Yay! Scenery! Big stuff! This is why we came to Ecuador.
A two hour bus ride from Quito takes us to our AirB&B in Canton Latacunga. We’re kind of in the middle of nowhere and can’t remember how we found this place but we’re so glad we did.
The hacienda belongs to our host Linda, a Canadian who came here seven years ago to make a new life for herself. She’s supposed to be retired, but if this conjures an image of someone sitting feet up in front of the fire sipping Sanatogen, think again.
Linda is a proper human dynamo; she not only runs this amazing guesthouse but also manages the two acre estate where she grows all her fruit and veg, maintains a beautiful garden and even finds time to tend to a couple of pet llamas. It wears us out just being under the same roof as her.
The view from the garden is ridiculous. Peaking through the lavender beds is Cotopaxi, the highest active volcano in the world. We plan to hike to the snowline tomorrow but for our first full day we ask Linda’s driver, Fernando, to take us Quilotoa in the Andean highlands.
Along the way we drop in at the studio of one of Linda’s friends – Julio Toaquiza - who is something of a celebrity in the region. His brightly coloured paintings depict scenes from indigenous kitchwa life and usually include a volcano, a condor or a llama or two.
Wend is so taken with his llamas she cheekily asks if he’ll sketch one on a blank postcard she’s been carrying around.
So, Quilotoa. What an incredible place. It too is a volcano, or what’s left of one. Dormant for thousands of years, what makes it special is the huge lake filling the crater. With a diameter of 2 miles and a depth in the middle of over 250 metres it fair takes our breath away.
To hike the full circumference of the crater takes 6 hours and we only have half that so make do with an ‘out and back’. This still gives us time to see the site in sunshine, thick cloud and full on rain. As the weather changes so does the atmosphere of the place, the water turns inky black and the walls of the crater seem even more implausibly high.
Impressive stuff.
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