with all the family as a result. The hostel was cooking up local food for about 100 people. The rooms were all full with friends and family from all over the region who had come back especially for the fiesta.

In the evening we went to watch the dancing and Ecuball matches (a type of volley ball). The party went on long after our bed time!

The next day we were thankfully not woken by the 5am band but were still up bright and early as we had a 16km hike ahead of us to a small pueblo called Inislivi. We had been given a very basic map and a set of not very accurate written instructions by a Canadian couple we had met the night before, so leaving our main packs behind we set off with a packed lunch made up of a jam roll and a banana.

 The walk was really stunning, a steep descent into the canyon then along a river bed before climbing back up the other side of the canyon following a narrow path twisting through earth walls and past tiny farms and houses. There were quite a few territorial dogs along the route that would run out barking and snarling, requiring us to hiss at them and pretend to throw stones. We met one or two other local people along the footpaths who would often shake our hands before confirming we were heading in the right direction.  Light rain started to fall and by the time we reached the hostel after a final long uphill we were soaked through with sweat and rain. The hostel was really pretty, run by a Belgian couple who were volunteers.  We were joined later by an Australian couple and later still by a Theatre troupe from Quito who were on some sort of school tour with their educational puppet show. We had hoped to see their show the next day, but unfortunately it was not in Insilivi as they thought but in another village 2 hours walk away in the opposite direction. We had to walk back to Chugchilan. 



Llulu Llama hostel





View from the toilet!!!



The rain the day before had cleared and it was boiling hot and sunny for the return journey. We had hoped to make a small detour to visit a market on the way back, but our map was so hopelessly wrong we gave up. Part of the route along the river bed was quite boggy. Julie who doesn’t have waterproof walking shoes was balancing on a tuft of grass next to a wire fence trying to avoid getting her feet wet.

“Do you think this fence is electric”, she said.

“No way”, I replied.

 “But how do you know”, she said, so I tapped it with the palm of my hand,

 “see! Nothing”, I said.

“Are you sure”

This time I gripped the wire tight in my hand, and wallop! A jolt of electricity went right up my arm causing various impolite exclamations! I couldn’t quite believe it. We were in the middle of nowhere with no visible signs of electric cables and here was an electric fence that worked. A little further up the path we saw this sign.