Blogs from Chugchilan, Centre, Ecuador, South America

Travel blog 3 - Chugchillan, Quilotoa and the Black Sheep Inn Our third part of the trip involved us heading up into the Ecuadorian Andes, about a 3 hour drive south-west of Quito. This area of Ecuador is renowned for its hikes around the many volcanic craters, the various ecosystems, the self-sustaining communities and the award winning Eco-lodge, The Black Sheep Inn. The Black Sheep Inn is based just outside the little town of Chugchillan, about 3200m above sea level, and is a self-sustaining, vegetarian lodge. A simply amarzing place, run by a lovely gentleman by the name of Edmundo and his fabulous team and has subsequently been winning awards and featuring in world magazines for years. Our trip here almost didn't happen. Renee, being the super organised person that she is, decided to check our ... read more

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 thought we were experienced Latin American travelers via Chicken Buses, crazy cabs, 4-wheels through streets running into rivers- but today’s trip – trumped all others. Our travels from Quito to Chugchilián was one for the books. Highlights: Dozens of live chickens tied together by their feet slapped on top of each other, guinea pigs, too - and the harrowing bus ride clipping cliffs that we narrowly escaped. Here is how this all went down. The morning was normal and peaceful. Checked out of our boring, nice gringo hostal in Quito at the crack of dawn, equipped with bagels and coffee to go to embark on an easy 45-minute cab ride to the main bus terminal servicing cities in South Ecuador. From there we took a normal comfortable bus for an hour and a half to ... read more

Day 8: Chugchilan Day 3: With another good breakfast under our belts, we headed out to hike up to the cheese factory (Queseria in Spanish) by the longer but supposedly less strenuous route. After hiking for over 2 hours, all uphill, with a strong cold wind most of the time, we finally reached the cheese factory. It was a bit of a disappointment because it was a very small operation and the one dollar tour took about 5 minutes. It was interesting though, and the scenery along the way was pretty cool. We also missed the fork to the right we were supposed to take and walked for half an hour in the wrong direction, downhill of course, so we had to walk but uphill all the way to reach the fork. After the brief tour ... 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