Will the bus come?

There I was sitting on the side of a lonely road at Quilotoa at 3800 m waiting for a bus that never came. 

In the morning we visited a bustling market of the indigenous people. I tried some good looking soup of 'meat and corn'. Turned out out to be inards such as heart and lungs and the family next to us on the table took happily the left overs when it all was a little much for me.

Futher along the way we visited with a family of indigenous people who lived happily with a bunch of gineau pigs in some sort of mud covered yurt. The landscape around the Quilotoa volcano is like nothing I have seen before. First it is so high up you can touch the clouds, it is bare like the moon but also intensely farmed land and full of people as the soil is so rich from the volcanic ash. 

After another hour of spectacuar scenery we arrived at Quilotoa crater. A blue hole in moon. We hiked all the way down into the crater, a very steep and muddy track.  

The water still bubbles in places but one could swim in it if 10 degrees is not too cold. Then I invested the best $8 dollars in my life. I took a mule to go back up to the rim instead of hiking. I felt sorry for the rather skinny and boney looking creature I was sitting on the entire way.  At one point it was so steep I thought now the horse will die right under me.  But I felt evey more sorry for the folks hiking back up a brutal 350 m, they did not look so good when they came in 30

min later.

After lunch I said goodbye to my group and found myself at this godforsaken road to bloody nowhere waiting for the bus. 

And then somebody sent me an Irishman and an Uruguayan going to Chugchilan as well. After 45 min a truck arrived out of nowhere going in the wrong direction but my new Uruguayan friend negotiated a trip for all of us to Chugchilan for $10 dollars. 

After 23 muddy and rainy and bumpy kilometers sitting on the back of truck and nearly hitting the only oncoming traffic there was we arrived at our Guesthouse the Cloud Forest. My Uruguayan friend again negotiated for me a large room for $15 dollars including dinner and breakfast. They put on a fire, served a nice dinner and met a 19 year old German guy who lived in the town for 5 months teaching children English.