So we went down to Quilotoa crater lake and gawped and whispered and bathed deep in nature's magnificence; and then we climbed back up.
Later, we slept - very cold at 4000m, with sputtering stove.
There were no buses back towards the big road which takes one down through the mountains to the big towns. (There were not even any buses to the smaller roads, the give-you-jaw-ache roads, which take one, doubtlessly, to more little villages like Quilotoa, where there are many children who shout and dogs who bark and people who smile; to put it concisely, there were no buses at all.)
So we began to walk back towards Zumbuhua, the nearest village, 13km away. Pack-laden, it was going to be a hard trek, but the distant, ice-speckled ridge to our left was more than enough to keep spirits up for the thirty or so seconds it took for a truck driving past to offer us a lift ($2 each).
When we were bear-tracking, we would get a lift most mornings on the milk-truck, bumbling along on the rounds, waving at all sentient beings we passed, stood-up and holding tight to the central rail as more and more people jumped aboard amid the clanging canisters. We must have caught almost a hundred lifts on the back of trucks by now - and it remains fun every single time. There is no better way to see the country than speeding along, clinging to a wobbly post, hoping your arm doesn´t pop out of your shoulder socket.
The lift on the truck to Zumbuhua was a particularly special lift. Great green sudden thrusts of mountain pyramided up into the air all around. One peak - my favourite - looked exactly like a witch´s hat, kinked kookily at top and doughily crumpled at base. There were no clouds save thin, spiky ones hacking at hazy ridges in the far distance. It was perfectly clear above: pure deep blue with a white void of sun. And the road was smooth, well-maintained. A couple of locals hopped aboard and I attempted to keep my eyes open against the whipping, frigid wind. It was the best truck ride so far - though also the most expensive (Don Jose would charge us 25 cents for the lechero in Intag).
Zumbuhua Saturday market, just starting to get into full swing as we arrived, was a great deal more colourful than teeming Otavalo´s. Pink, red, and rainbow ponchos were particularly stinging on the eye - in contrast to the navy blue and white, plaited-pony-tailed and be-trilbied men and women of Otavalo market.
(A note on the trilby in Ecuador: a near-requisite for men over 40 and women over 25, before it appears most males gel their hair to a thick, oily slick - or wear a baseball cap. They are brown or green or sometimes dull black, and the most beautiful of females seem to spurn them. I want one, for mine - deep, dark blue - is on a bedroom shelf in England.)
The market took place on the main square, at the centre of which was a large rock, pasted with the plaza´s title. A badly-tuned radio blared out fuzzy Andean tunes across the whole village, but nobody seemed to mind. We wandered through the food-court section where perhaps twenty, perhaps fifty corrugated dogs scavenged beneath battered tables and benches. Trundling vendedors wound past - one selling light bulbs, the next plastic cups of red jelly festooned with a swirl of pink froth. Climbing the central rock, we watched a woman fry a truly enormous empanada while closer, leaning against our boulder, a group of identically-clad old men passed around shots of stinking purro. From the top of a nearby bus a sheep bleated over the hissing radio.
After savouring the sights, sounds and mostly smells of the market, we retired to a small park to sit and read - waiting for a bus back to the Panamericana. On the bench opposite, some small girls giggled as I tried to take a photo of them. Eventually, I managed to get a good shot of the tiniest one, later slung up and tied to the back of the tallest girl, wrapped into an oblong bundle using a yellow and black sheet.
While we sat and read, the girls slinked through some railings and played a game that involved bashing each other with sticks until someone fell over. When someone fell over - I suspect intentionally - they would be set upon by the three others and sat on and smashed some more with sticks; also, smothered in grass and leaves. It looked a good game. Back up at Quilotoa the day before, walking back from the lake, we had encountered a group of boys and a group of girls slinging huge clumps of mud at each other. As we passed, I watched a tiny chap, skittering away from the girls after a unstrategic assault, squeal with delight as a huge wodge of dirt disintegrated against his back.
And then we took a bus to Latacunga, another to Ambato, another to Banos (with he who sold the green-boxed Colon Cleanser).
In Banos, there were more great things. However, there were no DVDs as great as this one, found on the table of our hostel in Quilotoa.
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