One week in Ecuador

After a pretty turbulent year 2018, it's finally time for my/our break: one week in Ecuador alone and then three weeks through Colombia with the family.

Friday 14.12. Let's go! Wake up at 3:30 and off to the airport, where Dagmar kindly drove me. We fly to Quito via Amsterdam, an 11-hour flight. Everything went well, except that we had a 45-minute delay in Amsterdam due to a 'security incident'.

My latest acquisition, the Bose noise-cancelling headphones, immediately paid off: in addition to filtering out the sound of the flight, they also filter out a lot of the other noise, which was considerable because there were quite a few babies on board...

Unfortunately, the pick-up didn't work out, so I took a taxi. The airport is quite far away, and it took about an hour to get to the hostel. But it's quite impressive when you drive over the last hills and suddenly see the outskirts of Quito: you look up and there are skyscrapers built on the mountain. Very impressive! As always at the equator, it gets dark at 6:00 pm, so I arrived in darkness.

To my surprise, the hostel, Casa Helbling, is located in the student and party district of El Mariscal. Furthermore, everyone there speaks German: the owner, Klaus, is from Berlin and got stuck in Quito. His employees also all speak German, so the audience is exclusively German-speaking. It's really confusing when you have a 16-hour journey and then meet only Germans in a foreign place.

Day 2: TeleferiQo, Ruco Pichincha (4/5), historic center, hair salon.

After a somewhat disturbed night due to jet lag, I set off for Quito's local mountain, Rucu Pichincha.

Knowing that this is a pretty stupid idea, because it's crazy to go to 4500m without acclimatization on the first day; just for comparison: that's higher than the Matterhorn. But there was no other way, as I really only want to spend one day in Quito. It's still okay to take the cable car up, but then taking pictures and going back down is not cool.

So I took on the 4km tour with a 500m difference in altitude. Very exhausting but very worthwhile. The weather was great and the view was fantastic, on the winding path that snaked higher and higher. The low oxygen at the high altitude really got to me, but it was absolutely worth it.

About 4/5 of the way, I turned back after the next stage was a steep wall with sandy ground, the summit was now in the fog, my water was running out, and my knees were hurting quite a bit.

Just before the cable car station, I stopped at the horse rental place where they had fired up the grill in a straw hut. Without ventilation, by the way. They had delicious organic chicken and a skewer with sausage and vegetables.

Well refreshed, I headed downhill and immediately took a minibus to the historic center. The driver dropped me off in the middle of an intersection at the Basilica, and I was initially a bit confused. But then I immersed myself in one of the first UNESCO World Heritage Sites and have to say, it became more and more beautiful.

Apart from the noisy traffic, there were quite a lot of people around. The historic center is quite large, and you can find a plaza with a church or another colonial building on every corner. But what impressed me the most was that there was only one KFC and otherwise only local shops; just very pleasant.

There is security personnel all over the city, apparently Quito has gotten its pickpocket problem under control. It must have been really bad in the past.

So, exhausted, back to the hostel, put my feet up, and tomorrow we're heading to Quilotoa. I have no idea how to get there, but I'll take care of that right away.

Day 3: Trip to Quilotoa

Quito is really impressive: I took a taxi to the southern bus station Quitumbe. This is when you notice the elongated shape of the city: the width is max 3 km, but the length is over 30 km.

We went over a hill located in the city, with the valley basin on the right and left, and an impressive view of the snow-covered peak of Cotopaxi.

On the bus, we then went via the Panamericana to Latacunga in just under 2 hours. Not necessarily something you need to see; from there, we took a rickety bus up further into the mountains to Quilotoa. We let people in and out everywhere along the way, including the usual street vendors. The journey took 2.5 hours through the beautiful Andean landscape. Here, agriculture is still completely done without machines; people, mostly indigenous women, harvest in the fields that are laid out in a cross and cross pattern on the mountain ridges, no matter how steep it may be.

Ecuadorian highlands

In the end, we arrived at Quilotoa.

However, the area here is already spectacular! The crater lake, the mountains and volcanoes on the horizon, and a fantastic sunset. Here are a few impressions:

I'm slowly coming down and letting myself be carried away by what comes. I think Cuenca is too far and too stressful. What a pity, I would have loved to do the Inca trip.

Day 4: I'm not getting the jet lag under control, I was awake for half the night again, but at least the headache is gone.

Today I decided to stay another night in Quilotoa. I want to relax and not be more stressed! The next destination will be Baños. It can be reached in 4 hours and is supposed to be a very beautiful forest region. Unfortunately, it's crowded as well, but I booked a hostel on the other side of the river, hopefully far away from the party crowd.

An American woman I met this morning is not ready yet: she changes her plans depending on what others tell her and has chosen the Galapagos Islands instead of Baños. It confirmed to me that I no longer want to be guided by others' opinions. Today, a crater hike, and then a bike tour to Canyon de Taochi.

The circuit around the crater lake is 12 km long and always follows along the mountain ridge, so you have a view of the lake but also a view of the mountains. Impressive once again, this totally rugged Andean highland, even though there are threatening dark clouds on the horizon.

By the way, the retired couple from the bus yesterday easily passed me...

And I had nice company at the beginning

After about a third of the way, there was a viewpoint with a rest stop. No words; I poured out the coffee when I saw the brown sludge into which I had to spoon my instant powder. I even wondered what would happen on the way if my stomach gave up...

So let's continue; in between, three students from southern Germany easily passed me, but never mind, they're younger, after all.

So let's continue on the crater path. Just before the summit, the path becomes worse and worse: steep, narrow, with steep drops on the right and left, and the air is still thin because we're going up to almost 4000 meters again.

Where is the summit sign?

And while I'm panting and cursing to myself about why I'm doing all this, and I don't even get to see alpacas... Bäm!

A condor flies completely relaxed past me, amazing! Right above the summit, it circles around without flapping its wings, carried by the thermals up without moving.

What a performance, all the annoyance is forgotten, and I continue happily. After 6 hours, I was done, and there were also alpacas

Completely exhausted, I rested for a while and then rented a bike and went to the canyon that I had seen from the bus on the way there. 8 km downhill, my Joni would have freaked out, although there were also some nasty curves, so full speed was not an option.

And how do I get back up later? Well, first of all, let's find the canyon, as it is not signposted.

The special thing about it is that there is this trench in the middle of a high plain, and in the middle of flat, cultivated land, there is this huge gorge, amazing!

Canyon de Toachi

By the way, the way back was no problem: hardly on the way, the first pickup truck passed by, I put the bike in the back, and we went back 😎

Day 5: Baños, massage

The three of us went back to Latacunga by taxi with a Colombian couple who explained to me how Cotopaxi works. Let's see...

The "bus station" was a roundabout, but it actually worked, I got picked up by the bus at the roundabout and off to Baños. Not so bad when you're so negatively biased, so it wasn't as bad as feared. The hostel is great, right next to the bus station by the river but not within earshot of the party people: Balcon del Cielo. The owner is also great: he can get you anything but is not pushy. Very pleasant. Otherwise, I strolled through the city and let myself be tempted to visit Casa de Arboles.

What I didn't know was that the trip took place in a bright party bus with an open cargo area. So it wound its way up the mountains again. Loud Spanish music was playing. The first stop was at Vuelo del Condor, a giant swing over the abyss...

But with a spectacular view. Then we continued to the destination, where a small plateau awaited us with various viewpoints. This corner apparently became famous through a photo in National Geographic, showing a person seemingly swinging in the void in front of a snow-covered volcano.

I recreated the photo, even though the peak of Tungurahua was unfortunately obscured by clouds.

By the way, here's the party bomber that took us up and down.

Day 6: Baños downhill

This morning, shock: clouds, rain! What to do? Spa? Hang out? Well, no matter, I still got on the bike and followed the route of the waterfalls. I must say it's very ambivalent: the riverbed in its gigantic valley, along which you ride all the time, is extremely spectacular,

but it has two drawbacks: it rained the whole time, and most of the way, you ride on the main road and are exposed to buses and trucks that splash you soaking wet. Shortly after leaving the city, I met a German couple at a shelter who had the same idea as me, but they were also only semi-satisfied due to the weather.

So we continued together, passing all kinds of attractions that allow you to cross the river in some way. By the way, most of them are in poor condition.

At Superman Zipline, I glided across the gorge, and it was amazing! I would have never done it, but the couple already had tickets, and she didn't dare to do it after all, so I had to jump in. 😎

AMAZING, we went 200 m above the gorge, directly above a pretty impressive waterfall. By the way, we were secured by two girls in school uniforms, yes, safety is a big deal here! We realized this again on the way back, as the same flight back took off from a kind of construction site, everything only moderately trustworthy, but they assured me upon take-off that no one had ever died.

That's how it went for us, too, and so after this adrenaline kick, we set off for the final stop, the Pailon del Diablo. The biggest waterfall on the route and the most impressive one, as it had quite a bit of water due to the rain. The path there was very beautiful, leading through a jungle-like path always along the waterfall and quite demanding; towards the end, I could only move forward by crawling, as the rock face started at about 50 cm height, not for claustrophobics, but with an incredible view right next to the waterfall

Day 7: Cotopaxi

Oh man, the rain had subsided, but everything was covered in fog. But today was the only day I could visit Cotopaxi, so I did. I should have left it alone. The trip lives from the view of and from the volcano. Well...

If both disappear in clouds, well. Especially since the route through the national park is not really worth seeing when visibility is limited. In addition, the road was really catastrophically bad.

But it's really simple: take the bus from Baños towards Quito; at the entrance to the national park, they let me know and I could get off. There, the pickups for the tourists were already waiting with the predefined route. I had to negotiate a bit, as I (strangely) was the only one who wanted to go up and the truck didn't fill up, but it worked out.

Okay, the view was lousy

but at least I made it from the parking lot at 4400m to the last refuge at almost 4900m, my personal altitude record!

Okay, down and back; I skipped the tour around the lake, which was part of the package.

The driver kindly offered to drive me to my hostel for 40 USD. When I politely declined, he spontaneously remembered that there is also a bus that goes directly to the village of my hostel 😎. By the way, it's only 4 USD. Nice facility, extremely remote but close to the airport.

Contrary to booking.com's statement that I should book quickly because it's sold out, I am the only guest. Shining calling...

Let's see what tomorrow brings: relaxing or Inca site...

Day 8:

Relaxing won, Cochasqui Inca site fell victim to financial and logistical reasons.

But it's not a big deal, because my accommodation is at the end of the world, but it's also beautiful: Hostería Quinta Carlota is a fairly large country house with a very spacious lounge, terrace, outdoor pool, and a large garden area. So you can pass the time very pleasantly here.

At 1:00 pm, we went to the airport; next destination Bogotá, but that will be a different blog.