So from Quito we headed a little further down south in Ecuador to an area called the Quilotoa Loop to embark on an adventure which we had no idea all that it would entail. We met a girl at our hostel in Quito named Bea (pronounced Bayuh...but she goes by 'B') who we actually ended up traveling with for several weeks and definitely added a lot to these days (especially a lot of laughter). So to get an idea of who Bea is, just picture... 38 year old woman from Texas whose mother is from Mexico, whose father is a Native American man, she spent many years in the Marines, and now works in a job where she can't tell us exactly what she does but for it she travels to a lot of other countries that I can't imagine ever going to. She is HI-larious with the random one-liners I have no idea how she comes up with, she LOVES to laugh and partake in any sort of adventure, she's SUPER intense, blunt, would often have us doing crazy Marine workouts or yoga in the morning, and (to our benefit) is pretty stinking demanding with people- hostels, bus companies, restaurants...all of it. So on our bus ride down from Quito to the Quilotoa area (just to try and give you a visual of Bea in action) Audrey and I were sitting in the row in front of her and she was sitting by herself in the row behind us (with her usual quite a bit of luggage next to her). At one point I turned around to talk to her and noticed the guy in the seat behind her was creepily peering over her seat and checking out all of her stuff. I just non-chalantly warned her that he was there, was looking kind of creepy, and just to keep an eye out. Well...in full out Bea style, she waits two seconds, turns around, and in perfect Spanish (oh yea...since her mom is from Mexico and they live in Texas, she is completely fluent in Spanish- not bad to have around:) she informs the creeper, 'don't even think about it or I will poke your eyes out' and sits back down. Doo-do-doo. Haha. He sat back and kept to himself after that. That is Bea.
 |
| this is Bea. :) |
SO...the Quilotoa Loop is a several day hiking path in the middle of beautiful nowhere where you walk from one town and hope to get to the next town on the loop by dark. The 'towns' are tiny- like usually literally just a couple of streets- but there is usually hostel or two in each town where the hikers can stay. Well, the biggest town (it's all relative) is Latacunga, and a lot of people use that as their launching ground, but if you stay there before you begin the trek, then the morning you start you have to take a bus out to the Quilotoa laguna where you start. Bea had heard about this cool little hostel that was in a tiny town, Tigua, a little closer to the start so we could begin our first day and just hike to the Quilotoa laguna ourselves. So...we decided to go with that plan. We arrived in Latacunga and quickly found a bus that went directly to Tigua. As we were on the bus, with ALL locals...who were looking at us pretty perplexed as if to say, 'what are you doing here and where in the world could you be going?'...the wingman asked us where we were going. Bea told him Tigua and said the name of the hostel and the wingman seemed to recognize it and said he would tell us where to get off. Ok. Well, after about an hour and a half the bus stops and the wing man starts yelling from the front that this is us! Time to get off. So, it had gotten dark outside...I mean like, middle of nowhere with no towns around kind of pitch black dark..so we have NO idea where we are or what's around or what we're getting into. Except that EVERYone on the bus was telling us this can't be it! This cant be where you are wanting to go! Dooooooon't get off the bus! The wingman had unloaded all of our stuff from the bus and Audrey and I stood right by the door of the bus so it wouldn't leave yet while Bea went to the nearest lit up structure we saw (really the ONLY light!) and peered in to find what she described to be a tiny one room house with the kitchen and living room in the same room, just dirt and straw as the floor, and people lying sporadically throughout the room. We knew we were in the middle of Ecuador in a pretty basic area but we weren't quite prepared for this! So in the meantime, as Bea was off scoping out this 'town,' the passengers on the bus were legitimately worried for us and now had their heads poking out the windows of the bus telling us not to get off here! It's not safe here! Bea came running back ready to jump back on the bus with what she had found, and Audrey and I were ready to jump back on with what everyone on the bus was telling us. The wingman was annoyed, but back on the bus we went. Twenty minutes later the wingman told us THIS is where we wanted to go..the 'center' of Tigua and everyone on the bus agreed, so we gladly hopped off the bus with no doubts, everyone seemed in agreement here. Until the bus pulled away. The three of us were standing there, holding all of our stuff, on the side of this road we could no longer see, in the middle of who knows where, in the pitch. black. dark. andwe did not see a town. We could make out about three or four buildings...and no lights on in any of them. Oh. My. Goodness. We went through our usual coping ritual...we freaked out for a second, then all started laughing really hard, then started talking seriously about what to do. We relocated ourselves and our stuff up the hill a little bit closer to the 'town' so Audrey and I could stay with the stuff while Bea scoped things out nearby trying to find a person. A man came out, obviously, to scope out these new arrivals to his town and when we asked him about the hostel he said he knew the man who owned it, he lives about 20 meters up the hill, and sent his son to go get him. Well, the owner of the hostel pretty quickly came down to talk to us, and informed us that the hostel no longer exists. It got shut down. He explained all about why it was shut down...and we were left pretty perplexed. Mmmm...hmm...that's interesting. We started asking him some questions (letting Bea do most of the talking since her Spanish sounded much better than ours and when we felt like were in a slightly vulnerable situation it seemed to give us a little advantage to make it seem like we were real, fluent Spanish speakers...we couldn't be tricked or taken advantage of QUITE so easily). So..Are there any other hostels or anything in this town? He kind of laughed. No. Do any more buses run by here at this time going to another bigger town with hostels? No. Oooh, ok...well because we were planning on staying at YOUR hostel, but....yea. He was understanding our predicament and was super nice about it. He called a few people to try and see what he could do, and finally came to the conclusion that if we wanted to....the three of us could stay at his house for the night with him and his family. By now his grown daughter had joined us and they were assuring us they had a bed that was HUGE- 'definitely big enough for all three of us'- her and her mom could get it all ready for us, and it wouldn't be a problem for us to stay there. We all looked at each other for a second and quickly concluded- we really don't have any other options! So we did.
 |
| slightly unsure of what just happened... |
Oh my goodness! They were SO nice and hospitable...it was incredible. It was just an absolutely bizarre experience. So we got to see the next morning that this 'town,' Tigua, really was just a few houses...but their house was like a Tigua mansion! (at least the part we were staying in...the part they lived in was more like what Bea had seen in the previous 'town.') It was a serious structure with two stories even! (Turns out the hostel owner man is also a world traveled painter..he even had an art gallery right next to the used to be hostel).
They showed us up to the two room second floor of the house where we would be staying and it was like...a typical grandparents house. Old and musty, funny smells, random posters and pictures everywhere, amazing little family heirlooms and memorabilia...amazing! We all stood around in this room for awhile and talked some more, the daughter and wife prepared our bed for us, and we eventually said goodnight. As soon as they walked out (after giving them a few seconds to walk away) we just burst out laughing! Being there in that moment...was surreal! We were transported into another world...their world! It was so bizarre but pretty cool.
 |
| oooh, the randomness... |
 |
| we ended up embracing the entire situation. :) |
After wandering around the room and taking in all the 'decor' and laughing about the last hour, we donned our new warm gear we purchased in Quito for the cold climate we heard was the Quiltoa area, and crammed into the 'HUGE bed that would easily fit all three of us' which ended up being a full-sized bed that we were all very thankful for and kept us all very warm:)
 |
| the HUGE bed the three of us slept in. |
The next morning we were up and getting dressed and they knocked on our door letting us know they had made hot water for us and it was in a pot outside the door for us to wash up with! Amazing. We washed up with the pot of hot water (they didn't have plumbing or running water or anything), gathered our stuff, and headed down to say goodbye...and they let us know they had breakfast for us! We had some amazing homemade lemon tea and a delicious breakfast with them. After breakfast we visited his art gallery and then waited on the side of the road for the bus to come and take us back to regroup in Latacunga, the larger town where we should have just started in the first place:)
After our bizarre adventure to Tigua, we ended up just staying in Latacunga for a couple of days, it ended up being quite the little town! We enjoyed this ridiculous town parade and party where they were celebrating the recent election of their new mayor.
There was lots of random fire, bizarre musicians and dancers performing up on a stage, speeches, cheering, and even different free samples of drinks and food typical for that area!
For some reason the crowd was super dead (besides the random cheers for different parts of speeches), and they weren't getting into the music or the dancing...so the three of us were awkwardly the only ones going crazy and dancing it out..(to the serious embarrassment of the really nice, shy, local guy that worked at the hostel that insisted, along with the other hostel workers, that he needed to accompany us to this town party for our safety) THEN, this great group of really normal, friendly, local 20 somethings came along and joined us! We all bonded immediately and just enjoyed being totally random and dancing for the next couple of hours. Definitely one of our most memorable nights. I can still see Bea in the middle of our random dance circle dancing it up Bea style:) Girl could dance.
