Woke up in Latacunga, ate a quick breakfast, then headed to the bus station to catch a bus to Sigchos, a small town and starting point for our Quilotoa Loop trek. We found the bus okay, and once we got on, there was a guy helping store the small luggage into the overhead compartments (we left our big backpacks at our hotel in Latacunga and only took small day packs for this 3 day loop). This was the first time anyone had offered to do this, since it was the easy thing to do, Alejandro accepted the offer but Cassie (wisely) said no. This was Alejandro’s first big mistake while traveling… He had been annoyed for a while at having this large bag at his feet all the time while traveling, and had heard of other travelers that got things taken from their bags when at their feet (presumably from under the seat behind?), so he left the daypack up on the rack. What could happen right? Nothing else has happened to us during our previous months of travel, and we would obviously see anyone trying to mess with it right? Turns out those assumptions were wrong…….. When we got to Sigchos, all of our electronics chargers were gone, along with several articles of (nice merino wool) clothing…. Thankfully Cassie was smart enough to decline the offer of placing her luggage upstairs. Also, even MORE thankfully, all of our passports, actual electronics (phone, kindles, camara), and money were all still with us. Whew! Everything lost was completely replaceable so we chose to keep on going with our planned hike. The only thing we worried (and are still worrying about) is finding a replacement charger cable for the camera… If we can’t get one, then chances are good that the current charge won’t last us through the rest of our time in Ecuador, and that includes our upcoming trip to the (spoiler alert!) Amazon jungle.

The first leg of our journey was pretty uneventful. We were prepared for heavy downpours but were lucky enough to get nothing but sunshine! The first half was going all downhill (nice, but…) which then reversed an was all uphill for the second half (ugh…). Either way, we had amazing views along the way.

 

We made pretty good time on the hike so made it to our hostel in time to hang out on their awesome porch and play some games, read, and relax.

The hostel offered free yoga classes at 5pm which we took. Soon after was dinner, then bedtime for an early rise again tomorrow.