We flew back to Quito and started to go south in the direction of the Laguna Quilotoa which is a lake inside a caldera. On the drive, we realized for the first time how hard life is for the Equadorians. Having only been in the bubbles of downtown Quito and the Galápagos islands, this was quite a shock.
The travel to the crater was not as straight forward as we had planned, but several coincidences later, we indeed arrived in the town Quilotoa. We stayed with a nice indigenous familiy which among each other spoke their native language, Quichua (similar but distinct from Peru´s Quechua) — somewhat resembling Polish for our ears.
After lightning the stove in our room, the kids just didn´t manage to leave, as it turned out bit by bit, they had brought their homework with them… So we ended up doing calculus and English with them 🙂
Philipp doing homework with two local kids
The next day, we walked once around the caldera — wounderful and silent, always the lake at one side and the wide landscape of the andes on the other.
That afternoon, we took the bus back to Latacunga. It was Saturday, neither many people in the bus nor on the road: perfect time for the bus driver´s 16 year old son to learn his fathers trade! “First gear, accelerate, now the clutch — no, that one is the brake…..” and off we went.