Quilotoa is the westernmost volcano in Ecuador. It’s last major eruption was more than 700 years ago. Just like Crater Lake in Oregon, Quilotoa is a lake that has formed in the crater of a collapsed volcano. The water is more than 800 feet deep. The rim around the lake is 12,840 feet above sea level. The surface of the water is 11,650 feet. There are several well-known hikes in the area including a long hike around the rim and a steep hike down to the lake where you can rent kayaks and try to find hot steam bubbling up in the middle of the lake. The water is a beautiful dark green color because of all the minerals dissolved in the water. They don’t allow swimming in the volcanic waters, but they do let you rent kayaks and paddle around looking for steam bubbles that escape from the bottom of the lake at random times. I don’t know what they would do to me, but I think if I took a kayak out to the middle that I may “accidentally” fall out and have to swim back to my kayak. But I digress.

Hertz Always Hurts

We needed to rent a car for the next few days and that meant an Uber ride back to the Airport to pick it up. Hertz always seems to do the wrong thing when we rent from them outside the US. A few years ago they completely ghosted us In Costa Rica. They didn’t even open their doors the day we arrived. There was a huge line of people waiting along with us. We all waited multiple hours before an agent from a different car company came out to tell us he had called Hertz and the agents and they would not be opening that day. They “had no cars to rent” and didn’t bother letting anyone know. We all wound up renting from a competing agency for twice the price. We said we would never rent from them again outside the US, but they were the only rental agency that didn’t charge by the mile. We knew we were going to be driving a lot and didn’t want to have to pay extra for all our miles driven. So we risked it and rented with Hertz It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. In Quito they were open and had a car for us, but not the car we were expecting.

The SUV we reserved turned out to be a Chevy Onix. Hertz insisted it was “in the same class” as the SUV we were expecting. I’m not sure how a subcompact sedan can be classified similarly to SUVs unless the class is something like “vehicles with silver paint”. Oh well. I’m sure we’ll never know, but it wasn’t all bad. It got fantastic gas mileage and it did pretty well climbing those steep roads at altitudes above 12,000 feet. I don’t know how well my car would do at those altitudes. It was probably worse for the ladies riding in the back seat for so many hours, but it wasn’t too bad in the front seat.

We stopped for snacks and drinks as we headed out of town and then we drove. Ecuador has speed cameras and everyone told us to use Waze to avoid them. It worked pretty well, but we didn’t see any speed cameras after leaving Quito. Sometimes there wasn’t any signal, but we managed do all our driving through Ecuador without a single ticket (unless one shows up in the mail at some future point, but I think that’s very unlikely). So we drove up, down, and through amazing mountain passes and valleys. We drove along and over rivers. The scenery was incredible so we just kept driving. We didn’t even stop for lunch.

Windy and Windy

We drove until we had to pee. I think we all expected to make it to Quilotoa, but the steep winding high mountain roads kept that from happening. By the time we pulled the car off the road at the top of a high mountain pass, we really had to pee. We had to pee right then. The pass somewhere above 13,000 feet and completely exposed. The wind was insane. There was no way to hide from it. But we had to pee. Attention had to be paid to avoid having pee blown up into your face. Somehow we all managed to avoid any wet clothing or faces. It was an Ecuadorian miracle.

As we drove down from that pass, we came to the town of Zimbahua, where the farms went straight up the mountain sides. It was really pretty. And it wasn’t that far from town to Quilotoa. There was a river that had cut some amazing canyons there, and one place where the road had been undercut by water.

It wasn’t long before we were parking in the little town of Quilotoa that overlooks the lake. It had taken a lot longer to get here than we anticipated and we knew we had to retrace our path back to Latacunga when we were done. We didn’t want to spend too much time here because we still had a long way to drive to get to Baños. So we decided to just checkout the various lookout points, take some pictures, and then continue on our way.

Brett and Jess were moving quickly to get from the parking lot over to the first lookout point. Charmaine decided not to leave her electronics and other valuables in the car, so she loaded up her backpack before we headed out to follow them. It wouldn’t have been a big deal except that somehow both Charmaine and I managed to completely misunderstand the communication about the stop here. Instead of trying to get back on schedule by staying along the rim of the crater and enjoying the lookouts, the plan was to still do the super steep hike down to the lake… just to do it faster. Taking extra time to load up a backpack until it was extra heavy did not help us stick to the plan. I opted not to put on my new hiking boots, since that would have taken even more time.

Laguna Quilotoa

We took a few pictures at the top and then started walking the trail that loops around the rim of the crater. The lake is a little more than 2 miles across, so the crater rim trail is at least 7 miles with a bunch of elevation gain and loss. We walked a little ways along the trail so we could get some photos at various lookouts that were nearby. There seemed to be more down than up on this section of the trail, but I figured it would even out one way or another. Each viewpoint was pretty spectacular, but they were also very similar to each other. I suspected each new viewpoint would be our last and we would have to turn tail and get back to the car. I made sure not to miss any photo opportunities, even if they were not quite as good as some we had already gotten.

At one of the viewpoints Brett said something like, “We should really just sprint to the bottom and then hit these lookouts on the way back up if there’s still time.” That’s when I realized it was going to be rough day. Suddenly I knew why the trail seemed to have more downs than ups. We were not following the crater rim trail after all. It was the trail down to the lake shore. We were already too far down to consider going back to ditch the electronics or put on appropriate footwear. I think it’s about 1,100 vertical feet each direction and we were probably 200 feet down already. In the end Charmaine wound up doing the hike with an extra 15 pounds on her back and I wore my running shoes down and up the steep sandy slopes. Those shoes will never run again.

But it was worth it.

Like many similar steep hikes, the locals wanted to get you on a donkey or a horse. We saw the same thing in Santorini. We haven’t ever ridden one and I’m not convinced it would be any easier to ride a donkey up than it is to just do the hike. Maybe it shows my lack of donkey riding skills, but I would definitely prefer to be on my own legs and go at my own pace and see all the nice viewpoints along the way. Despite all that, I still tried to convince Charmaine to take a horse back to the top. The horse rental people were offering rides back to the top $10 each, which seemed pretty reasonable. She declined, but then went back to accept. By that point the price had doubled to $20. I told her to pay it and smile, but she felt like they were trying to rip her off, so she wanted nothing to do with it. It turns out they didn’t really change the price. They charge $10 per horse, but won’t go up unless there are at least 2 horses making the trip. It’s not worth it to them to do it for just $10. Hiking back up was probably the right choice anyway, for all the reasons mentioned previously.

At the top we had a quick bite to eat and then drove back through the mountains and on down to the town of Baños, which sits about 6,000 feet above sea level. The sun seemed to set a little earlier than usual as we descended the Amazon side of the Andes, but we still managed to pull into town just as the sun was going down. It was a little sad to see how touristy it is here, but there must be a good reason for it. I suspect we’ll discover some of that reason when we begin our adventure tomorrow. Being a tourist trap has its benefits. We had no trouble finding good food. Tonight we went to a nice Indian place and had no choice but to overeat. I didn’t expect to find great tikka masala in the middle of the rain forest, but here it is.

We are staying at the Samari Spa Resort. It is hundreds of years old. It used to be a Jesuit training center. It’s very fancy. It may be the fanciest hotel in town. I’m not going to complain. After all, I’m usually the one suggesting the fancy “sanctuary lodge” style hotels.

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Dangerous Volcano

Cotopaxi is an active stratovolcano, which means it is prone to violent and explosive eruptions. It is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world due to its height, its large glacial cone, and its proximity to densely populated areas. The Ecuadorian government estimates more than 300,000 people are at risk from the volcano. Previous eruptions have completely melted the glacial cone, sending pyroclastic flows more than 65 miles in every direction… sending mud and debris into the Amazon and all the way to the Pacific Ocean, destroying cities and towns that got in the way. The last “major” eruption was in 1903-1904 with “minor” activity that has come and gone ever since. The mountain really woke up again in 2015 with a series of more than 2,000 earthquakes per month while releasing two large steam eruptions later that year. In October 2022 it began spewing ash. The ash has continued to rise from the cinder cone, turning the glacial cone almost completely black at this point.

Scientist say Cotopaxi “remains in a very abnormal situation.”

There is a climbers refuge lodge at about 16,000 feet high, just below the glacial cone. Nobody is allowed to climb the upper mountain until it calms down again. On Easter Sunday in 1996 an avalanche buried the refuge and killed 13 people higher on the mountain. Those in the refuge had to break windows on the lower side of the slope and climb out to safety. Cotopaxi is a huge tourist draw and the government doesn’t want anything to happen to those drawn to the mountain (like us).

Altitude Sickness

Despite having some minor challenges with altitude sickness a few years ago in Cuzco, Peru, I wasn’t too worried about it in Ecuador. I felt a minor headache at the top of the tram yesterday, but figured I would feel better after we came back down to the city. I didn’t really notice it again until that night. It continued to build and by 1:00 am I couldn’t sleep anymore. The pain was getting crazy. I never get headaches of any kind – not even when I’m sick. I can count the number of headaches I have had in the past year – including this one – on one finger. I was concerned when it kept getting worse. By 2:00 am I was out of bed, sitting in a chair by the window, pressing my hands into my head in a vain attempt to relieve some pressure. And I was crying. I am a wimp. I couldn’t help it. Eventually I got in the shower and just stood under the waterfall for about an hour. By some magic, that stimulation on my head and neck made things better. By 3 or 4 I was able to climb in bed and actually sleep for a bit. It was so nice.

We went down to breakfast just before 7 this morning. We skipped breakfast yesterday, so we didn’t really know how good it would be. We expected a pretty good spread based on the quality of the hotel and our expectations were met. It wasn’t a crazy amazing spread, but it had plenty of high quality options and we went away satisfied. I even packed a banana for today’s adventure.

We met our tour guides on the edge of Parque La Carolina, which is basically across the street from our hotel. It took couple hours to get from Quito to Cotopaxi National Park. Ecuador is amazingly beautiful and its beauty was on full display as we drove. Our guides told us the name Cotopaxi means “neck of the moon” in Quechua and Aymara.

Above the Tree Line

We are used to phrases like “above the tree line” which is the line above which there are no trees because the air pressure is too low. As we drove through Cotopaxi National Park towards the mountain, we were well above the tree line. The only thing able to grow at this elevation is Páramo, an alpine tundra. The clouds blocking Cotopaxi cleared momentarily so we all piled out of the van onto the road for some quick pictures, not knowing if we would get another chance to see the mountain this trip. It was a little sad to see the upper mountain looking so dark, with the entire glacial cone covered in black volcanic ash that continues to spew from the top. But it was still exciting to see such a high peak. Moments later the clouds rolled right back in and obscured the mountain once again.

We drove onward and upward out of the Páramo and into the dirt/ash area of the mountain. We parked in a fairly large parking lot at the base of the trailhead climbers have been using for decades to summit the massive peak. It was windy. It was so windy our guide decided we would be better off skipping the switchbacks and climbing directly up within the shelter of a canyon. It’s hard to know if we received any shelter from the wind, but it sure didn’t seem that way. We hiked up a canyon filled with soft sand/ash against the wind. It was slow going. We hiked up to the refuge at 16,000 feet. It was slow going, despite our desire to get out of the cold wind. Atmospheric pressure drops about 50% for every 16,000 feet in elevation. So we were hiking up a steep canyon, into the wind, with only about 50% of the air we are used to breathing. It’s a fascinating experience.

Refugio José Rivas

Eventually we reached the refuge, which is a pretty large building where climbers used to sleep while waiting for the right time to attempt the summit. Nobody has slept there since the upper mountain closed, but they still run a little snack and gift shop. There are several signs blocking the trail up from the refuge. Like many others have obviously done, we stepped past the “do not cross” signs and climbed just a little higher. The refuge sits about 50 feet below 16k and we really wanted to hit that magical number. And so we did.

After a few minutes enjoying hot chocolate at the climber’s refuge, we headed back down to the van. We stopped at a small lake inside the national park before continuing on to lunch at a cute little hotel owned by the tour company in a nearby rural town. After lunch we walked down the road a bit without our guides. It was really nice and relaxing. We saw several types of trees we hadn’t seen before with really interesting flowers. Brett decided to pick one of the really large trumpet-shaped flowers and stick it in his mouth. It turned out to be a poisonous flower, but he was fine. Eventually our guides found us and we hopped back in the van and headed back to Quito.

Once back in Quito we decided to spend some time checking out Parque La Carolina. We had walked along the outside of the park earlier this morning to meet our guides, but it looked like a really fun place, so we decided to check it out. The first thing we saw was whole families playing soccer together – including little kids, then families playing Ecuadorian volleyball, families riding mountain bikes on the flow track they have setup, etc. The park is very popular with families and family activities on weekends. It was pretty magical. I was also impressed by all the fancy buildings surrounding the park. I think it would be really fun to come back and stay a few months in Quito learning Spanish and working remotely.

We walked through the park until it started to get dark. We decided to have dinner at fancy Italian place (Via Partenope) and then, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, we found ourselves back at Sweet & Coffee for a little dessert. We didn’t get a lot of items, but we did get passion fruit cake and some chocolate milkshakes.

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Quito is a stunning city. The streets are clean and filled with art. It’s also a very large city. We only walked through a few of the neighborhoods, on a route hand-selected by either our guide or the tour company, but everything we saw was really impressive. I really enjoyed the art along the streets and snapped a few photos as we drove. Little did I know we would be visiting an artists colony on our walking tour.

Plaza de la Independencia

We got out of the Uber and started our walking tour in Plaza de la Independencia (Independence Square) in the heart of historic Quito. In the center of the square is a tall monument honoring the heroes of independence of August 10, 1809, when Ecuador declared its independence from Spain. Like many other Spanish Colonial cities, the central square is lined with churches and important government buildings. The Spanish founded Quito in 1534 on the ruins of an Inca city. The Plaza Grande (as it’s known locally) has been the center of power in Quito since the early 1600s. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) named Quito a UNESCO world heritage site when they created the designation in 1978. They say Quito has “the best-preserved, least altered historic centre in Latin America.” Only twelve sites were included that year and Quito is number two. As you can imagine, it’s a pretty special place.

We went across the plaza and into El Palacio Arzobispal (the Archbishop’s Palace). It’ has been turned into a shopping mall with a different little shop in each of the old rooms. On weekends they even have live music (free concerts). It was pretty empty when we walked through and took a few pictures.

An Early Lunch

From there we walked down Venezuela Street toward the Basilica, but turned down Galapagos Street to find some traditional Ecuadorian food. Galapagos Street quickly turned into a walking-only street that went under some arches and down a few sets of stairs to our first food stop, Pilar Salguero. It was 10:30 am, which is a bit early for lunch, but there were already a few local folks eating. Would this be second breakfast? brunch? first lunch? I’m not sure, but after last night’s dessert extravaganza and this morning’s fancy hotel breakfast, I wasn’t very hungry. Each couple shared a small plate with chunks of pork, potato, a small piece of a corn cob, some diced tomatoes and onions, and a few bites of platanos fritos. They also gave us a bowl of orange sauce that we could spoon onto the food on our plates. It smelled like it was made from peppers, but there was basically zero heat to it. The flavors were nice and worked well together.

After that savory meal, we hiked up the hill to Venezuela street and over to the Basilica. We didn’t have time to go inside, but our guide pointed out the unique gargoyles around the top which are animals found in Ecuador. Each window is guarded by a pair of the same type of animal. We saw sloths, iguanas, turtles, crocodiles, jaguars, monkeys, and anteaters. I really like the concept of the local animals defending the church and the people inside it. The basilica is said to be “unfinished” because completing it would mean the end of the world.

Two More Lunches

We continued along Venezuela Street past the Basilica and then took a walking path down the hill into what looked like a neighborhood. We didn’t go too far before we came to lunch spot number two. 11:15 am is pretty early for second lunch, but it was really good, so nobody complained. I think the name of the place was Hueca Manabita El gato Numero 2. They serve classic Ecuadorian empanadas made from plantain flour and there were a couple guys in the back slicing and chopping up green plantains and potatoes to make the empanadas and other fried goodies. We all got shrimp empanadas and they were amazing. They also had a little bucket of hot sauce that wasn’t hot at all.

We went directly across the street for some juice drinks inside Mercado América. We sat down to third lunch at 11:35 am. This time lunch was a mashed yuca base with some fried eggs on top and more of the diced tomato and onion pico. It was a bit starchy for our fourth meal in 4 hours, but the egg with tomato and onion was really nice. They also brought us a little bowl of the now familiar orange pepper sauce (not spicy). We had several rounds of some fantastic juice drinks, which made it all better. I’m not sure how adding extra high-calorie drinks makes it better, but it did. We started with an old favorite, guanábana. On subsequent rounds we tried several new fruits that we hadn’t heard of previously. I really liked the naranjilla (a relative of the tomato, but quite sweet) and the babaco (a sweet, but mild cross of two types of mountain papayas).

Street Art of Quito

There was no way to eat anything else at that point, so it’s a good thing we had some walking to do. We headed to a street art colony and talked about the different artists who have come through from other countries, saw some of their work, and learned about their mission. A lot of the art was really fun and interesting. Some of it had strong messages. I really enjoyed it. Quito is filled with all sorts of art. A lot of it is street art. Some of these artists have helped create some of it. That’s pretty cool.

Fourth Lunch

We walked along some of the streets filled with art on our way to the Parque El Ejido, which is a park where a lot of art gets displayed and sold. Just outside the park, we stopped for our fourth lunch. The timing actually made sense on this one. It was 12:30 and the place was packed with locals. We were having seafood. It was mostly fish with a few prawns thrown in for good measure. All of the fish was filleted so the only heads or skin we saw were on the prawns. It was really good. The fish was cooked perfectly and the sauce was excellent, but we were so stuffed that it was difficult to finish. Somehow we all found room when the bartender started whipping up babaco drinks for us. Oh man, that is really good stuff.

Tropical Fruit Tasting

There was another long walk between lunch four and our final food stop. I needed it. We made our way to Mercado Santa Clara for some fruit tasting. We are not the usual group of tourists. I think our guide was somewhat surprised several times today when he expected to introduce us to something wonderful (like guanábana) only to hear us tell him it was one of our favorites. That trend continued in a big way at the fruit stand in the mercado. We got to “try” lychee, chirimoya, fresh cacao beans, and a few others. I think he was especially surprised that we already loved granadillas and were well versed in how to open and eat them. We went one more place for drinks to wrap up the tour. Once again we surprised our guide when none of us wanted a coffee or tea. Instead we got some lemonades and fruit juices.

Volcán Pichincha

That was the end of our walking tour. Thankfully, we wouldn’t have to eat again for a few hours. We realized we had enough time to take the tram to the top of a nearby mountain and enjoy the view from the top, so we grabbed and Uber and headed on over to the TelefériQo Cruz Loma. The tram basically goes straight up a very steep slope of the Pichincha Volcano. The last major eruption was in 1998, but it is considered safe to climb. The tram takes you to a mirador where you can look out across the city and see the really big volcanoes (Cotopaxi, et. al) on the other side. On a clear day you can hike from there up to the peaks – Ruku Pichincha and Guagua Pichincha. It was too late in the day to consider the 4 hour hike up and back and we could see a pretty good storm rolling across Quito. Either would be enough to keep us from climbing. Both at the same time made the choice easy.

The view from the top of the tram was pretty great, even with the clouds rolling in. The storm blocked our view of the big volcanoes behind the city (one of the main reasons people go up there), but there were still interesting things to see and do at the top. We wandered around a bit to see it all. This is a very touristy place. Almost all of the tourists seem to be from South America, but we did run into some of the first white people we have seen in Ecuador. We waited our turn to swing on the giant swing set overlooking the city. It’s pretty fun to swing at 13,000 feet. From there we wandered a little ways up along the trail that goes to the summit until we came to a little restaurant shack on the side of the mountain.

Hail of a Good Time

I’m not sure we would have gone in except for the fact that it was starting to rain pretty hard. So we ducked under the corrugated steel roof and ordered some plantain chips. We had the place to ourselves and we expected the rain to pass pretty quickly. We were so wrong. Almost as soon as we sat down the rain turned to hail. Lots of hail. And it just kept coming. It must have hailed for 30 minutes or more. The people who had ventured up the big mountain were not happy. The trail was slick mud and they were getting pelted with hail as they tried to stay standing while hurrying back down and into the shack with us. The llamas outside the shack were basically frozen in place. I’m sure they have seen some interesting weather before, but they sure didn’t seem to like the hail. The hail just kept coming. Soon the shack was packed and basically standing room only. We had one of the few tables and felt like we should continue ordering drinks and food so we wouldn’t feel bad hogging the table. We got some good stuff, too. I think we had some hot naranjilla drinks, some platanos fritos with cheese (interesting and quite good), some soup. I don’t remember because we ordered three or four times, and let’s be honest, I was much more interested in watching all the hail. It just kept pounding. There were several inches of hail by the time it slowed down enough that we decided to leave. I was really glad I had worn my new Terrex hiking shoes (to make cobblestone streets a little softer). They were really nice while trying to get back to the tram through the rivers of ice and mud at 13,000 feet.

Basílica del Voto Nacional

We walked down from the base of the tram to where regular streets and traffic were flowing before grabbing a taxi back to the basilica. We wanted to go inside and there was just enough time to make it happen. It’s the largest non-gothic basilica in the western hemisphere. The official name of the basilica is La Basílica del Voto Nacional (The Basilica of the National Vow). There is a giant heart above the main doors and it looks pretty cool. The name and the giant heart are meant to be a perpetual reminder of the consecration of Ecuador to the Sacred Heart. We didn’t have a ton of time before closing, but I think we used it well.

Eating Well

After they kicked us out we went back to our hotel. It was time to figure out dinner and it needed to be good. We used Google Maps to find the highest rated place near the hotel. We found Chios Portugal, a hamburger shop right around the corner from our hotel. It has 4.9 stars after almost 5,000 reviews. That’s an incredible record. We had to try it. Maybe we ordered the wrong things. Maybe nothing would have been good after a day filled with eating all the great Ecuadorian fare around Quito. But in the end none of us were impressed. Nothing was bad, but nothing was great either. So we nursed ourselves back to health by dropping by our favorite dessert shop once again. And when they didn’t have some of our favorites (from last night), we decided to try a few desserts from our hotel. To say this was a big calorie day is the understatement of the year.

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Delta Airlines is a Scam

I have to rant a little about how terrible booking a ticket with Delta has become. We tried to buy tickets through Delta’s website. It showed great prices flying out of Las Vegas (only 2 hours from our home). But the prices were a complete bait-and-switch scam. With Delta you have the choice of buying “basic economy” or “main cabin”. They have multiple pop-up banners letting you know that you can’t pick your seat with basic economy, but if you pay a little more for main cabin you can “choose and change your seats anytime”. It’s the only way to guarantee two people can sit together. That is super annoying since knowing your seat ahead of time probably saves the airline money. It certainly doesn’t cost extra for that. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg of this scam.

We chose to buy main cabin so we could get seats together. Except wait, we couldn’t. There were plenty of open seats next to each other on each leg of our journey, but to pick anything other than a middle seat costs extra… like $100 per flight extra. So buying main cabin did NOT allow us to sit next to each other unless we paid more than $400 extra. Sure, we could pick seats, so long as we each picked a middle seat nowhere near the other. How does that make any sense? Then I thought maybe I would suck it up and pay the fee for one of us to have an aisle or window and then pick the “free” middle seat next to the paid seat. When you choose to do that, a banner pops up warning that if you pay to choose a seat the payment is non-refundable and you will not be allowed to switch seats without abandoning the fee you paid to reserve it. So every single reason for paying extra to buy main cabin is a lie. You CANNOT choose seats next to each other, and if you decide to PAY EVEN MORE so that you can sit together then you CANNOT SWITCH YOUR SEAT. It’s a complete scam. The bottom line is they claim the price is $X so the Delta tickets seem cheaper than their competition. But then they tack on the airline equivalent of “resort fees” by forcing you to pay even more to pick a seat. It meant our tickets would be 25% more than the advertised price. It would be 50% more than the advertised price for a single flyer wanting to sit in an aisle seat. That is a complete scam and should be (probably is) illegal. In our case the original ticket was supposed to be $880 per person, but add 4 legs of picking seats together and the final price was just over $1050 per person (an extra $400+ divided in half). That’s a scam and it would have prevented me flying on Delta this time, except we really needed to arrive in Quito the same time as Brett and Jess. Brett has Diamond status with Delta and was able to buy our tickets on his reservation, which allowed him to pick seats for free. The flights out of Salt Lake were more expensive than the flights from Las Vegas, so we wound up paying the extra anyway, but that meant we would all fly together on every leg of the trip. If anyone got delayed, we would all be delayed together.

We have two Delta credit cards and flew about 50,000 miles on Delta last year, but we didn’t spend enough on the cards to get status this year. Status with Delta has never been worth much, so we spent on other cards that give us much better benefits. It seems the only benefit to having status with Delta is to avoid being scammed by Delta, and that’s not a great reason to work toward status. After this experience I think we might finally be done with Delta. We have already stopped using the Delta credit cards, so it’s probably time to cancel them and start flying an airline that doesn’t try to scam us on every trip… if one exists. Rant over.

The New SLC Delta Lounge is Great

We had plenty of time to kill at the Salt Lake airport this morning. Brett used a combination of his Delta credit cards, Diamond status, and some sweet talking to get us all into the Delta Lounge this morning. We used the opportunity to book the rest of our hotels and activities that we hadn’t had time to complete last night. I don’t remember a trip where we were booking hotels and activities during the trip other than when Charmaine and I went to Israel back in 2011. Since then we have been pretty good at making sure we at least knowing where we are going to sleep each night. The new Delta lounge in SLC has comfortable seats, good internet, and some nice little breakfast treats and snacks. I particularly enjoyed the chia seed pudding, fresh raspberries, and chili hardboiled eggs. The food on the plane to Quito was also some of the best I have had back in cattle-class. They gave us a cheese, fruit, and nut plate. It was unexpectedly good for airplane food.

We arrived in Quito around 8:30 at night, but by the time we went through immigration, picked up our bags, got an Uber, and drove to our hotel (the Dann Carlton near the Parque Carolina in the center of town), it was already 10 pm. On the way from the airport to the city, our driver (who knew nothing about us) went out of his way to point out a “really cool church” right next to the freeway. It turned out to be the nearly brand new Mormon Quito Ecuador Temple (dedicated Nov 2022). I tried to snap a picture as we drove by, but my phone refused to do anything but night mode (long exposure), so it didn’t turn out very well.

A Quick Taste of Quito

Ecuador doesn’t participate in Daylight Savings Time, so for most of the year they are only one hour ahead of Utah. It was at least a 40 minute drive from the airport to our hotel. We basically stayed up all night last night, then spent the whole day in transit today, so we were feeling pretty tired. We still wanted to get a quick taste of Quito before bed, so we went out for dinner at a local shawarma place (they’re everywhere). I was pretty underwhelmed by the shawarma. I would say it was mediocre at best. It seems to be the most popular street food here, but it’s almost always chicken and the flavors we had tonight were nothing special. Maybe we just picked a bad location? I’m betting we’ll wind up trying it again somewhere else.

After dinner we walked around the block the long way back to our hotel and came across Sweet & Coffee, a little bakery that looked good. Unlike the shawarma, the baked goods impressed. We got a Pan de Zapallo (pumpkin bread) that was really moist and delicious. We also got a slice of Torta de Manzana y Nuez and that was probably my favorite thing. There was a nice sized slice of Carrot Cake and a smaller slice of Apple Pie Bread Pudding. Those were both fantastic. We also tried a slice of their Pasión de Maracuya (passion fruit pie) and it was fantastic. The Queso de Coco (coconut flan) was another favorite. We must have tried about 20 different items and none were disappointing. So we ate way too much, way too late.

Tomorrow morning we’re meeting for breakfast at 8. I would like to sleep in longer (and get some of this food processed), but we’re starting a food tour of Quito in the morning around 10 am. So there will be no shortage of food. Somehow we will survive.

After just a couple hours in Quito, we are already pretty impressed. The weather is just amazing. The airport was very clean and modern. The city streets seem really clean and we felt safe walking around the area around our hotel at night. I think we expected it to be more like Guatemala City, but right now it feels a whole lot nicer. We’ll see how we feel about it after the walking tour tomorrow.

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The Needles is still full of challenges and is not a place for inexperienced drivers or vehicles without the right capabilities. It’s filled with steep grades, large obstacles, off-camber drops, and paint-scraping narrow sections. Elephant Hill (the way both in and out of The Needles) has a switchback so tight it can only be navigated in reverse. If you get stuck here, a tow truck will cost more than $2,000. Group sizes are strictly limited to keep noise and dust down, to minimize wildlife disruptions, and to let the sights and sounds of nature prevail.

There are some amazing campsites in The Needles and they all require a permit. Even single day-use requires a permit. The permits are highly sought after and become unavailable several months in advance. Some popular days and popular spots get reserved within minutes of being released.

Brett, Jess, and Mark each reserved a campsite in the Devil’s Kitchen campground in The Needles over Memorial Day weekend. There are only 4 total campsites in Devil’s Kitchen, so between the three of them they had reserved almost the entire campground. It’s a really special place with spectacular views. Each reservation allows for up to 10 people and 3 cars but the rangers reminded us of the group size limitations in the park. They don’t want to see multiple groups moving together as one larger group.

Big Groups Are Bad

I am not a fan of large groups when camping. Despite my love for Canyonlands, when I heard there would be as many as 30 people camping with us, I did my best to get out of it. I love Devil’s Kitchen and the hikes in The Needles, but I really don’t like activities with so many people. Especially when the logical divisions in the groups don’t align with the campsite restrictions. Charmaine had just been backpacking and camping through The Needles, but she really wanted to go back and show me some of the cool places she had just been. We had also invited my brother Joe to camp with us. I tried to persuade him to camp with us somewhere else this weekend, but he was pretty excited about The Needles. So once it was clear I wouldn’t be able to get out of it, I tried to make the most of it.

To enter The Needles, we drove south from Moab for about 40 miles on highway 191 and then west for another 35 miles on highway 211. We passed several nice looking campgrounds just off of highway 211. We stopped briefly at Newspaper Rock and then continued down towards The Needles. As we were just about to enter The Needles, there’s a small outpost where we stopped to top off our gas (at $10/gallon) and buy a few last-minute items before heading into the park. I didn’t use more than about 1/3 of my gas in the park, so I would like to avoid stopping at the outpost on future trips, but I doubt that will happen. We always seem to be part of a group where someone is concerned about gas, so I’m sure we’ll just keep paying the premium for a little peace of mind.

Elephant Hill and The Squeeze

Not long after entering the park it was time to air down and climb our first obstacle – Elephant Hill. For some reason I always expect it to be more difficult than it is. I pretty much just drove straight up and over it this time. Of course, I was following good lines selected by the experienced drivers in front of me, and I had plenty of volunteer spotters especially going down the steep side, but our 4Runner made quick work of the hill. We stopped at the top for some lunch before dropping down through The Squeeze and on to our campsites in Devil’s Kitchen.

The Squeeze is a narrow one-way section of road between Elephant Hill and Devil’s Kitchen. It’s the type of place where you have to pull in all your mirrors or you’ll scrape. It’s a place where you sometimes have to inch closer to the side you’re already close to in order to avoid tilting your vehicle into the wall when your tire goes up over a rock. You have to drive slow and you have to trust your spotter. I really enjoyed going through The Squeeze in years past, but it was Charmaine’s turn to drive this year. She drove through like a boss, never going too fast, doing all the things the spotter suggested, and making it look so easy. Joe and Carrie also made it through without incident.

Devil’s Kitchen Campground

The Devil’s Kitchen Campground is literally right around the corner from The Squeeze, so we pulled in and setup camp as soon as everyone was through. As I expected, there was some confusion about who was camping and parking in which spot. Joe got the short end of the stick and had to park his car in a different spot than where we were camping. That’s just the way it goes with these larger groups. But I think he managed to have a good time anyway. Everybody seemed to interact well and get along, which made it a good experience.

Devil’s Lane, SOB Hill, and The Joint

The next day we went down Devil’s Lane to the petroglyphs and then over SOB Hill and up to The Joint. Somewhere along the very tame road to The Joint I managed to slice through the sidewall of one of my tires. That made for an interesting experience trying to get my Hi-Lift Jack to work correctly. We never really did, but Brett eventually came back and manually manipulated the sliding parts and pieces enough that we could get the tire changed. My spare tire isn’t the same size or width as my regular tires, so that meant I was probably done doing the crazy stuff I sometimes find myself doing.

Hiking to Druid Arch

The Joint trail was great and from there we did the hike to Druid Arch and back. I wasn’t sure if it was just going to be us and Joe or if more people would join us. As it turned out, everyone came along. Well, everyone except Peter, Justin, and Walt.

The Confluence

The final day we went out to The Confluence, which turned out to be a much trickier trail than I remember. Since my car was sort of on the sidelines, Joe decided he would drive and we would ride with him. It was a fun time, but getting Joe’s mostly-stock 4Runner over some of the obstacles was a challenge that wouldn’t have succeeded if it were not for a team effort. Coming back was actually a bit worse and we were forced to winch him over a big obstacle where he had gotten high centered. Hopefully his rig survived the abuse.

The next day we went home. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t time for some shenanigans.

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