Latacunga - Quilotoa

Next stop after Baños was Latacunga. Completely uninteresting town. This was the first town in Ecuador were we didn't feel comfortable. Every other town we had been in was welcoming and had charm. Not Latacunga! But it was just a stopover to go to Quilotoa. Quilotoa is a tiny village of about 15 houses next to a beautiful lake in the crater of a volcanoe. There is nothing to do in the village and every house is a hostal/restaurant/souvenir shop. And although at first the people are a little annoying cos they want you to choose their hostal, once you've clearly said no (or yes) they're very friendly.
The walk down the crater to the lake is about 30 min, the walk back up is 1h cos it's quite steep. We arrived in Quilotoa and decided to walk down to the lake. The walk down was fine until, just as we reached the lake, we heard thunder and it started pouring rain. We ran for shelter, luckily there was a little hostal next to the lake. It hailed for a good 45 minutes. The walk back up was difficult because the path was very muddy and covered with 5 cm of ice!

The next day we decided to walk the whole way around the lake, but from up above the crater. It's a good 4-5 hour walk. We wanted to wake up early and get an early start but we were so cold during the night that we didn't sleep very well and decided to sleep in a bit. Which means we didn't start our walk until 11 am... It was a great walk but about 3 hours into the walk a really thick mist set in. The only thing we could see was a whole lot of white! so we walked on trying not to get lost... and we didn't! we just chose the wrong path at some point and instead of staying at the top of the crater, we ended up halfway down to the lake! so we had to climb back up, and that was tiring!
So Quilotoa, definitly a place to see!