Another good breakfast to start the day of cheese, scarmbled eggs, and fruit, got us going before the tough uphill grind that came ahead. Today there would be a fairly short downhill to start, then about 3300ft of uphill in 5 miles of distance or so. This was the price to pay though for the main attraction of the loop, the famous Quilotoa Lake that now resides in the crater of the Quilotoa Volcano who’s last explosion 600 years ago created the now massive crater. Here we go!

 

We made pretty good time and it was thankfully still sunny as we made the last effort towards the crater rim. The last bit was a sandy road, but towards the top, we had really good look-outs to the valley we had just conquered.

 

Finally we reached the top and the views were breathtaking!

 

We hiked around the edge of the crater, doing a few more ups and downs and going out to a couple more lookout points, enjoying the great views.

 

We finally reached the town of Quilotoa, where we caught a cab to the nearest larger town of Zumbahua. From there, we took a bus back to Latacunga to pick up our larger bags at the hostel, then headed back to the bus terminal to catch a bus to Quito. The bus dropped us off at the very south end of the city, so we had to catch another bus to our hostel in the center.

We arrived around 6 PM. After we settled in, we headed out for dinner nearby. First a starter of some more empanadas verdes of chicken and cheese at a small local restaurant, followed by a parillada and some lomo salteado at a nearby restaurant. We were starving because we hadn’t really had any time to eat since breakfast!

 

After dinner, we walked back to the hostel for some blogging and then bed.