Well after a good night sleep I was awake by 5.30am and hogging the shower at 6am so I could have all the hot water! It seems I have learned some small tricks of the backpacking world. Breakfast followed at 7.30am with muesli followed by scrambled eggs. Enough energy to set off for the hike of the day.
I have chosen to do part of the Quilotoa loop and then walk back to the hostel. A total hike of 11km, or 6.5miles for those non-metric types :-).
The adventure starts with a drive on the back of a truck for 45min in which you think you are going to freeze and also fall of the cliff at the speed they are driving. But no, we survive. Quilotoa is actually a small village that they are trying to turn into a bigger touristic attraction so buildings where in amidst of being constructed.
Small walk up the hill provided us the sight of the lake. A pretty crater lake, pretty colors but a small sister to Crater Lake in Oregon really. Saying that, it was still a great natural sighting.
The hike started at that point with an hour going around the lake. After that we turned left and started going downhill into the valley. Beautiful views of the mountains and small villages in the Andes. The path bought us then to the top of a massive canyon, views were spectacular. But what we then realized is we had a hard way down a very narrow path that was then followed by a huge uphill path up to the hostel. Let's just say that the whole group made in between different curse words while going up and down :-). The incredible thing is that we came across local kids that do this path every day twice!
Back in the small village quick stop in a competitor hostel for what was thought to be a Mojito, but let's just say they had used some random green plant as mint and the whole drink tasted weird...! Overall, a great day.
