Blogs from Chugchilan, Centre, Ecuador, South America

So, haven't written in a while. Lack of Internet and electricity hasn't helped the situation! Have now been on the tour for a week so unfortunately this entry will be fairly short and sweet. Details aren't so clear in my mind anymore so are a bit hard to write down now! The night before our tour started we had the group meeting. Matt and Zoe are our group leader and drivers. There are 16 currently on our truck with more to join along the way. There are also 2 trucks running and doing the exact same loop, so it's going to be a full on trip. We had a 2 am start to head to coca so we could catch the boat out to he amazon. This is usually a 4am start but due to road ... read more

We just spent three nights in Chugchilián to enjoy some great hikes in the beautiful Andes mountain ranges, which are dotted with indigenous villages along the way. Many of the inhabitants of these villages have maintained their ancient heritages making this a perfect spot to do some hiking and get our dose of culture. We have taken a few days hikes. On day one, we arranged for local transportation out of Chugchilián to the volcano lake, Quilotoa. From there, we hired a 15-year old boy(our Guide) to lead us through the paths in the mountain ranges from the lake’s crater back to our town. I would highly reccomend getting the guide, our maps and directions from various posts, were not that clear and along the way, we could have gotten lost. Overall, the hike took about ... read more

Day 7: Chugchilan Day 2: Well, by noon we finally have fairly dependable internet access. We slept nice and cozy last night, waking up around 6am or so. At 7am we ate our first breakfast at Mama Hildas. Either a lot of folks left earlier or came to breakfast later as we only saw 8 or 10 others at breakfast. They served fresh fruit, toast with jam, yogurt, and coffee/tea. It was all good and homemade/fresh, but we missed the more filling eggs or cereal we often get. We both took a nice hot shower, then left about 8am for our first hike from Chugchilan. One of the hostal family gave us a pretty decent map of the area and we'd decided to check out the Cheese Factory (Queseria), Italian Monastery, and/or Canyon overlook. There was ... read more

Again, sorry for the delay. Almost up-to-date now. Day 6: Quilotoa to Chugchilan: Although we both slept well and warm, we started waking up at 5am and were impatient for coffee and breakfast at 7:30am. We went downstairs around 7am and then ate a very decent breakfast of hot coffee, a nice slice of fresh pineapple, a local fruit juice, homemade toast with butter and marmelade, and scrambled eggs. All very good and hearty. After breakfast, we loafed around the room (trying to stay warmish) until about 11am for checkout. We paid our bill then hiked down into the town for the view and a cup of coffee. We obtained both at the nice looking community center overlooking the crater. Feeling like we were mouching off the hospitality, after a while we went to look at ... read more

August 12th Another drive day (7 hours) but the views were gorgeous. We were going up into the highlands so there were gorgeous hills and farmland everywhere. Lunch was in a small village where we set up a picnic table and made sandwiches that my cook group had bought the ingredients for. My favorite part of today was when four little boys who had been watching us joined in a game of futbol with us. It was actually more just kicking the ball back and forth but they were adorable and loved showing off for all of us gringos. A 20 minute drive past that town and we reached the Quilotoa Volcano (now a crater with a lake inside). Rumor is that the lake is somehow connected to the ocean since the water is salt water ... read more

I arrived back in Ecuador at the tail end of June and hit the ground running! Within hours of when my flight landed, I took over the wheel of my pick-up (thanks, Roger for taking care of Morci and for buying him new shoes, and meeting me at the airport) and was making the rounds to pick up donations for next fundraising Garage Sale to benefit the Volunteer Library in Baños. Muchas gracias to Maggie for using her garage to collect quality stuff from the Colegio Americano´s departing teachers. Also gracias to Jean for helping Carl (finally) clear out some his parents´and grandparents´ things. My green canvas tarp suitably humped up over the truckbed, I departed for Banos with Julien in tow. Julien is a young French-Canadian guy I met at the guest house where I ... read more

The next town in the loop was Chugchilan, a town only slightly larger than Quilitoa. There’s really nothing there except a small town square, 3 hostels, and an enormous amount of natural beauty, which is why anyone bothers to visit it at all. The hostels here are much more expensive than anywhere else because they can be. There’s no competition. One, the most famous of the three called The Black Sheep Inn, actually charges $35 per night per person for a DORM ROOM that doesn’t even have a bathroom in it. You have to walk outside and go into a different building with the bathroom. Yeah sure, it includes all your meals, but that’s about it. The sauna, the hot tub, the yoga classes… all that hoopla costs extra. So, we ended up at the Hostel ... read more

We left Quito after only one day when we checked out the Mitad del Mundo (the middle of the world monument that marks where the equator crosses through Ecuador), wash some laundry and catch up on some internet time. We were heading to the Black Sheep Inn, an ecolodge that we had read about that had great reviews with regards to its sustainable living, recycling and permaculture setup. The lodge is located in a more remote area of Ecuador, near a village called Chugchilan, which is nestled within the Andean Ranges. We were picked up at our hotel by the flying Dutchman - a Dutch expat, who thought that he was a professional rally driver - who owns a 4WD and runs a taxi service to the ecolodge when required, at a cost of US$100. We ... read more