The amazing hike through Andean mountains; Quilotoa Loop

We have just come back from about four days on foot in the Ecuadorian countryside high up in the Andean mountains. This village to village hike (with village names that sounds like somethings in Elf-language) called the Quilitoa loop (or more accurately the Quilitoa traverse) is probably the most amazing thing we've done on our travels so far. 

Different people do this trek in different ways and directions, you can hire a guide or find the way yourself as almost every hostel along the loop provides maps, you can go by bike or just use your feet like we did. The most charming thing about this all, was to be alone in the middle of a beautiful, colourful, nowhere many times. The highlight of the Quilotoa loop is the Quilotoa lagoon - a crystal blue lake that the locals believe have no bottom. 

I've almost have had several heart attacks from dogs that's been running up to us and barking as soon as we are close to their houses, we have seen the most amazing scenery and being able to explore the indigenous culture of Ecuador more. I understand now why Ecuador is the most bio-diverse country in the world.

This is how we did our loop.

Latacunga - Sighos - Insinliví

We spent one night in Latacunga where we were lucky enough to have a clear day and spot the highest active volcano in the world; Cotopaxi. We stayed at hostel Sendero the Volcanes where we were able to store most of our luggage during the hike for $1,50 each.

To get to Sighos, which is the most common starting point for the trek, we took a 2 hour bus journey, had a coffee when we got to the little village and started off the 14 km trek of the day.

In order to find our way, we'd recieved directions and a map from the hostel we were gonna stay at that night, but we still managed to get lost within the first hour and had to ask every local we met for the way to Inslinliví. Actually, most of the times we had to use a lot of body language and scream to be able to ask because it wasn't many people close to where we were walking, and everyone were super helpful and friendly along the way.

It is still a mystery to us how we made it back on track, but we did when we reached a tiny little village where the most exhausting uphill climbing started. Because we were back up on high altitudes, we had to make several breaks, and at the same time enjoy the stunning view.

After that uphill walk, I almost cried of happiness when we reached the plain road we were gonna walk on for 45 minutes before reaching our hostel.

In total, day one took us about 3 hours to walk from Sighos to Insinliví and because we don't own any proper hiking gear, our feet were aching so bad but we were stoked to arrive to the most gorgeous hostel (or more like a cool Eco-lodge!) we've been to. 

This dream of a accommodation is called Hostal Llullu Llama and everything was just perfect during our stay here. The staff is friendly and knows exactly what veganism entails, it is clean, cosy and it has the most amazing view. Oh, and they actually have lamas in the backyard and the most friendly dog you'll ever meet.

We had the best evening here, hanging out with other people who were also doing the loop, playing cards and had some beers for happy hour.

Dinner and breakfast is included in the price in most of the hostels along the Quilitoa loop and many of them also do packed lunches for an extra few dollars if you ask. It is safe to say that we started the loop in the best hostel of them all, with the best vegan food of them all aswell. 

For lunch they had prepared delicious rice noodles and stir fried veggies only for us because we were vegans and the breakfast was also so great that the first hour of walking the next day was a bit of a struggle with that food coma after having two big bowls of granola and fresh fruit.

Insinliví - Chugchilan

So.After that massively big breakfast we received directions and a map that the staff printed for us, filled up our water bottles and started our hike to the next village of Chugchillan.

The first bit was a lot of downhill and muddy paths, we came down to river Toachi that we followed for a while and had to cross a few small bridges.

The real challenge began when we reached a tiny village. We sat down to have some snacks before starting to climb up the high mountain infrong of us, two dogs comes up to us immidately when they hear the sound of food bags being opened and all of a sudden one of the dogs starts to pee right next to me. Next thing I knew, when we started to walk again we were stopped by an angry local woman who wouldn't let us pass unless we paid her $5.. This is probably the only grumpy, mean person we met during the hike, so instead we took a detour around her to be able to start to climb. I was cursing about my stupid slippery shoes a lot during this sandy way up to the top, but we made it up there anyway and the view was totally worth it.

Just before the really heavy rain started we made it to Chugchilan, and our accommodation for the night; Hostal Cloud Forest. 

Up at 3200 meters above sea level it was a bit colder than what we've come from and so we were grateful to find that this hostel had a big game room with pool tables, ping pong table, dart and board games in a heated room. 

Because we started to walk at 9 in the morning and it took us 4 hours to reach Chugchilan, we had the whole evening and afternoon in front of us, so this game room was a real life saver to keep us from not getting too bored.

I had emailed the owner of the hostel several days in beforehand to ask if they were able to prepare vegan food (because once again, dinner and breakfast was included in the room rate) which he said that they could, but when we arrived the staff didn't seem to know anything about this. So our dinner for the evening was a potato soup and then rice, fries, tomato and cucumber as our main.

Chugchilan - Quilotoa

It was defiantly way easier getting a nutritious vegan breakfast at Hostal Cloud Forest. Once again I overindulge in the breakfast which consisted of porridge with coco, fresh fruit, bread and coffee.

Once again we refilled the water bottles at the hostel, received new directions for the hike and as a bonus we got the company of the nicest dog. He followed us (or more lead the way) almost throughout the whole day.

We left Chugchilan, knowing that this was gonna be the hardest hiking day, with a lot of uphill bits. 

In total this day, we walked about 1000 meters higher as the village of Quilotoa lies on about 3800 meters above sea level.

There were two really big mountains to climb and they were absolutely exhausting, but also pretty different. The first one we did under a heating sun, in a narrow dirt path, feeling almost faint. A few minutes after coming up to the top we reached another small indigenous village, where Kichwa is the main language and Guy even saved one of their pigs from dehydration <3

The second big climb for the day started just after we passed the village and the higher up we got, the closer we got to the clouds, the air was much cooler and it felt harder to breath. We did decide to cut through many short cuts instead and not sticking to the actual windy, gravel road up, which is probably why it was even more exhausting.

Walking up the top, we finally reached the clouds and we could almost just see white infront of us when we stood there on the top, so it was hard to believe that we were standing on the edge of a massive volcanic crater. Of course it felt really disappointing coming here on such a cloudy day when we'd seen so many cool photos from clear days of the stunning Quilotoa lake.

But instead of leaving straight away, we walked down the right side of the crater where there was a path that seems to go around the whole inner crater, and after a few minutes the clouds disappeared more and more and we were absolutely breathtaken by the beauty of the Quilotoa lagoon.

This crystal clear lake basically lies in a massive crater, formed by eruptions from the volcano with the same name. Apparently you can even see Cotopaxi from the top of the crater on a really clear day.

 It was such a grand finale for this days really intense 12 km and 4 hour hike and we had to sit down here for a while to be able to take it all in. The most amazing part of this moment was that we felt like the only people in the whole world, because there was no one around and it was completely silent.

The scary part started when we finally did decide to keep moving on to reach our accommodation for the night in the village of Quilotoa, and we realised that this path inside of the crater that we had walked down on, was in fact a really hard walk. We had to climb with both feet and hands and got just a little bit freaked out from seeing the narrow paths, with just a big steep down to the lake far, far below us. It wasn't until half way we realised that the road we were supposed to walk on, was much easier (and probably way more safe!) to walk and alot higher up. And so, we had to start off the third uphill climb for the day.

It was such an exciting feeling of accomplishment, finally reaching the village of Quilotoa. And also feeling starving and being able to find that one of the few small restaurants here was a very vegetarian-friendly one, was totally the cherry on the top. That is probably the best vegan pasta dish I've ever had.

It wasn't until I had rested up for a bit I realised how cold it was here. I was thanking myself several times that night for bringing a warm jumper and jacket, my hat and extra warm socks. I also felt very grateful to the women at the hotel we stayed at that night, for providing us with a heater to the room. It was hard to believe that we were still in the same country as super hot Montanita.

The Quilotoa village was overall the busiest village we went to during the hike. Not very surprising considering there are many tours and buses going to the Quilotoa lake every day. The village therefore has a few restaurants, tiny art and souvenir shops and hostels. We stayed at Hostal Runi Wasi Quilotoa, and it felt more like a hotel than a hostel. It is the nicest room we've had during the hike, but there was also nothing to do around here unfortunately. From about four o'clock in the afternoon we were clean and full and made time pass with doing sudoko and read.

Quilotoa - Zumbahua - Latacunga

The last day of hiking was definitely the easiest one (and also the least fun one). After not-a-so-filling breakfast (the people at Runi Wasi had no clue what vegan was, so all that was available for me was a piece of bread and coffee) we made our decision to walk to the next village Zumbahua.

Many hikers stop their walking in Quilotoa and take a bus to Zumbahua where they have to change bus again to go back to Latacunga. But since there are only two buses a day, and since we felt like we wanted to complete the hike properly on feet, we decided to walk it.















We didn't even need a map for this last 12 km, as the hike just follows the main car road all the way to Zumbahua. The view was still amazing here and we even stopped off along the way to see a big canyon.

We finally reached Zumbahua village just when our feet couldn't take it anymore. Buses from Zumbahua to Latacunga runs every hour and we were pleased that we actually times it so we didn't have to wait so long. Two hours, and $2, bus ride later we were back in the city of Latacunga and it actually felt a bit sad to have these wonderful four hiking days behind us.