Quilotoa

This weekend I went to Quilotoa with my Andinismo class. The trip is actually available to anyone in many different sections of the class, and you need to attend three trips during the semester. This weekend there were international and Ecuadorian students that went! Quilotoa is the most western volcano in the Ecuadorian Andes and since its last eruption about 800 years ago, an 820 ft deep crater lake has formed at the top! Being up there helped me remember why I wanted to study abroad. I definitely don't have sites like this at home! This country is filled with such magnificent natural beauty.


We arrived at the top of the volcano and made our way around about half of the crater before we descended into the outskirts of a small town, pueblito, to camp for the night! I was very glad to set up camp and enjoy my lovely dinner of bread, cookies, and Fruit Loops (well, Ecuador's version of Fruit Loops called "Fruit Rings," that are actually more fruity than the 'real' thing! Thank you MegaMaxi!) before we headed into town to explore. Earlier when I said small town, I meant it. Three street lights. I was impressed they even had those though, how do you manage to get electricity in the Andes, five hours away from Quito! We found a small building in the town, the school actually, and there were a group of people playing music inside! We watched from the window for a few minutes and then they invited us in! How wonderful! They were singing Andean folk music, accompanied by the traditional Charango (a small ten-stringed instrument that is similiar to a guitar.) I was able to record some of the singing too!



They sang songs in Spanish and Quichua that night in the school building. Quichua is the other official language of Ecuador, an Inca language widely spoken by the Indian population here. I can't believe we got to really experience the culture of the native Andean people that night!

We went back to camp and sat around the campfire for a couple hours before hitting the sack. It was a brisk, windy night in the Andes, but we all managed to get some sleep and depart from camp around 7:00am! We left the pueblito and hiked down into a canyon, only to have to cross a "bridge" made of four logs, and hike right back up the other side to get to another small village we were catching our bus in that would take us back to Quito. Let me tell you, climbing up a mountain at 13,000 ft definitely takes the breath out of you! It was a long, tiring morning but the sights made everything worth-while.

My weekend in the mountains of Ecuador was a strenuous one, but something I will never forget!

Here are some other fun things from this weekend:

1.) "Que chevere" is a VERY popular saying in Ecuador. It means "How cool/great/awesome."

2.) There was construction being done on the roads that went from Quito to Quilotoa. All construction is menacing but construction through the Andes is just frightening!

3.) Alpaca hats are very warm!

4.) The second small village we were in had empanadas for .25 cents!

5.) I've never seen the Milky Way look as vibrant as it did Saturday night in the mountains.

6.)  There isn't really a word for "sleeping bag" in Spanish. The workers at the camping store called it "un sleeping" and Katie, Becca, and I (below) found that so funny!