Breakfast at the Hilton was the last comfort we had for the next few days. After the excellent buffet, we packed up and headed out of the hotel ready to face the world. With Sam in tow, we hopped in a taxi that took us to the bus terminal. We had decided to hike the ridge trail around the Quilotoa crater lake and we had assumed access would be pretty standard. At most we were thinking a couple of hours, a few buses, no big deal. Well turns out there are no direct buses to the lake, which is pretty common, so we hopped on one heading in roughly the right direction to Ambato. In Ambato we asked to go to Quilotoa to which we were told we had to go first to Latacunga. In Latacunga we asked to head to Quilotoa to be told we had to first go to Zumbahua. When we finally arrived in Zumbahua it was dark and we still weren’t there. In Zumbahua, we hopped in a guys truck heading up towards the lake, and after dropping off some other people he drove us around the lodging area until we found a suitable place to stay. After he dropped us off, he gave us his number and told us to call if we needed a ride back down, and that his name was Amable (friendly in spanish). The night was cold and the wind was driving but our little room was plenty sufficient, and after a whole day of bus hopping and a couple night caps we hit the hay and slept well. The next morning we ate breakfast in the lodge and left our main bags in storage while we made the loop. As tends to happen to the ol’ Holly and myself, we had trouble finding the trail and decided to descend to the lake to get a better look and see if the trail started somewhere lower. This seemed appropriate because right outside of the lodge was the main entrance to the lake with a great big “Bienvenidos a Quilotoa” sign pointing the way. We looked around the entrance for trails leading off around the ridge but found none and from up top it looked like trails went around towards the water, so down we went. Upon arriving to the lake, which was beautiful, we realized that the proper trail was most likely indeed somewhere along the ridge, but instead of hiking directly back up the way we came, we decided to follow a path which seemed like it might go somewhere. Needless to say, after following the trail for about an hour, it finally gave out and there we were about half way up the crater with no more trail. This turned out to be good warm up for the coming days as we had no other choice but to bushwhack our way up to the ridge. After a good amount of start/stop hiking, we finally ran into the main trail along the ridge which took us to a cool lookout spot.

By that time, we had been hiking for about 4 hours and really had only made it about a quarter of the way around so we decided to make an abbreviated loop and return back along the ridge. After returning to the little town, we bought some well earned snacks, some cans of coke, and went back to the lodge where we picked up our stuff and waited for Amable to pick us up. In Zambahua, we caught a truck heading back to our hub of Latacunga and for $2 each we were off. We sat in the back of the truck and let the cold Andean air rush past us with amazing Ecuadorian countryside rushing by. Fulfilled by our day and with smiles on our faces, we laughed as we rushed towards town to continue our trip with a few days prepping for the Condor Trek in Quito.