Quilotoa

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 22:30:00 -0600

We drove from Quito to Baños by way of Quilotoa today. When the plan was originally pitched, I thought Quilotoa was (mostly) “on the way” to Baños. When you’re zoomed out far enough on Google Maps, the detour from Latacunga to Quilotoa doesn’t look like a big deal, but it’s a narrow, super windy road through the high mountains with a lot of steep ups and downs. It added an extra 3 hours to the drive (plus the amount of time we spent in Quilotoa). We wound up spending most of the day driving with a pretty good hike to break things up. It was just about perfect.

Semuc Champey (Part 2: The Pools)

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

We regrouped after our lunch break. Our guide explained that each of us had a choice about how to get to the turquoise pools on top of the limestone bridge that is Semuc Champey. The hard way is to climb the stairs up to the lookout and then continue and descend the stairs to the top of the pools. He said it might be too hard for some of us and seemed especially worried about parents with kids. The alternative is to skip the cliff completely and just walk up the flat path along the river, similar to what we had walked earlier with our tubes, just on the opposite side of the river.

Overlook on jtalbot/blog

Quilotoa

Semuc Champey (Part 2: The Pools)