Even though we still have a mess of photos to get together and post from Baños and all the things we did there, this post is from the four days we spent doing the Quilotoa Loop. The Quilotoa Loop is a journey to Laguna Quilotoa and back while moving in a circular or loop-like direction. The Laguna Quilotoa is a crater lake with no inlet or outlet for water so it has just been sitting there slowly getting lower (very slowly, it´s not going anywhere soon). Because it has no water flow the lake has become incredibly alkaline and there is no life in it or swimming allowed but that does not stop it from being absolutely gorgeous.
The lake is an amazing array of greens and blues and when we hiked around it the lake was glass and the whole sky was beautifully mirrored in its reflection. Anyhow back to the loop. We arrived in Latacunga, stayed the night, caught the bus in the morning and cruised on up to the town of Quilotoa, climbing muddy roads under construction with immense drop-offs on the sides and dump-trucks cruising past. Surprisingly this wasn't the scariest drive of this trip. Anyway, we made it to Quilotoa just in time for the daily afternoon rainstorm and decided to try and hike down to the lake through rain and fog. We met some great people from New York, Matt and Leah, with whom we set off down the slick muddy trail to the lake. We made it about 75 percent of the way down before the rain hit really hard, the trail became incredibly slick, and we headed back up the climb filled with many locals working to construct a new path.
After our wet climb back up to the small town of Quilotoa we headed back to our quaint cabana to start a fire. Normally starting a fire is very simple for Morgan, but that night brought new challenges. First we had to find some paper. Luckily we had some spare notebook paper and eventually found newspaper in the spare hostel kitchen. Next we had to find dry wood. With the wood outside our cabana door slightly damp, I went to ask the hostess for some that was dry. Not knowing the word for 'dry' in Spanish I just asked for some 'madera por un fuego' (wood for a fire). She directed me to the other side of the house where I quickly and happily went until I turned the corner to see a giant pile of wood unprotected by the daily rain showers. So I headed back to the room without madera por un fuego but we did still have the only slightly damp wood which we were able to use to strip small pieces of wood from, start a mini fire, and dry out the more damp wood. After about an hour and a half of work with the fire we were able to get it going which led to a wonderfully toasty room. Since our new friends from New York weren't having any luck with their fire we invited them over for cards until it was time for dinner.
Dinner consisted of traditional Ecuadorian food and the highlight was dessert which was tomate de arbol(tree tomato) with a sugary syrup. Post dinner was filled with more card games with our new friends and an early bedtime.
