After a year without making a trip, I remember reading in a blog about a trekking around the Quilotoa volcano. In this tour, which is a 5-hour trek around the volcano where you will be able to observe the volcano from different points of view.
At that time, getting to Quilotoa was a bit long because of the travel time it took me to get there, due to the existing restrictions in Ecuador due to Covid-19 I couldn’t travel at night due to the curfew that existed, so I had to travel in the morning.
Definitely traveling in the morning is more tiring from my point of view, making bus changes and getting to Quilotoa took me 12 hours of travel, something that was not in my plans, but the most exciting thing was that my girlfriend did this trip with me and we learned to enjoy everything that happened to us, such as traveling all day without eating and when we arrived to Latacunga and we ate the most delicious French fries of the world, the truth was that everything came out delicious with the hunger that we had.
After we arriced to Quilotoa, it was around 8 o’clock at night, we looked for our Hotel called Runa Wasi, a great hotel that unfortunately due to the pandemic, the number of tourists has decreased for this amazing place.
Runa Wasi offered us all the comforts up to the wood-based heating that her rooms had. Definitely, if you want a hotel affordable, Runa Wasi is the one.
We got up very early in the morning to have breakfast and to head towards the volcano. Before to go to the volcano, we went to a souvenir shop and I talked with the salesperson. So I asked him about the trek around the volcano and he told me that he is a guide. And that he could take us for a cost of $ 15. I did not find it expensive the guide indicated that they normally charge $ 25.
Our trekking started from the right side of the volcano, although it can be done from the left side we started from the right side. After walking for about an hour we reached our first viewpoint called Mirador Torre Quilotoa, in this place we found that its owner Daniel José Latacunga put up a scarecrow that makes a very cool place to take photos.
Up to this point of the way everything was fine, we did not feel a major problem walking and we enjoyed the landscape, our guide explained us about Quilotoa and its surroundings as well as the native plants and their uses.
On our way to the viewpoint we met a llama called Panchito who gave kisses when you took a photo with him.
Arriving at Shalalá after a long walk and taking photos from the glass viewpoint seemed incredible to me, I had been here before but the magic of the place makes it unforgettable, at this point we felt a few drops of rain falling but we did not pay much attention to ourselves. The trek had just started and we had to continue to our next point, which was the highest point of the volcano.
Getting to this point was very tiring, but walking was not as much as the rain that began to fall and the worst thing was that we didn’t carry something to protect us from the rain. We kept climbing and the mist covered us along with a strong wind, plus the low temperature of the place made the fatigue greater. Finally, we reached 3930 meters above sea level. With a thick mist that did not allow us to see the crater of the volcano, I think the greatest satisfaction was being able to get here.
The rain had stopped a bit and we walked to another viewpoint where we sat down to rest, so we decided to eat something after that we decided to continue so it started to rain harder all the path was raining. I never thought to walk with so much rain and cold.
Our guide told us that in the next viewpoint there was a store where we could rest unfortunately the store was closed and at this point we could continue walking.
Finally, we had to go down from the crater to find a car that would take us back to Quilotoa. At the hotel we took off all our wet clothes and took a shower, the hot water was the best thing after that we were able to rest.
Although we needed to walk 2 km more to get to the town and the weather did not let us continue, it was one of the best treks that I have enjoyed. I hope to do it again with better weather and to be able to see the Quilotoa lagoon from all its viewpoints.
If you want to watch the video of this adventure follow me on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gr_PMCSS4p4