Gringo Blogo

Marianne and me eventually got out of Quito and have now started our long trip south. One of our first stops was the Volcanic crater at Quilatoa, which we decided to go to after being unsuccessfully trying to get to the worlds highest active volcano, Cotopaxi. Quilatoa is stunning its an extinct volcano with a massive emerald green lake in the middle.

The place is amazing and the 2.5 hour journey to it is also really cool climbing to our hostel on the rim at 3914m. We climbed down inside the crater and got a mule back up which was cool. The funniest thing though, is the little village on the edge of the rim which I’m pretty certain only exists for tourists. Its probably the poorest place I have ever been and its completely insane. It totally reminded me of when the fair arrived on Craigy Island.

Its the most half arsed attempt at tourism ever - no running water, toilets that dont work and a barrel of dirty water to wash yourself and your teeth. On top of that you get the feeling that everyone and anyone in the place just see’s you as a walking wallet ripe for the rip off. Anyway that said it is still one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever been and we’re glad we went. At the minute we’re in Riobamba and we’re going to Baños tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 18th, 2006 at 3:43 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.