The Irish woke up and left around 6:15am to go to Colombia, just as I got up ready to head in the opposite direction. We took a taxi to the southern bus terminal, which is equally far out of town as the northern one was. On the way we saw Cotopaxi, which is an amazing snow-capped volcano near Quito. Obviously I needed breakfast before catching a bus, so at the terminal Alex and I enjoyed a meal of steak, two fried eggs, rice, chips and salad at 8am.

It took only 1.5 hours to reach Latacunga and at the bus terminal we were bombarded with men providing ´information´on how to get to Chugchilan. We took a taxi to Hostel Tiana to leave our big bags for the next few days while we travelled the Quilotoa Loop, but the taxi was unable to take us there with the mere aids of an address, name of the intersection or map! In the end we walked the last few blocks and then back to the terminal to catch our bus.

The bus was rammed with women in felt hats and babies on their backs. As with other Ecuadorian buses it didn´t have aircon and I was unfortunately sat without control of the windows. I politely asked the guy in front of me if he could open the window a little bit, to which he first just turned away, and when I asked again he simply said ´no´. Charming. Closer to Chugchilan we started dropping off and picking up more and more people from the side of the road. One old boy had to be carried off the bus he was so drunk!

When we arrived the bus man told us there was a fiesta on, which explained all the people on the bus. We asked a few people for directions to a hostel, but noone seemed to know, which is especially wierd when we discovered the town is about 3 small blocks and the hostel just around the corner from where we were asking.

Our first encounter of the fiesta was not entirely positive. We saw a group of men dressed in really scary outfits and masks and as I took a photo one man came up and asked for money. No way. In the main square there was a volleyball championship happening, where teams from the surrounding towns come and compete with the accompaniment of music from a band. We were soon to discover that volleyball is the official sport of the Quilotoa Loop. We found the bar on the square and the most friendly crowd and watched the tournament. Towards the end the crowd seemed to disappear along with the band. Our friends from the bar told us to follow them to watch the toros, which means bulls. We couldn´t quite believe that Chugchilan had its own bull ring, but it was too intriguing to ignore. Turns out they do. Up the hill, round the corner and surrounded by steep slopes (on which held the entire town) was a bull ring. We watched as the most ridiculous display of macchismo ensued where a bull would be released into the ring and depending on how scary the bull was (or how much the man had had to drink), all the men from the town would climb into the ring and wave their ponchos in front of the bemused animal. Now and again the bull would have enough of the nonsense and get one of the guys on the floor, at which point the rest of the men would all run over and try and get it off while the women would scream with fear. Then the man would stand up and continue.

As the mist came down and it started to get dark, the bulls were taken back to their tethers in one piece and the next game commenced, which was to climb an extremely tall, thin and swaying pole to claim a prize at the top of a string of oranges, pineapple or bottle of pop. We watched the first man successfully conquer the pole but then sat there in anticipation as he tried to remove the best prize of the selection - a saucepan. 10 minutes passed and still he was trying to undo the knot that held it on. In the end we left him to it.

We arrived back at the hostel in time for dinner at 7pm and sat with Peter (Czech Republic), Lucas (Germany) and Jonathan (from Quito). The food was pretty good except for pudding, which was watermelon and my least favourite fruit aside from caju. I gave mine to Alex. The others headed back out to the fiesta after dinner while I headed to bed for some really well-needed sleep. Alex returned after 30 minutes - seems I didn´t miss too much.

Day 69 - I woke up from an excellent night sleep with the bang of a firework, followed by yesterday´s band playing outside our hostel. Alex grumpily told me they had been playing all night, at one point inside our hostel... for once I was the more spritely of the two of us! Excellent, free breakfast and then we were driven back to Quilotoa to start the trek that leads back to Chugchilan. On the way through town we saw a fair few old men more than a bit worse for wear after last nights fiesta.

The trek started at the Quilotoa crater lake, which is a massive, turquoise vista (see photo, behind our heads). With the aid of a pretty dreadful map we then made the turn from the crater rim down the mountain towards Chugchilan. Some time later we both agreed we had made an error somewhere along the way, and when we looked to correct ourselves we were faced with a landscape absolutely plastered with paths heading off in all directions! Everytime we tried to make some progress the path would take us off in some unwanted direction, or to a dead end at someone´s potato patch. Eventually a child shouted from a house that we needed to head right and down, and just as he did so an old lady called us from down the valley to head towards her. We reached her and she offered to take us to Guayama, which is the town midway to Chugchilan. Despite the fact she was twice as old as us and wearing a skirt and plastic Granny shoes, Maria traversed the countryside twice as fast as we could, as we followed on, trying to keep up while slipping over on the volcanic ash ground. On the 1.5 hour walk with Maria we realised just how far off track we were, as we climbed over barriers, across rivers and up and down valleys... eventually emerging at the point in the road where we were supposed to find ourselves about 5 minutes after turning off the crater!

We said farewell to Maria and resumed our hike back towards Chugchilan. On the way we stopped for lunch on the side of the road, lost the map, met some children that ran over and held our hands, and passed a truck of locals that waved as they went passed, and then hollered to us 10 minutes later as we turned onto another mountainside and saw them high up across the valley. Eventually we reached Guayama - a small town that has very basic buildings with the exception of an extremely grand, covered volleyball court in the centre of the village. The path towards Chugchilan came to a viewpoint and despite thinking we weren´t too far away, we were faced with an incredible vista of Chugchilan and an enormous gorge between us and it.

We emerged back in Chugchilan right by the bullring, where a repeat of yesterday´s festivities were underway, although this time everyone seemed more drunk and more careless. Unbelieveably the band were still playing and there was some very odd drunken dancing that we had to negotiate through to get to our hostel. Walking through town there were old men being held up by their equally wasted mates, and others that had given up and left there friends fall asleep on the pavement.

After 7.5 hours hiking we were glad to get back and sit next to the fire. Here we met Robin (UK) and Jackie (China) and we sat with them for dinner... there´s something very excellent about meeting other British people and the way they can start taking the mick out of you almost from the beginning. We were told yesterday by a German that lived at the hostel that there were three varieties of pudding: watermelon and 2 x cake. Having had watermelon yesterday we were optimistic for something stodgy and delicious, but no... watermelon for the second time in a row. I gave mine to Alex.

Day 70 - Today we packed up all our belongings into our small backpacks and made our way towards Isinlivi, a small village northeast of Chugchilan. The hike was about as long as yesterdays was meant to be, and the landscape was just as beautiful yet completely different. We descended down a valley, passed a school (where Alex almost got bitten by a dog), along a river and then up and down mountainsides past donkeys and bulls, fending off more dogs at every house we came across. As we arrived at Isinlivi it started to rain, and continued throughout the afternoon - good timing!

We checked in at Lullu Lama which is a lovely guesthouse where ourselves and a dutch couple (Patricia and Steven) are the only guests. We spent the rest of the afternoon sat by the fire before stuffing ourselves at dinnertime.

Day 71 - Another beautiful, clear morning enjoyed from the 180 degree views at breakfast and the compost toilet that loos out over the valley. Today we are walking to Sigchos and hope to get there in time to take the 2:30pm bus back to Latacunga. Once again the walk was different to the other days, and we spent 4 hours seeing noone except a few local farmers - one of which invited us to come and stay in his house another time!

Sigchos is quite a large town compared to the others we have passed, and has at least two posh volleyball courts. We walked straight to the bus terminal and waited around an hour for 2:30 to arrive. An old, ice cream lady came and positioned herself next to me, and when I came back from the toilet I found Alex surrounded by locals all interested in what we were doing there - they couldn´t believe we would choose to walk all the way from Quilotoa. We bought a four-flavour ice-cream and took the bus back to Latacunga.

We walked back to Hostel Tiana and checked in for the night. I found that my shampoo had redistributed itself within my large backpack and spent at least half an hour absolutely surrounded by suds trying to sort it out. For dinner we were recommended a good, cheap place that has rotisserie chicken, and at $3.50 it was indeed good and cheap.