In Saturday morning’s mist, we rode down from foggy Wakra Urku into San Luis town. There we eagerly awaited the van that would take us 4 hours to Quilotoa. No one in the community had heard of this destination, tucked high in the mountains at the foot of Cotopaxi. We began our trek by piling into the vehicle, our backpacks strapped on the roof. As we rode up winding switchbacks, the air got drier, thinner, and remarkably cooler. As the air around us thinned, the clutch proved inadequate to the mountainous terrain. After two brief stops to let the car cool, we chugged up the mountain in second gear and eventually cruised into Quilotoa. We hobbled out of the van into a climate much cooler than we anticipated, and were shown to our cozy rooms equipped with wood stoves. A few minutes later we gathered to sip hot chocolate and coca tea by the lobby fire.
After bundling up in all our layers, we hit the town in search of alpaca gear to keep us warm. Much of the group went in on a mass purchase of socks knit from soft alpaca wool, bargaining with the shopkeeper in Spanish for a fair price. After the alpaca craze passed, several of us began feeling the effects of the sudden ascension to 13,000 ft. So we wandered back to the hotel for more coca tea to mitigate our symptoms. We enjoyed a low-key evening involving potoato soup, sharing stories, mingling with other travelers, and passing around the guitar. In the morning it was hard to pull ourselves out of the microcosm of warmth in our heavily blanketed beds, but it was time to hike.
Huffing and puffing up the 200 paved meters to the trailhead, we were daunted with the task of completing what we thought would be a three hour hike. We nervously gazed out in the whipping wind at the sight before us: a turquiose abyss encircled by jagged peaks and troughs. Some say that the 250 meter-deep crater has magic healing powers and is fabled to have no bottom. We set off on a counterclockwise circumnavigation, clumsy in the thin air, unsure if we would be able to complete the loop in time for our scheduled pizza lunch. Everyone was astonished by the ragged horizon, rusty valley sectioned into farm plots, and a few thousand meters straight down, bright blue water. Soon it became clear that 3 hours would be more like 6, due to frequent snack breaks, one rolled but manageable ankle, and perhaps a skewed estimate of the time it would take. We also got to enjoy a tour of the assorted meterological possibilities of the high Andes, zipping on and off pant legs, fleeces, and rain layers. Nevertheless, the group maintained high spirits, and even as the clock crept past three, no one even mentioned the pizza we were collectively feasting on in our imaginations.
The time did come when our fantasy became reality, and we arrived at the hotel to hot chocolates and seven large pizzas. We scarfed down our food and piled into the van for a downhill cruise into hot and humid Wakra Urcu. Overall, it was an adventure packed excursion, and a nice change of scenery as we get to know better the diversity of this beautiful country.
