Quilotoa Loop Part 2: Chugchilán-Quilotoa-Latacunga

Next morning we were up early to start our hike from Chugchilán to Lake Quilotoa: a volcanic crater lake. Its a 10km hike but you also ascend 1000m in altitude (from an already very high altitude!), which makes it particularly challenging! I had originally been planning to do it the other way around so that I’d be descending in altitude, but in hindsight I’m glad I switched as it was incredibly steep in places and I’m never very steady on my feet going downhill.

I should mention that over the previous days I’d met three people who’d done the same hike, and all of them had been attacked by wild dogs on the way. One Dutch girl had been bitten quite badly and had to go to hospital. So I was pretty wary when we set off, and sure enough, at three different points along the way, these crazy dogs came racing towards us out of nowhere, and leapt at me snarling and baring their teeth. Fortunately Jean-Sébastien had broken off a dead tree branch for me to use as a walking stick so I thrust this at the dogs (I think I actually caught one of them round the head, but never mind) and they stopped in their tracks... though they didn’t really back off. I have no doubt in my mind that I’d have been bitten if I hadn’t had the stick, so merci Jean-Sébastien!

Aside from that it was a really lovely hike. We started off by winding our way down to a river, which was the lowest point of the route, at 2800m, and from there climbed up to Lake Quilotoa, which sits at 3800m. We passed through a small village called Guayama where we saw school-children out playing, and also saw numerous people (mostly women) working out in the fields, along with cows, sheep, pigs, horses and llamas. One local woman and her son were also heading to Quilotoa and they walked with us for part of the way. Their native language is Quechua but they spoke a little Spanish so we were able to have a bit of a chat. She also didn't want her photo taken though! 

We hiked down to the bottom of the slopes in the foreground, and then climbed to the highest peak in the background!

Finally got to see the summit of Cotopaxi, in the distance!

The steepness of the uphill sections, combined with the thin air at that altitude, meant I was absolutely exhausted by the time we finally reached Lake Quilotoa, about 6-7 hours after setting off. My legs were refusing to walk any further!

Lake Quilotoa

One of the best things about the day was having such great company, in Chloé and Jean-Sébastien: they were so friendly and had a great sense of humour. Although their English was probably a lot better than my French, we actually spoke in French the whole day, which was great practice for me. I went a bit all over the place with some of the more difficult tenses, and inadvertently threw in a few Spanish words here and there but overall I think I did pretty well and I was pleased at how much French I can remember. It also reminded me of how much I love the language and the people and the country, and I decided I’d like to spend more time in France when I eventually make it back to Europe! Chloé and Jean-Sébastien are also doing a very similar round-the-world trip to me, taking in AU/NZ, Asia and Africa too in the next 9 months, so we're hoping to meet up again somewhere along the way!

After reaching the lake we took another bus back to Latacunga to spend the night, before going our separate ways the next day.