This weekend the summer interns + Carryn and Torie traveled to Quilotoa. This was our first travel weekend and it was quite an adventure. Im not sure about the other interns but I had never traveled on busses with backpacks like that, but thanks to our great leaders, we made it to Quilotoa without a hitch.
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| The whole group including trip leaders Carryn and Torie |
After a 4 hour trip on 3 different busses we checked in to our "hostal." The rooms were great and thankfully had a small oven to keep our rooms warm. I definitely underestimated how cold it would actually be, but at an altitude of 12,841 feet I guess the cold makes sense. After having some lunch we prepared for our hike down the crater. I had seen the crater in pictures but once we finally made our way to the edge of the crater, I was blown away--it was stunning! The hike down the crater took us about 45 min, but the real beast was going back up. There were donkeys available to take us back up; however, we were determined (some more than others) to hike back up. After about an 1 hour and a half and many water breaks we made it to the top, exhausted and out of breathe.
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| Laguna Quilotoa in all its glory |
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| PD Torie and intern Sophie enjoying the view |
The next day we woke up at 5:30 am to watch the sunrise. We were a little disappointed that it was too cloudy to see the sunrise, but it was still beautiful! The rest of the morning we took a guided hike to see an Incan cave. The hike lasted about 3 hours and was much tougher than we were told, nevertheless we all felt very accomplished after we finished.
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| The group on their Sunday hike to nearby caves |
Four of the six interns were also sick at one point during the trip but all in all it was a great weekend at Quilotoa!
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