Latacunga: Life on the Loop

Today was a day of spur of the moment actions. We caught a bus from Quito to Latacunga in what is becoming our fashion of showing up at the Terminal and our cabby pointing out a bus leaving the terminal going in our direction. Touts screaming, us hustling, bags thrown on board, and before we can blink and recap that ten minutes ago we were in our hostel, we are on the way to wherever we are going.

The ride was beautiful. Green fields rolling over hills and tumbling up mountain slopes. We passed by Cotopaxi, one of (if not the) highest active volcanoes in the world. Snow capped and glaciated with its perfect volcanic cone, it towered above the bare mountains around.

Latacunga is a busy market town in itself, but for us it is the starting point of the Quilotoa Loop, a high alpine dirt road, cirling the sierra. It takes a couple of days to get around it via bus and-or milk truck and-or local vehicles. The road in itself is only a couple of Km´s, but minimal transport combined with a high alpine volcanic lake and hiking make it take a while.

The plan is to head out to a local indegenous market (apparently the most important indegenous one in Ecuador) and then head out on the loop. It will take 2-5 days, so you can all be thankful, the insane postings and photos will be on hiatus until then.

As to all of you Canadians, Happy Thanksgiving.