Feb 17th 2009 - A lovely place for a (skinny) dip

Firstly, I hate sunburn. Now that is done, onwards towards the actual day!

The bus ride to Quilotoa was quite hairy scary (for wont of a better phase) as the bus driver seemed to quite enjoy teetering as close the edge of the sheer drops as he possibly could. Luckily it must have been the Ecuadorian Stig behind the wheel as he navigated the terrible roads brilliantly. We arrived at Hostel Cabanas to find the most basic accommodation yet – there wasn’t even running water. But one look at the crater made any negative thoughts instantly float away…

The lake within the Quilotoa caldera was like the crater from ‘You Only Live Twice’ in my eyes. Simply stunning. We wandered across the top of the ridge before scaling down to the water edge. Maïté, Sally and I then tainted this beautiful lake forever by skinnydipping, which must have been distressing for the group and the Andes itself. To climb back up our of the crater we were given a horse to ride bareback (except for a rug) up the steep and rocky inclines. I named mine Mr Ben after my sisters old horse.

We played football in the afternoon, 6 vs 6 from the group plus some of the local kids, one was so good in defence for us I named in ‘Rock’. The game finished 5-5 and was a blast. Tea was awesome too, we were given popcorn as an appetiser and some of us Brits horrified the Danes by putting sugar on it), some lovely Shrek-coloured soup, mashed potato, broccoli, runner beans, fried banana and chicken with the skin on it (I had 6 people’s chicken skin) and dessert of cooked banana with honey and toffee. It certainly made up for the leaky roof and the powercut in the middle of one of games of ‘Asshole’ (the card game) which led to an impromptu Salsa practice for a few of us.