Quilotoa Loop Part 2 04.12.08

The morning of Saturday the 12th of April, I awoke at 2am to the crashing of thunder and the falling of immense quantities of rain. I remained awake for the next two hours, hoping the rain would subside before our 4am bus departure to Quilotoa, the next town over. The two towns were close enough, at 22k, but I had been informed that the single road used to access them was the curviest, most mountainous, and least paved (take that as you will) that I would encounter in my entire time in South America. This was a frightening proposition, especially knowing that the current rain would have caused and be in the process of causing landslides - lots and lots of road clodding, mud spreading, bus flipping landslides. I asked Rosa if she might prefer to hike between the two towns, and she replied that she didn´t want to carry her pack – I conceded that my bag was also heavy, and so we boldly proceeded, out into the foreboding rainy darkness.

At 4:15am we were just outside of Chugchilan (our point of departure) and our bus suddenly came to a gurglingly sticky stop – it became apparent that we were caught in one of the above mentioned landslides. Outside of our heavily leaning bus, the morning was silent save for our German friend yelling at the campesinos in his Bavarian accent and for the clinking of metal as the local passengers in felt hats began grabbing shovels and hoes to dig us out.

The few hours before dawn saw little slowing in rainfall, however, they were witness to the beautiful sight of a community banding together - even for something so simple as getting a bus out of the mud. It was amazing to think that these farmers were only going through this concerted effort to sell some agricultural goods, and that they easily could have walked a few minutes to town, where they could wait patiently for the following Saturday.

With piles of rocks, wood, and man power the bus was eventually dragged out of the mud (only four hours after the ordeal had begun!) and in an instant we were all back on board, and heading (frighteningly speedily) in the direction of Quilotoa.

The remainder of the time on board my emotions ranged from that of fun, exhilaration, and admiration (both for the sheer beauty of the place and the driver´s ability to negotiate turns), to complete terror and ultimately to “let´s just get out and walk.” So Rosa, the Aussie we had met the previous evening, and I decided to do just that. The decision was spurred after a particularly close-to-falling-off-of-the-cliff sort of instance. For you see, over the course of the ride the bus had found itself stuck four additional times after the initial event, and each instance had been caused by a fierce landslide or river and was compounded by the horrific `can´t be late for the market´ driving style employed by our chauffeur.