Ecuador Unleashed: Banos & Quilotoa Loop

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After the Galapagos Islands, we head to Banos for a reunion with some Aussie friends. It's an epic few days - jam packed full with adventure activities! First up is whitewater rafting and since only 3 of us have joined the tour (low season), the guides offer to take us on the more exciting upper section. It's a barrel of laughs for a couple of hours on the river, with plenty of adrenaline flowing as we navigate grade 4+ rapids. It's probably the most thrilling (and technical) rafting I've done anywhere in the world.

The guides are brilliant and take us canyoning, again we're the only 3 people there. It's a very beautiful canyon with a fast flowing river providing lots of opportunities to jump, abseil, rappel and scramble. We navigate our way through the canyon, down 5-6 waterfalls, plunge into pools and take 8+ metre jumps. Scary but fun! 😉

The next day we hire quad bikes and a dune buggy to drive the waterfall route and have some fun with these. It was also great meeting people from our Tucan group at their campsite in Rio Verde and in the leprechaun bar!

A last minute change of plans means we delay going back to Quito in exchange for hiking the Quilotoa loop, one of the best kept secrets in Ecuador. To get there, we take a public bus with all the locals to Latacunga and onwards to the town of Chugchilan, from where we begin our hike early the next morning.

One of the major draws of hiking the loop is the magnificent volcanic crater of Quilotoa, located 22km south of Chugchilán. The hike from Isinlivi to Quilotoa, passing the river Toachi and Chugchilan is considered to be one of the most scenic trails in Ecuador. We begin our descent into Rio Toachi canyon along narrow trails, passing local farms, homes and villages - it's remote and extremely beautiful.

Next, our steep climb begins (as we've opted to hike in this direction the trail is mostly uphill) - reaching the viewpoint at the top of the canyon is our first milestone. Then we take the road going to the indigenous town of Guayama, where we restock our supplies. Finally, after about 5 hours we reach the crater rim and marvel at the turquoise lagoon, just before the clouds roll in.

We're less than 1 hour from the village so in reality my story should end here... However, the clouds obscure our view of the correct trail and we mistakenly descend into the crater. This off-piste route adds a solid 2-3 hours to our hike and by the time we reach the lake itself, our legs will carry us no further, so we ride horses the final 1.5 km!

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