Quilotoa Photo Diary: The day they called me a “gringa”

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Jueves de música means headphones please: Hoy – Gloria Stefan

So the Quilotoa, one of the most unbelievable places on this earth. The Quilotoa is a caldera filled with blue blue water that changes its shades depending on its mood. Can’t help but feel identified with it. My esposo agrees. About 800 years ago, after several little eruptions, the volcano had the big one, which created the 3 km wide caldera. Inevitably this reminded me of…

An important information to all esposos out there 😀  You can get there by car or by bus from Latacunga. The landscape is hermoso but curvy so be prepared.

The highest point of this beauty is 3914 meters. On our way up I was starting to feel a bit breathless but I assumed it was the landscape of my beautiful country. There’s a tiny-as-a-flea sign that says “Bienvenidos al Quilotoa” and we saw it immediately NOT! So after seeing people selling coconuts, which you can only find in the Ecuadorian coast line my amigas were like “oye! we miiiight be a little bit lost”. A million hours later we made it. And let me tell ya it wasn’t OMG, it was ODM: Oh Dios Mío! Because everything sounds more dramatic en Español.

You might recognize my amigas from our travels to Thailand. So they live in Quito and can apparently climb the Everest because at the 4000 meter height of the Quilotoa they didn’t feel a thing. Now I don’t live in Quito anymore, but one would think I’d be able to handle this since I AM 100% ECUADORIAN. After this pic, I started breathing so heavily that I told my esposo to look for one of my lungs which MUST have fallen down somewhere because I couldn’t breath normally 😀 Since it felt like I was going to either explode or die I quickly took some last pictures.

Can you believe these colors?
So we found this abuelita and I was like I would love to stay here with you forever but I am starting to hear bells jingling and she was like “Uy señorita that always happens to the gringos that come up here. It’s called SOROCHE but I guess you don’t know what that is.” Even though I felt like this

I gotta say I was not amused at all with that comment. So I said: “But señora this is MY country I am Ecuatoria…. cough cough cough….second lung collapsed and my amigas were like “Shame!”.  The señora told me to go eat some soup, drink a coke and then get the hell out of there because soroche (altitude sickness) is a bitch! On our way up we saw this cute niña with her donkey RUNNING up and down the mountain. Sí, running, while I was still looking for my lungs, because somebody stole them, because that’s the ONLY explanation to why I got soroche. Because YO SOY ECUATORIA…. cough cough cough.

Anyways, when in Quito come to the Quilotoa (and maybe bring some candy for the soroche with you). It’s a must. It’s breathtaking, it’s beautiful and it’s a once in a lifetime experience (for me quite literally ha!).