Baños, Ecuador

The bus ride from Cuyabeno to Baños was very long and very bumpy. I’d say it was quite generous to call what we were driving on a road. We arrived in the middle of the night feeling exhausted to the point where it was difficult to even go to sleep.

The last three weeks in Galapágos and Cuyabeno were incredible, but at the same time very full on. Baños was a great place to basically not do very much. We spent four and a half very lazy days here. We went to the same cafe for breakfast or lunch every day. We soaked in the hot springs, as if trying to make up for all the cold showers in Cuyabeno. To our surprise, we found the best pizzeria of our entire trip here too.

When we weren’t being lazy, we rented bicycles and cycled Ruta de las Cascadas. It was about a sixteen kilometers long ride, mostly flat or downhill alongside a road. We stopped frequently to look at the many waterfalls along this route, and sometimes took a walk to see them from up close. The finish line was Pailón del Diablo. With my limited prior research, I was astonished seeing this large, powerful waterfall. It was deafening. Impressive. And wet.

To return we picked up a camionette which drove us and our bikes back. This in itself was an experience, both the bikes and us were loaded in the back of a large van. We only had a small, wooden, not very comfortable bench to sit on, and it slightly felt like we were being smuggled somewhere, apart from the back being fully open for us to watch the traffic behind us.

Once we felt a little recharged again, we took a bus to Latacunga, our base for doing the Quilotoa Loop and Cotopaxi hike.

Quilotoa Loop, Ecuador

The Quilotoa Loop was a three day hike through Ecuadorian countryside and its small villages, finishing at a beautiful volcanic lake. It was ideal for us, as it combined my love of hiking and Nathan’s love of not sleeping in a tent whilst doing so.

We got up early, had breakfast, left our big bags in the hostel in Latacunga and ran for the bus heading to Sigchos. Luckily we made it and our first hiking day was off to a good start. 

It took about half an hour before someone behind us shouted for us to stop. We looked around, and saw a couple of guys with backpacks, clearly doing the same hike. It turned out we already took a wrong turn! We got chatting, and ended up spending the entire three days together. The wrong turn was just the first of many to come. We missed tiny little inconspicuous paths branching off to the side, or took the wrong path at a fork that didn’t exist on any of our maps. Luckily, it never took us too long to realize and get back to the right place.

The first day concluded with a fairly steep uphill part. After arriving in Isinliví we were all happy to sit down, have a drink, a meal, and relax. A few of us even played Catan.

Nathan and I spent the night in a small guest house in Isinliví. The accommodation included breakfast and dinner (there was nowhere else to go out and eat here), and we spent both of these meals having a pleasant chat with a nice middle-aged German couple. The four of us were the only people staying at the guest house that night.

Day two was slightly harder, both in terms of distance and elevation gain. We reunited with our friends who were staying at a different hostel, and hiked together again.

The scenery throughout this whole trip has been beautiful, everything around us was very green with flowers growing wild. We were surrounded by mountains and valleys, and only saw very small little villages on our way. We did not bump into other hikers. Instead we occasionally met cows, sheep, donkeys, pigs, chickens, or once an adorable playful puppy.

The hostel we stayed at in Chugchilán had table tennis and a pool table. The four of us took the opportunity to play both, and quickly found out that the paddles had no grip, and the pool balls had edges. This obviously made the games more hilarious. We also saw some familiar faces here, our German friends from the previous night’s guest house. It’s a small world at the Quilotoa Loop. The nights were quite cold around here, so in the evening we enjoyed sitting by a log burner and warming up by the fire. We all had dinner and breakfast together again.

The last day of the hike was also the toughest, especially with the elevation gain of 1100m. Slow and steady, we made our way to Quilotoa Lake. And it was worth it. The volcanic crater with the turquoise waters was a beautiful reward for all our efforts. There was only a single snag – it was very windy up top, which made it freezing cold. We all rapidly decided we couldn’t spend much time here. Next to the lake was a small, wooden hut with a sign that read “cafe”. We went in and found two kids, not yet teenagers, sitting by a small fire and offering to sell us tea or coffee. We happily ordered the hot drinks and sat by the fire with them.

After warming up a little, we pressed on and walked to Quilotoa village. Nathan and I planned to stay overnight here, which we slightly came to regret, as the shower was cold (this was not what was promised) and so was the room. Quilotoa lies at 3900m above sea level. 

The next day I went for a tranquil morning walk around the lake. We were both keen to get back to Latacunga though, and one bus ride later we were reunited with our bags, clean clothes and a hot shower, which made us very happy again. It’s the little things in life. 

Cotopaxi, Ecuador

Our stay in Latacunga was for only one night, and we were off to hike again, this time to the Cotopaxi Refuge. Despite spending weeks in Ecuador already so far we haven’t seen the famous volcano at all. We’ve not been lucky with the weather here, which reminded me of our trip to Japan about a year ago, where we couldn’t see Mt Fuji no matter how much we tried. It was gutting! I was keen not to have the same experience here. 

At the start of the drive to the Cotopaxi National Park it was looking cloudy again. For a while, we drove through thick fog, and I nearly gave up on the idea of possibly seeing anything at all. Fortunately, as if by magic at some point we drove out of and above the fog, and the clouds also parted briefly. There it was! Magnificent, tall, snow-capped and standing right in front of us. We took the opportunity and got out of the car to enjoy the view and take some photos. Finally! High up in the sky we saw many condors flying above us. The moment didn’t last very long, but that made it feel even more special.

The hike to the refuge was not easy, the air felt very thin yet again due to the high altitude. It wasn’t very long though. Once we arrived at the refuge, we attempted to press on for a while longer to visit the glacier. It was getting increasingly more snowy and slippery, and unfortunately we did not have the right shoes for this. About halfway through we turned back and went to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate at the refuge instead.

On the way back we made a brief stop at Laguna de Limpiopungo. We walked along the lake a little while, but Cotopaxi remained hidden in the clouds. Oh well. 

Our driver dropped us off next to the Panamerican Highway and from there we flagged down a bus to Quito. 

Quito, Ecuador

No matter where we went in Ecuador we always seemed to end up back in Quito for a few nights. It’s a real transport hub, and since we always stayed at the same hostel, by now it started to feel very familiar.

The weather has finally turned for the better when we were here, and so we spent a lot of time wandering around La Carolina park and its botanical garden. It’s easily become one of our favorite places here. We even rented a small paddle boat for a while.

Once hunger kicked in we ate at a delicious local vegan restaurant. In the late afternoon, we indulged in a rich hot chocolate, and made sure we stocked up on Paccari, our favorite chocolate brand in Ecuador. We followed this up by getting to the top of the Panecillo hill, with a beautiful clear view of all of Quito and all the surrounding volcanoes, including the elusive Cotopaxi. 

After a relaxed, sunny day, we were planning to take a bus to Mindo the next morning. When we turned up at a bus terminal we were promptly informed that the bus we wanted to take no longer exists, and the next one was about six hours later. Bummer. Luckily, we weren’t the only people who made this mistake. We got immediately flagged down by another tourist, and she asked if we wanted to share a taxi with her. She even had one lined up for a good price. Left with no other choice we obviously accepted her offer and off we went. 

Mindo, Ecuador

Mindo Valley is a cloud forest, a very unique ecosystem with lots of amazing plants such as prehistoric fern trees, and many animals, especially birds.

The drive to here was pleasant. It even gave me a good chance to practice my Spanish with our driver who was quite chatty. After a few hours we were dropped off in front of our guest house, and I came to love this place immediately. It was located on the edge of this small, sleepy town. It was fully made of wood. At the back there was a nice breakfast terrace, and an adjacent beautiful garden with bird feeders attracting countless hummingbirds. So far on our trip we’ve glimpsed a few of these quick little birds here and there, but never for long. Now we could just sit and watch them fly around, listening to their chirps and wings flutter for hours. I spent a good amount of time in a hammock doing exactly that. In addition to birds, the garden also housed a few squirrels and agoutis (cute little rodents, similar to a guinea pig). It all felt so relaxed.

After this lazy afternoon we grabbed an early dinner (or a very late lunch), and then decided to do a chocolate tasting tour. Yes, we love Ecuadorian chocolate. The tour was done really well, it was just the two of us and we got to see the whole artisan and also industrial process of this small local chocolate shop. A pleasant and unusual surprise was a chocolate face mask, which made my face feel silky smooth for a whole day after. And of course, we got to eat and drink chocolate too. So yummy!

Once we were done with the chocolate tour, we rushed to get changed, and joined a different type of tour – a small group night walk through the cloud forest. Apart from what felt like millions of insects, the highlights of the walk were a few tarantulas, a lizard, and an adorable little glass frog.

The next morning we headed to breakfast next to the wonderful garden. To our surprise, we heard a familiar voice exclaim “I knew it!”. It was the German couple who we made friends with at the Quilotoa loop. We joined them for breakfast and chatted about how we spent the last few days. 

After breakfast Nathan and I grabbed a taxi to Tarabita, a small cable car leading to a trailhead of a few waterfall hikes. We really enjoyed the longer trail to the tallest one of them, which was a lovely walk with almost no people, and a beautiful waterfall at its end. There was another trail with multiple smaller waterfalls, but it was quite crowded and the waterfalls were not as impressive, so we decided to turn back halfway through. Just before we did, we spotted a cock-of-the-rock sitting on the cliff above us, which made me quite happy.

The other thing Mindo is known for, apart from nature, is extreme sports. I’ve been wanting to do some ziplining on this trip for ages, and this seemed like the perfect spot for it. On our way back to town we stopped at a local zipline place, and enjoyed a bit of adrenaline. Apart from ten awesome ziplines above the canopies of the valley, the final attraction was a Tarzan swing. Whilst I am very comfortable on something like a zipline, I find the feeling of freefall absolutely terrifying. Before I knew it I was in the air, and my initial utter horror swiftly turned into absolute glee once the rope was fully under tension, and I concluded I’m safe. It was so much fun! And whilst Nathan won’t outwardly admit it, I think he enjoyed it too. 

By the evening we were starved and we wolfed down an absolutely giant dinner together. It was an early night, as I wanted to get up early to go bird watching. Nathan decided not to join in this activity and instead opted for more sleep. I quite liked going alone, I concluded the chances of seeing any birds together were very slim due to someone’s (*cough*) very loud voice and laugh. 

I walked to the other edge of the town, to a so-called Yellow House. Here I paid a modest fee, and got a little map of the trails nearby. I spent about three hours slowly walking around, looking out for birds. I heard so many of them, but I am hopelessly bad at spotting them. I was very lucky and briefly saw a pair of toucans fly into a giant tree next to me, and a few other colorful birds I can’t possibly name. I can’t say these were the amazing bird sightings I was hoping for, I didn’t even manage to take a single photo. However, it was a very lovely, peaceful walk, and I wished I could spend a bit more time here even if it didn’t mean seeing more birds.

I rushed back to have a nice breakfast with Nathan, and we packed our bags again. Our German friends and we were all headed to Otavalo, so we decided to share a taxi together. It saved us going through Quito again, multiple buses and transferring between the different terminals. 

Otavalo, Ecuador

Otavalo was only a fleeting stop for us. We spent one night here, and in the morning walked through the famous colorful market. Whilst it was definitely nice and quite large, at this point we’ve both seen quite a few of them, so we’re hard to impress.

After the market we got a taxi to a bus stop on the Panamerican Highway. Our final destination was Colombia and the first step of this journey was to take a direct bus to Tulcán.

We waited at the shabby bus stop for a while and slowly started worrying that this was yet another “this bus doesn’t exist” situation. A few locals waiting for the same bus reassured us it does. Luckily they knew what they were talking about and the bus eventually turned up. 

The start of this journey was a little rough, we didn’t put our bags into the hold (Ecuadorian buses are the worst for theft of everywhere I’ve been so far) but there were also no empty seats. We stood in the aisle with all of our things, whilst trying to ensure people could still pass through, and the bus occasionally randomly breaking very hard. Fortunately a couple of ladies sitting next to us were getting off quite early, and helped us make sure we got their seats when they were leaving. 

The rest of the bus journey to Tulcán was uneventful. When we finally made it to the bus terminal it was only a short taxi ride to the border. We expected to get through the Ecuadorian immigration quite quickly since we were leaving, and then wait a long time at the Colombian side. To our surprise, it was exactly the other way around. For some reason there was just one queue for entering and exiting Ecuador, and there were a lot of people looking to enter. On the other hand, there was basically no one else at the Colombian side. Our passports got stamped twice, and we found ourselves standing in Colombia.