Quilatoa

Last weekend our friends treated us to an early wedding present by taking us out to Quilotoa for the weekend. This is about a 2 and half hour drive south west of Quito. Quilotoa is famous because it was once a giant volcano that erupted over 800 years ago, basically blowing its entire top off. The void left behind then became a crater later, rimmed by what was once the border of the volcano. Quilotoa is surrounded by rural farm country that features numerous fields of swaying lupins – the purple flowering plants where the superfood legume, chochos come from.

We stayed at the well-known Black Sheep Inn, an eco-lodge that sports on-site composting, organic gardens to feed its guests, and a new treat for me – composting toilets. If you’ve never seen or heard of a composting toilet, I will briefly describe it here. You walk up about 8 stairs to get to the elevated bathroom. Once inside, the cabin-esque bathroom has a greenhouse feel. It is surrounded by windows and one whole side of the enclosure is filled with green plants – a natural part of the filtration system. There is then a wooden bench with a normal plastic toilet seat on top. After doing your business, you grab the shovel to your right, and heap a big ‘ol scoop of dried leaves and mulch down the hole. Let the composting begin! The toilet system remained surprisingly clean and fresh smelling, nothing like the outhouse I had initially assumed it would be. Neat!

The Inn also featured a wonderful little yoga studio, where a few of us ladies enjoyed a sunset salutation before dinner. There was also a large bonfire area for nighttime relaxing, Frisbee golf, and unlimited tea, cookies, and chocolate cake in the lobby. The rooms were small but cozy cabins, with small wood-burning fireplaces and about 6 heavy wool blankets to keep you warm at night.
The Inn also bordered many small family farms, mostly filled with sheep. One our first walk we heard the eerily human-like bleating of a baby sheep. I looked down the hill and saw him running for me, at full speed, bleating his head off. Ecstatic at the prospect of scooping a baby sheep up into my arms, I squatted down, arms wide open, ready to receive my little lamb. Sadly, neither of us noticed the low hanging barbed wire which my baby sheep slammed into, and then ran away in the other direction screaming. It was upsetting for both of us.

There are a multitude of options for hiking around the farm country, in and out of ravines, and of course to Quilotoa itself. The first day our group opted for a moderate (2 hour) ridge hike that took us up and down natural ravines, and along the spine of a cliff that offered us some splendid views of the valleys below. And while we warned to carry sticks in case we came across aggressive stray dogs, this wasn’t an issue for us.

On day 2 our group split up – Justin’s more adventurous group opting for the “Skywalk” – a 4 hour hike all around the rim of the crater – what was left of the ancient volcano. My group opted to walk down instead of around. So we descended down the side of the crater, much like walking down into a bowl, to reach the crater lake at the bottom where you could rest on the beach or even kayak around the lake. The return up the side of the crater proved to be much more difficult, with inclines of close to 45 degrees the whole way up. So (shamefully) I did the lazy American thing and paid $10 to ride a horse all the way back up. $10 well spent, though I still felt like a horrible human being for doing it.
It was a lovely weekend, and such a generous thing for our friends to do for us. As the wedding date comes closer and some stress is beginning to build, it was nice to take a weekend away to relax in the country drift off to sleep around a glowing fire.