Cuenca, Guayaquil & Quilotoa

From Baños I headed to Cuenca in the south of Ecuador. It took 9 hours on the bus and was unusually easy to basically watch a whole day go pass by, looking through a bus window. I think i was hypnotised by the scenery for most of it!

Cuenca is Ecuador's third largest city and felt to me much more European than the north with its cobbled streets and colonial architecture. I spent lots of time on my own just wandering around the streets taking photos and soaking the place up. On the last night i randomly came across a huge street festival in one of the main squares which i later discovered was a religious festival for Corpus Christi. It was madness. In one corner there was a group of locals letting off chinese lanterns into the night sky. The only problem was the wind was blowing and so as soon as they rose a few metres they'd then veer off, usually colliding with a tree or the surrounding buildings and sometimes coming to rest on roofs where they'd continue to burn. On other sides of the square there were some large towers that had been erected and were covered in fireworks. Every half hour or so a tower would be lit, without any warning being given to the people who were stood right by it at the time. The tower would burn and on several occasions the catherine wheels would fly off the tower into the crowds sending everyone running!!

Guayaquil was my next stop; the largest city in Ecuador. There was little I wanted to see in Guayaquil. Its the main commercial centre of Ecuador but as a tourist there isn't a huge amount to do. The main touristy highlights are the Malecon (a modern pedestrian walkway along the coast), a lighthouse / viewpoint and a park with huge iguanas just wandering around. However part of the motivation to visit Guayaquil was to see Susi, a spanish conversation partner i'd met via livemocha. I'd spent several days wandering cities on my own and getting a bit bored so it was great to spend time practicing spanish and being shown round by a local. My main memory of Susi was that she is probably the worst driver i have met in my life. This made for a few 'interesting' journeys drifting between lanes on busy multi-lane highways! Her car is covered in dents and scratches. On the way to the bus terminal on the last morning we got pulled over by the police who promptly gave her a hefty fine for an illegal u-turn.

Fed up of wandering around cities, after Guayaquil I was keen to head into the countryside and do some trekking. I traveled to Quilotoa which is a few hours south of Quito and where there is a 800 year old volcanic crater and turquoise lake in the middle. The journey to Quilotoa was interesting - about a 2 hour bus ride from Latacunga, the nearest significant town. I was the only gringo on the bus and later discovered that I paid a gringo price for ticket, 3 times more than everyone else was usually charged. An hour into the bus ride the tarmac disappeared and from then on it was just dirt tracks. At this point the bus driver stopped the bus, turned off the ignition and got off. I was thinking perhaps he'd gone for a toilet break or something. I was wrong. One minute later a young boy hopped in the drivers seat and started up the bus. I was thinking maybe he's just parking it for a moment while his dad took a pitstop. I was wrong again...very soon i realised that the young boy was our new bus driver for the next leg of the journey... along tricky mountain dirt tracks with steep drops either side! For the first few minutes I was pretty tense but with time I started to relax as he was actually handled the huge coach very well! When we finally got to Quilotoa I was the only passenger left. I asked the driver on my way out the door how old he was to which he responded 'Tengo trece años' - I'm thirteen years old !!

Quilotoa provided such a nice contrast to the time i'd spent in the cities. It has a small indigenous community living in the mountains, all dressed in traditional clothes and were very friendly and smiley. I only stayed one night but met a few travelers including Helene from Austria who I spent the next day with, trekking around the volcano crater. It took about 5 hours of trekking to walk around the rim of the crater which was fairly challenging at points but had amazing views of both the lake and surrounding countryside.