Laguna Quilatoa

So, it was my last day in Ecuador.  I had my flight to Brazil 6am on the 28th so I travelled 5 hours by bus to Latacunga and then onto Quilatoa arriving at 7:30pm. In Latacunga I asked directions for the bus to la laguna and a man told me to quickly jump on one and it turns out there’s another barrio in the city called La laguna so I spent 40 minutes on a random city tour on a local bus by accident! The real bus to la laguna Quilatoa was jam packed with local people who live in the mountains. Mainly indigneous Quechua people in their smart outfits with hats and shawls.

I arrived in thick cloud and couldn’t see a metre in front of me. Luckily someone came out of the mist and led me to a hostel that served quinoa soup for dinner. It was absolutely freezing cold there and I had 7 blankets on my bed!

I woke up on the 27th and had a very big breakfast with 2 American girls, 1 German guy called Enekco,  a Brazilian called Fabricio and a Canadian called Taylor. We all decided to walk round the lagoon crater edge which is 5.2km of ups and downs. The clouds had cleared and the view was absolutely stunning. I felt very grateful to see the lagoon on my last day in Ecuador.  The laguna is a volcano crater and the water inside reflected the sky. There were lots of little colourful mountain flowers and the sun shone for us all day. I struggled with the walk due to the altitude but it was worth it!

After we had a big lunch and jumped on the bus to Quito, Fabricio telling me what to expect from Brazil on the way! I arrived in Quito at 7pm and waited for the airport bus. At the airport reception I found a a reasonable hotel with transport to and from airport for $28 which I decided was better than a night at the airport although turned out to be a total waste as I didn’t sleep a wink!