Day 94 - Quilotoa Volcano

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As we set off on our 5-6 hour journey to Quilotoa, our guide Marsello educated us on Ecuador, a country we knew little about. It has 42 volcanoes, 21 of which are active, including Cotopaxi (where we were headed on Saturday) which is the highest snow-capped active volcano in the world. Quilotoa, today's destination, last erupted 500 years ago, with the energy of 10 atomic bombs, reducing its own height fro 5600, to 3900m through self-destruction.

Oil is Ecuador's primary export, followed by bananas. The third most important for the economy is tourism, and fourth is the export of roses. Roses were first cultivated by a famous Colombian drug baron in an effort to clean his drug money. Since then the industry has boomed and Ecuadorian roses are exported all over the world by plane, hence their expense. In Ecuador a mere $3-$5 (US) can buy you 25-35 roses! After roses, cocoa is a big export, apparently the best in the world and used in Swiss chocolate. Agave (the ingredient in tequila) is also grown here, but rather than use it for alcohol they employ it in fences, rope and roofing.

On our way to Quilotoa we stopped at an indigenous market at Saquisili, which occupies 7 of the town's squares. We visited 3 squares - large animals, small animals and handicrafts markets. The large animal market was amusing - the predominant noise was that of squealing pigs being lifted into trailers, but cows, sheep and llamas were also being traded, often for each other instead of money. The small animal market was enough to turn your vegetarian. Guinea pigs, rabbits, pigeons, chickens and ducks all crammed into cages too small for them, being picked up by their legs and thrown into Hessian sacks for customers. If you looked closely at most people's shopping bags you could see them wriggling. The chickens were tied up by their feet so they couldn't move, and barely had any feathers. If not in a cage they were hung by their feet on rails or trailers, rather distressing. There were also a few puppies and kittens for sale, as pets I hope.

A little further along, what was the bumpiest and most painful road we have traversed in South America, we stopped at an aboriginal Indian cottage. Consisting of only one room for sleeping, eating, cooking and housing their dozen guinea pigs, this house would last the family around 6 years before it needed rebuilding. Apparently the guinea pigs are a sign of someone's energy - if a guest enters the house and the guinea pigs squeal, the person is deemed to have bad energy and asked to leave. The little critters are also used to diagnose disease - the animal is held over the patient's body before being killed and cut open to reveal the organ or tissue causing the problem. Astonishing that such methods are still used.

Eventually we reached the caldera of volcano Quilotoa, at 3900m, and got out the walking sticks to descend the 400m to the emerald lagoon within. The volcanic ash and rock was a little challenging to walk on but the lagoon beautiful. The walk back up the stepp "path" was bloody good exercise, especially at altitude, and we made it in a record 43 minutes despite the guide's prediction of 1.5 hours and some people hiring mules to carry them.

After a well earned late lunch (3:30pm, we were starving!) we were dropped off at "Papagayo", a 180-year old ranch (hacienda) in the Interandino valley; the avenue of the volcanoes. We met Martin, from Switzerland, Jamie from the US and a couple from South Africa who revelled in telling us their horror stories from Venezuela, our next destination. I soon came to realise they liked to complain, and didn't seem to prepare well for anything - they had planned to work in Caracas for 6 months with no idea of the ever increasing crime rate and political unrest of the city. As soon as they arrived they quit their jobs!

Chris's Corner

It was interesting in the large animal market to see pigs running around next to cooked whole pigs and many pigs' heads. This followed by chickens running around next to barbequed chicken. But this place did sell everything. The walking sticks stood us in good stead again, the extra legs helping to make lighter work of the climb.

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