FINDING REAL REWARDS – A QUILOTOA LOOP TREK EXPERIENCE (PART THREE)

The others were already drinking some beers, and Dominik offered me one. It tasted like success. All the effort was totally worth it, I felt really accomplished. We stayed there for about an hour, just sitting on a bench and admiring the lagoon. We took many pictures and motivated each other to get ready again as the journey was not over yet. Annet and Ayke had a discussion about which path to take in order to reach the town of Quilotoa. Most of us agreed with Ayke, and so we took her path but we reached a dead end and had to walk back. Everyone was like a zombie and to find the path was not as easy as before. We finally reached the peaks of Quilotoa and started to walk up and down, which was very tough but the view and the sunlight gave us energy and motivation.

When we finally arrived in Quilotoa town, I recognized that there were a lot of horses for the people who wanted to go down to the lagoon. The town was delightful and full of bars, restaurants and hotels – every building mostly made of wood. We met the other group that we already knew from Llullu Llama and wanted to stay in the same hostel with them but sadly it was already full. Some accommodations were really basic, and everyone decided to stay at one of them, except me. I preferred to pay a little bit more and go to a hotel called “Princesa Toa”. The others didn’t really like my decision, and I also think that it wasn’t a very social action but I guess I needed some time alone. I got a special price and a really big room with three beds, which was too much for me but it was very conformable. I had dinner in a restaurant in front of the hotel, where I got to know a Spanish family of a mother and two daughters about my age. They invited me to eat with them, which was very friendly and I enjoyed their company. Later that night I had an argument with my landlord and my ex-girlfriend on the phone, which wasn’t fun at all.