Quilotoa to Chugchilan

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After barely sleeping in my leaky room in Quilotoa, I simply wanted to get out of that town, despite feeling tired and a bit ill. Atahualpa and Maria left with a guide at around 8:30 AM, and I stayed behind curled up in my bed, leaving periodically to stand outside when the sun peeked through the clouds. It was still in the high forties at around 9:30, so I decided to pack up and leave, instead of waiting for the 1:30 bus. It was the only way for me to warm up my body, so I began to walk back to the main road.

The route that the two Mexicans took was a shorter option for the hike to Chugchilan, which led off the crater and onto a trail rather than along a road. Being that I wanted to take someone up on the offer to drive me to Chugchilan, however, I opted for the road. After the hike the day before, I expected plenty of cars and buses to pass me. Unfortunately, that was a poor assumption, and after about an hour of hiking, I realized that no vehicle could possibly make it through that stretch of the road after such heavy rains. I was stuck walking the full 24K.

After about halfway there, I somehow lost the road and instead found myself on the trail that the Mexicans took. I wasn´t concerned about it, though, as I read in my guidebook that the hike is relatively easy and is well marked. Blue signs directed me every so often, and I asked locals when I couldn´t find my way.

I walked across a soccer field and through some farms, but then I didn´t see how I could go any farther. Finally the trail crossed the Rio Toachi Canyon, which I had been walking along for the past couple of days. Unfortunately, the trail crossing was absolutely terrifying to me. The only way across the canyon was to walk across a 10 inch wide log over a crevasse 50-100 feet deep. I saw two young girls on the other side carrying fruit, and after a few minutes they passed me without going over the log. I asked if there was another route and they pointed to another trail that crossed the gorge, but it required climbing fifty or so feet up a crumbling cliff. With my pack on, I still didn´t like that idea, and I went back to re-examine the log (see photo).

The log was described in Lonely Planet as a ¨footbridge,¨ which really pissed me off. Even with a guide, there was no way I was going to cross that, especially with twenty-five pounds on my back. I was bewildered, and just when I sat down to think for a minute (there was no way to turn back, really, unless I wanted to stay in a grass-thatched hut with some locals), a thirteen or so year old boy whistled to me from across the gorge. I said, ¨Es loco; es no posible!¨ He smiled, ran down to the log and walked across it in three or four steps, and then walked up to me. Embarrassing. He beckoned me to follow him, and he took me back to where the girls had crossed. I was still skeptical, but he insisted that it was "muy facil." Crawling on my hands and knees and wheezing, I scrambled up the hill behind his rubber boots. I made it to the top, and after a rest I followed him through a farm and to the last hour and a half section of the hike. I gave him 35 cents -- all the money I had left -- for saving me. He said the rest was easy.

But then it started to rain again -- hard. I made my way down the switchbacks, rushing to make it before the sun went down. After another forty minutes, it was raining harder, and I came to a point where the trail went around the rest of the canyon in a horseshoe. The trail was washed away, and there was no way for me to walk it without falling into the canyon (see photo), and so I had to slide on my ass hundreds of feet down and then use the sparse vegetation to climb back out to a different trail. The hike took me almost 8 hours overall, and it was by far the most difficult, terrifying, and technical hike I have ever taken. I would call myself irresponsible, but I never even wanted to take the damn thing! Needless to say, I don´t really recommend this hike unless you are fearless.

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Photos

Rio Toachi Canyon
This is actually a photo of it from an earlier part of the hike (on the way to Quilotoa), but it´s actually smaller here than near Chugchilan. I couldn´t take pictures en route to Chugchilan because of the clouds.

Log
The ridiculous ¨foot bridge¨ over a small gap in the canyon. No way.

Comments

[anonymous]

nice, dude. i'd like to claim that i would've taken the log bridge, but i know in reality i'd never do it. 35 cents was pretty cheap, though.