Kicking it in Quilalto
Our intriped troup of travelers has now reached the Spa town of Baños in Ecuador´s central sierra. Luke, Lura, Andrew and I have made camp in a fantastic hostel-hotely thing on the edge of town and are currently consuming about 20% of the towns daily supply of Pilsner every night.
It was not a direct journey however, and to leave out the details would...well leave this post too short really.
We left Josh and Anya´s place early one morning a few days ago, said our good buys to Gracho, the happiest dog this side of the equator and struck out towards the bus terminal. We hailed the smallest cab in Quito and then promptly got stuck in traffic. Some poor soul had had a close encounter with a bus windshield, but we made it to the bus station and practically walked on to a bus to Latacunga. Our plan was to try to see the Quilalto (pronounced Kill-a-toe-ah) crater, a slight 2-4 hour detour, on the way to Baños.
I had not realized how big Quito was until the bus had been driving for nearly an hour and we had not left the city yet. Sprawl, cliched but true. The bus was pretty relaxing until what I assume was a traveling preacher women boarded and spent about an hour informing us in non-stop Spanish why we should avoid sin, the devil and possibly public buses.
Our first bus ejected us at Latacunga´s bustling bus station. This consisted of a small out door car park with a lovely open air urinal at the far corner and a women manning a small food stand. This women turned out to be a great help, correctly deducing that the three white guys and the tiny red-head were most likely headed for the giant crater near by. She promptly pointed us in the direction of the bus to Zimmbabway (as close as i can remember) which was are next travel leg.
The Zimbabway bus was an adventure in it´s own right. We were strange enough being the only white people on the bus, but having one of the only two confirmed red heads in all of Ecuador, we stood out pretty well. Our giant backpacks did not really endure us to the locals either, on what is so far the most packed bus I have ever bean on. Andrew and I got stuffed into the front near the driver with about 10 other people, all of us sitting on a giant cushion which in turn was perched on the engine cover. A nice old lady, who had a real seat tried to amuse herself buy reading me a Spanish news paper-from what I understand, Ecuador has a serious soft drink problem.
After spent 2 hours trying not to fall into the door´s stair well, we arrived in the tiny cross road of Zimbabway, where we were informed by a local man that the bus we wanted to catch to Quilalto did not in fact exist. By shear coincidence, this man happened to be a taxi driver. Despite the obvious conflict of interest, this piece of advice turned out to be genuine. In fact he ended up saving us a nights accommodation in the end. Our Taxi (read: pick up truck with a tarp over the back) took us to the crater, waited for us for an hour or so, then drove us back to Zimbabaway.
The Quilalto Crater was amazing. It´s volcanic in origin, and contains the highest navigable lake in the world. A small village of the same name is perched on the lip, and the locals are very friendly. One lady in particular was a little excessive. She followed us down a trail on the craters edge, with her horse! I got a good picture of her and the animal, but it cost me a green back. Oh well, 90 cents Canadian aint bad :) We also could not resist mooning the camera for a group shot and almost got busted by some other tourists coming up the path.
Our taxi dropped us back at Zimababbbbwway and we were waiting for the bus until we were spotted by another enterprising truck owner. Lura bargained with him almost by accident until the price dropped to $10 bucks for a nearly two hour ride! It was too good to pass up, and we had our nicest truck bed ride so far all the way back to Latacunga. The Bus to Baños pulled up practically as we paid the taxi, and we had to sprint to get on. I ended up next to a girl from Texas that had been staying in the same hostel as us in Quito!
I was so hungry by this point that I even bought a meat skewer from one of the random vendors that board Ecuadorian buses as soon as they stop in any village or town. I'm still alive.
Next Time: Big Bad Baños
It was not a direct journey however, and to leave out the details would...well leave this post too short really.
We left Josh and Anya´s place early one morning a few days ago, said our good buys to Gracho, the happiest dog this side of the equator and struck out towards the bus terminal. We hailed the smallest cab in Quito and then promptly got stuck in traffic. Some poor soul had had a close encounter with a bus windshield, but we made it to the bus station and practically walked on to a bus to Latacunga. Our plan was to try to see the Quilalto (pronounced Kill-a-toe-ah) crater, a slight 2-4 hour detour, on the way to Baños.
I had not realized how big Quito was until the bus had been driving for nearly an hour and we had not left the city yet. Sprawl, cliched but true. The bus was pretty relaxing until what I assume was a traveling preacher women boarded and spent about an hour informing us in non-stop Spanish why we should avoid sin, the devil and possibly public buses.
Our first bus ejected us at Latacunga´s bustling bus station. This consisted of a small out door car park with a lovely open air urinal at the far corner and a women manning a small food stand. This women turned out to be a great help, correctly deducing that the three white guys and the tiny red-head were most likely headed for the giant crater near by. She promptly pointed us in the direction of the bus to Zimmbabway (as close as i can remember) which was are next travel leg.
The Zimbabway bus was an adventure in it´s own right. We were strange enough being the only white people on the bus, but having one of the only two confirmed red heads in all of Ecuador, we stood out pretty well. Our giant backpacks did not really endure us to the locals either, on what is so far the most packed bus I have ever bean on. Andrew and I got stuffed into the front near the driver with about 10 other people, all of us sitting on a giant cushion which in turn was perched on the engine cover. A nice old lady, who had a real seat tried to amuse herself buy reading me a Spanish news paper-from what I understand, Ecuador has a serious soft drink problem.
After spent 2 hours trying not to fall into the door´s stair well, we arrived in the tiny cross road of Zimbabway, where we were informed by a local man that the bus we wanted to catch to Quilalto did not in fact exist. By shear coincidence, this man happened to be a taxi driver. Despite the obvious conflict of interest, this piece of advice turned out to be genuine. In fact he ended up saving us a nights accommodation in the end. Our Taxi (read: pick up truck with a tarp over the back) took us to the crater, waited for us for an hour or so, then drove us back to Zimbabaway.
The Quilalto Crater was amazing. It´s volcanic in origin, and contains the highest navigable lake in the world. A small village of the same name is perched on the lip, and the locals are very friendly. One lady in particular was a little excessive. She followed us down a trail on the craters edge, with her horse! I got a good picture of her and the animal, but it cost me a green back. Oh well, 90 cents Canadian aint bad :) We also could not resist mooning the camera for a group shot and almost got busted by some other tourists coming up the path.
Our taxi dropped us back at Zimababbbbwway and we were waiting for the bus until we were spotted by another enterprising truck owner. Lura bargained with him almost by accident until the price dropped to $10 bucks for a nearly two hour ride! It was too good to pass up, and we had our nicest truck bed ride so far all the way back to Latacunga. The Bus to Baños pulled up practically as we paid the taxi, and we had to sprint to get on. I ended up next to a girl from Texas that had been staying in the same hostel as us in Quito!
I was so hungry by this point that I even bought a meat skewer from one of the random vendors that board Ecuadorian buses as soon as they stop in any village or town. I'm still alive.
Next Time: Big Bad Baños
posted by thelastspot at
12:22 AM
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