Ecuador: Quilotoa Loop

In addition to the cities, we wanted to get a sense of the rural and wilderness areas of this fascinating country. While we were in Baños, I read about a popular three-day hike called the Quilotoa Loop (which is only a "loop" because of bus rides at either end). The route was only 25 miles long but it took us from an elevation of 9,265 feet to 12,700 feet, which was high enough to cause us some shortness of breath, fatigue, and sometimes some mild dizziness.

Starting out in Sigchos, we found out quickly that some of the trails were very difficult to follow, even with GPS maps. We ended up adding significant mileage to each day as a result of missed turns. Fortunately, we were able to travel light and didn't have to pack tents, sleeping bags, or cookware. There were nice hostels at Isinliví and Chugchilán that also served us a (vegan!) breakfast and dinner, all for around $16/person.

On our final day, a very sweet stray dog "adopted" us and hiked all the way to our final destination at Quilotoa Lake. We were worried that he was becoming too attached to us but once we got into the little lakeside town, he happily wandered off with some other dogs. The lake itself was quite remarkable, and similar in origin to our very own Crater Lake in Oregon.

This was a great finale to our trip.

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Photos: More Olympus e500.

Ecuador: Cities and Towns

Joanna and I spent twelve days in Ecuador for our honeymoon. Neither of us had traveled abroad in almost ten years and it was our first time in South America. We visited Quito, Baños, Latacunga, Sigchos, Isinliví, Chugchilán, and Quilotoa (the last four being on a multi-day hike -- I will have a separate post about that). Most of the people that we met didn't speak any English, and we had very little Spanish. But between an app, a phrase book and some creative gesturing, we made it work. We traveled mostly by bus and made up our plans as we went.

Eating vegan was tough! However, the fresh fruit and fruit juices were the best we'd ever had, anywhere.

In this post, I'll share some of my photos from the cities and towns we visited. In the next post, I'll share photos of the rural and wilderness areas that we hiked through on the Quilotoa Loop.

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Photography: I brought my Olympus e500 from 2005. I enjoy the challenge of working within the limitations of older CCD cameras (this one has a genuine Kodak-made sensor) and their unique color rendering. The 8MP resolution is low enough that the images can't really be cropped/reframed much, and the sluggish buffer rate forced me to slow things down. In those ways, it was a lot like shooting film. For this set, I challenged myself to keep the original 4:3 aspect ratio of each photo, even though it feels a bit wierd not be in 3:2.

Hannigan Pass to Hannigan Peak & Whatcom Pass

Coming off of literally the worst week of my professional life, I spent three days backpacking in North Cascades with Joanna over Labor Day weekend. I'd been to Whatcom Pass in 2015 with my cousin but it was socked in with fog and raining almost the entire time. We played cards our tent and waited for it to clear -- it never did. This time around, we got a better look at the area. This is probably my favorite hiking area in the Pacific Northwest and exactly where I needed to be to begin clearing my head.

I've since had some post-surgery pain crop up that likely signals the end of this very short hiking year for me. It's a good reminder not to take a single summer weekend of good health and mobility for granted.

Photos captured with Kodak Portra 400 film.