Quilotoa

Quilotoa crater lake

Friday 4th January was a scheduled rest day to help with recovery from Cotopaxi.

For this “rest day”, we headed out to see the Quilotoa volcanic crater which has a massive lake filling the crater.

We drove close to the top of the volcano’s crater – an impressive 3900m.

The view over the crater was impressive. The diameter of this volcano’s crater is some 3.15 km.

Chasqui, our guide, suggested that we hike down into the crater to the water’s edge. We nipped down to the water’s edge. It was only a descent of 1000ft (about 330m).

When we got to the water’s edge we could see bubbles of gas breaking at the surface. This sulphurous gas appearance helped reinforce the fact that this is still an active volcano.

We took an alternative path to regain the 1000ft of height to get back up to the crater rim. I was low on energy today, partly from skipping breakfast but more so for having a hangover. Opps. We eventually got back up to the crater rim and we took numerous photos en route of this amazing place.

We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant at the crater rim then started our onwards journey.

We had not been going long when we had to stop the truck for a brief while. There had been some rock fall onto the road and construction teams were working to clear the debris off of the road. After the short delay we continued on our journey.

Today was the last day that Angharad Roberts was spending with the team. George and I are heading on to, hopefully, attempt Chimborazo (weather/conditions permitting) whilst Angharad is nipping out to the Galapagos Islands for a week of diving.

At an intermediate point, we met a car that had been pre-organised for collecting Angharad to take her back to Quito for her flights to the Galapagos Islands. We said our goodbyes and George, Chasqui and I are now continuing our journey south to Riobamba tonight.

The weather is not looking promising for Chimborazo at present, but we can always hope for some improvement.

Have a great weekend everyone.