Rachel Sarah Thurston portrait, events, travel and wedding photography and travel/lifestyle writing

Ecuador Tales II: Llamas, Volcanoes, and Fedoras

January 16th, 2010
Near Cotopaxi National Park, Ecuador

I'm sitting in a 150-year old hacienda once owned by Simon Bolivar's grandson...listening to Spanish music....while Mom sits outside on the porch reading P.J. O'rourke.

We thought it would be a perfect introduction to the Ecuadorean Andes to trek through the mountains and Quichua villages of the Quilotoa Region....we took a local bus from Quito down to Latacunga and then into a remote region that can only be accessed by local buses (more on that later). As we traveled higher and higher, the landscape spread out into open grasslands and patchwork quilts of fields of potatoes. uchua men and women would hop off the bus and head to their homes, often simple structures in the middle of fields where alpaca and sheep grazed. Traditionally dressed Quichua men wear dark pants with wool ponchos and felt fedora hats with ribbon bands and a feather plume of some bird like a peacock. The women wear similar fedora-like hats, gold earrings and gold beaded collar necklaces, colorful shawls, knee-length velvet skirts embroidered with flowers, white tights, and tiny little loafers. Their long black hair is often tied back with thick woven sashes in pinks, oranges, and reds.

We arrived in the famous Quichua village of Quilotoa which is situated along a giant crater lake that is rumored to be bottomless and sacred...at 13,000 feet, mountain weather is mercurial and we suffered from freezing rain throughout the first whole day. The weather only added to my grim impression of the town. It felt like a collision of cultures along this frontier where subsistence Quichua farming meets tourism...Quilotoa had a depressive, strange feel to me....run-down hostals and handfulls of men trying to sell us their paintings and offering their guide services to us for our trek...we called them "gentle mosquitoes." They were kind but looking for money.

Fortunately, we were able to hide out from the weather with several farmers by a hot woodfire sipping cups of strawberry tea and talking to a motley crew of other trekkers by candlelight (the region was experiencing forced power outtages everynight due to an energy crisis)...a hilarious group of guys from Italy, France, Canada, England, Germany, and America...Mom and I were by far the oldest in the group. Included in our room price ($15/person) was a family-style dinner that Petrona, one of the owners of the hostal, provided for us.....a banquet of vegetable soup served in giant wooden bowl and accompanied by giant wooden spoons, smashed fried plantains, steamed potatoes, broccoli, rice, and chicken breast that had been rolled and stuffed with spinach, cheese, and various unidentifiable herbs but scrumptious! For dessert we enjoyed the surprisingly sweet new dessert, "tomates de arbol," a sweet type of tomato that's been stewed in its own juices.

In the morning, we set out for an incredibly gorgeous trek that quickly became one of the steepest and most gruelling we've experienced in a while....we hiked along the spine of Quilotoa crater and had the opportunity to see the Illinazas in a break in the clouds....one of the volcanoes we're going to try and climb this week. It felt so good to get out of the town of Quilotoa and be hiking in the mountains again...the views couldn't have been more spectacular...the lake is a deep emerald and then sapphire depending on the lights coming through...and the steep rock faces reminded me of Big Bend and the Chisos Mountains along the Texas-Mexico border.
Once we made it halfway around the crater we descended the back of the ridge and saw the mountains spreading out into a series of valleys and vast canyons caused by erosion over thousands of years. We walked beneath pine trees, eucalyptus trees, past fields of blooming potato plants, lupine, and Quichua farmers working their fields.
The landscape was brilliant, a mosaic of lush fields, occasional trees, and farms dotted with sheep, cows, pigs, goats, chickens, and a few alpaca. We walked past the ruins of an old hacienda and a parade of young Quichua children walking to school.

As we descended deeper into a steep canyon, we passed a young man and woman herding sheep along a cliff face as the man played a flute either for his own or the sheep's enjoyment! The scenery was stunning but the hiking was treacherous. We made our way down about 1500 feet of a super steep trail cut into the cliff face with next to no switchbacks....Mom kept calling the trail "one sick joke" and swore she would never trek again (familiar words)...fortunately we never hit our low points at the same time...mine came later when we got into the next town.

After six long hours we made it to a little eden nestled along a small mountain overlooking the valley. We were so tired when we got into the little town of Chugchilan that Mom didn't even notice that our room had two bedrooms or that it's by far one of the cutest hostals we've stayed in for a while.

Run by a silver-haired woman who wears her hair in long braids and looks more Native American than Quichua, Mama Hilda's is made up of several adobe and brick buildings with cute little wooden-framed windows, hammocks, gardens, and a stellar view of the outlying valley and mountains. We stayed there for three nights taking a few smaller hikes to the local school's soccer match and then to a neighboring village where we befriended a sweet little burro and tried to tame a rather skittish alpaca tied up to someone's tree.

Mama Hilda's became a home away from home for us. We feasted on the most incredibly tasty, homemade food that her young workers Marta and Mayra cooked....slow-cooked chicken in a tomato sauce, beef, the most creamy, buttery mashed potatoes that I've ever had (potatoes come from the Andes originally and they have over 1,000 different varieties there...much more flavorful that our spuds), fresh salads of avocado, tomato, and lettuce drizzled in sweet lime, homemade dumpling soup, pasta soup with fresh herbs and vegetables, and homemade pastries made by a local Italian woman (lucky all those who live there!).

We spent a day or two just lazing away in our hammocks and reading our books knowing that this next week is going to be the most challenging yet.

We've signed up for a five-day mountain climbing acclimatization trip during which we´ll be climbing three super high volcanoes (15-17,000 feet) with the finale being Cotopaxi (20,000 feet and one of the highest active volcanoes in the world)...

Holy shit, I don't know what we were thinking when we signed up for this but we're going to give it a shot and try to go as slow as possible-

all our love,
Rach and Karen