#chugchilan

[carrera-artes-visuales-quit-blog]

Contacto Chugchilan 2019

Fotografía de nuestro profesor Diego Arias

[halenabohs]

Quilotoa Loop day 3 - Chugchilán to Quilotoa

[dancolorec]

Chugchilán

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[halenabohs]

Quilotoa Loop days 2 & 3 - Isinlivi to Chugchilán to Quilotoa

We finished the Quilotoa Loop today. As I said to Sierra, I have never been more happy to be done with something, but I have also never been move happy that I did something. We are absolutely exhausted. We covered 36km (~22 miles) of mountainous terrain, all above 9,000 feet, in three days. We were lucky to meet two brits near the end of our first day, Ben and Claire, and we hiked with them all day day and yesterday. They are 31 and 24, respectively, and they were the best trail companions we possibly could have asked for. Talkative, kind, patient, and hilarious. Day 2 was fairly manageable. Like our first day on the trail, the majority of the hike was flat, downhill, or small inclines until near the end, when we had an agonizing climb up a thin dirt path. We reached the Cloud Forest Hostal in the early afternoon and laid comatose in our beds for most of the time before dinner. The hike was beautiful, with the best part being sitting on the edge of a cliff looking out over a valley feeling absolutely at peace with everything. It was a more interesting day than I have let on here, but it already feels like it was ages ago, so I'm moving on to today... Day 3 was by far the most difficult day, but also the most rewarding. After a few km of comfortable downhill through farmland ("farmland" does not mean flat!! People plant corn on cliffs here!!), we started our climb, first up a dirt road, and then onto increasingly smaller paths through a few villages but mainly in rural areas. The altitude hit me especially badly today, and I spent a lot of the uphill feeling like I just could not stop panting. My legs were also totally worn out from our previous two days of hiking and hills, and I am sunburnt and dehydrated (it has been almost impossible to avoid both of those things). I feel so lucky that Sierra is in tune with my physical fitness level (not great) and my tiredness, and has been more than willing to be patient, accommodating, and encouraging throughout our trek. We travel well together, and I feel excited and blessed to be spending my time with her. With only 3km left to reach the lake, we got pretty far off the trail and had a poor idea of where we were supposed to be. A farmer kindly led us about a km back to the trail we were supposed to be on, and we headed up a steep dirt road, motivated by Ben's portable speaker blasting music and the knowledge that our destination was at the top. The experience of walking over that ridge is indescribable. La Laguna Quilotoa is a crater lake, a massive body of clear water that rests in the crater of an ancient volcano. Pictures will not do it justice, but I'll post them anyway. Words will not do it justice, so I will just say that it is beautiful, unbelievable, astounding, incredible, and all the other adjectives of that nature that I could list. Our last test of the day was an unexpected one - as we attempted to reach the town of Quilotoa, about 1/4 of the way around the crater, we took a wrong turn and ended up on a tiny trail with precipitous drop offs down the crater edge to the lake, probably 300-400 feet below. This detour added a solid hour and a lot of extra hills to our journey, and the end of a day which had already completely exhausted us. Finally, after an 8:30am start, we reached out destination a bit after 4 in the afternoon. We ate ravenously and we're lucky to get offered a ride back to Latacunga (~70km away) by an American who happened to have a extended cab truck! We're back at the hostel now regrouping, I treated myself to pizza for dinner, and we cannot wait to go to bed! Overall, the most excellent, difficult, and rewarding adventure.

[romdesnich-blog]

La Laguna de Quilotoa part.2 : les enfants de la mission Chrétienne de Chugchilan. Equateur, avril 2016 Aussitôt arrivé à mon auberge, Armando, un américain de Caroline du Nord, la soixantaine passée, me tombe dessus. On parle de mon voyage puis de sa venue ici, il me dit qu’il est là avec sa femme et des ami(e)s car ils appartiennent à un organisme chrétien qui aide des missions chrétiennes un peu partout dans le monde. En sommes, tous les six mois depuis quelques années, ils viennent ici une semaine pour aider une mission locale de Quito (la capitale). Bon ok, c’est cool, mais moi j’m’en tape pas mal. Moi et la religion… Il me dit qu’à 15h ils seront avec des enfants du village, que je suis le bienvenue. Je me dis toujours que je n’en ai pas grand-chose à faire mais rencontrer des marmots du coin me botte. Puis faut dire ce qui est : Armando est très sympa, malgré qu’il soit louche à me rabâcher que Dieu l’a sauvé. Aller BANCO. 15h, je sors mes deux fesses de mon hamac et file à la « paroisse », genre de maison abandonnée où les enceintes crachent des chansons rock religieuses à donf. Désagréable. Là quelques gosses sont sagement assis sur des chaises, Armando me présente à ses compères, tous bien cools, arborant des t shirts « I Love My Church ». J’me dis que je dois absolument éviter les mots « arme à feu », « donald trump », et surtout « mariage gay »… je m’imagine des chrétiens extrémistes américains, fervents conservateurs, … ce genre de gonz qui font des manifestations devant les concerts de Foo Fighters et que Dave Grohl humilie avec génie. Et bien je suis un vrai con, je me trompe lourdement, on parle de tout, je me rends compte que ces mecs-là sont ouverts, intelligents, avec des vrais arguments, bref des gars vraiment adorables qui veulent faire le bien, à leur manière quoi. On attend que plus de mioches se pointent alors on sort un ballon, je joue dehors une heure avec eux. Un gnome : Antonio, six ans, se lie d’amitié avec moi. Dès que le « catéchisme » commence, il se pose à côté de moi et me prend le bras. Là des gamins débarquent d’un peu partout, il y en a 20/25 au total je dirais. Le cours est fun, c’est l’arche de Noé aujourd’hui. Antonio joue l’éléphant, moi l’hippopotame… s’en suit du coloriage, un film, tout ça. Les gosses ont l’air heureux, c’est ludique, même si le fond me touche pas j’avoue que je passe un très bon moment. Armando et sa bande sont contents que je sois là, il m’offre de diner avec eux et les missionnaires de Quito. En attendant je joue dehors avec les mioches, Antonio est toujours collé à moi, petit gars adorable. Tous ces gosses sont issus de familles pauvres, certains n’ont même pas de famille. La mission les occupe un moment et leur offre à manger. On dine, c’est super bon, les bénévoles de la mission locale sont tous content de m’avoir, je continue à peaufiner mon espagnol. Et en sortant je me rends compte que les gamins ont disparus, rentrés… je suis déçu de n’avoir pas dit au revoir à Antonio. Puis un peu plus loin dans la rue, le petit bout m’attend sagement, il me prend la main et me dit qu’il me raccompagne à mon hôtel, suite à quoi il fait un câlin et s’en va, seul, à 6 ans dans le noir de la nuit sur le chemin de sa maison… Bout de choux !

[sudam2015]

[journeyoftanda]

The second day we hiked to a cloud forest and up a mountain. It was, however, the clearest day in weeks... so, no clouds in the cloud forest, but we were able to see some beautiful volcanoes in the distance. These are called Illinizas. The one without snow is the remnants of the old volcano and the higher snowy peak is a growing volcano. The next day on the drive out we were able to see the much larger Cotopaxi. 

Also: "Man with sheep"

[journeyoftanda]

We went up to a place called Quilotoa high in the Andes. The highlight is a lake at the top of what used to be a volcano. The first day there we got dropped off at the lake and hiked back to our hotel 10km away. It seemed short enough but that altitude and steepness made it pretty strenuous!

The other pics are: our nook in the "bunkhouse", and while doing yoga the hotel cat decided my back looked comfy! A llama face.