After my visit to the lovely floating islands in Peru, I took a flight to Quito via Lima. My friend Steve was visiting from London only for five days so, I decided to do whatever he wanted in the few days we had!

First couple of days were spent in Central Quito to allow him acclimatise then we headed to Pululahua Volcano. I didn’t know much about the location but it turned out to be a fantastic choice to spend a few days. Apparently the Pullulahua volcano is one of the two inhabited volcanic craters in the world and the only one that is farmed.

My contribution to the trip was the El Crater mountain lodge I found and it was perfect because it had spectacular views of the crater especially when the fog (not uncommon due to microclimate here) lifts.

Having dropped our bags in the lodge, we spent the afternoon of the first day visiting the nearby Mitta Del Mundo (Middle of the World) which marks the Ecuador line that divides northern and southern hemisphere of the earth. Well, almost literally, as it turns out the measurements taken during the construction were off by a few hundred feet.

Every official in the area is almost trained not to direct you to the exact location, which is a much smaller museum. In any case, it’s a fantastic memorial with lots of entertaining high school science experiments and amazing exhibition on the local cultures that lived in the area.

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Our next day, the New Year’s eve, started with entry into Pululahua reserve next to our lodge and a descent into the crater. Only about a mile but the descent was so steep we wondered how we would feel climbing back up. However, we were fast and decided that it would be easy as we were going to have an easy day. Little did we know that we would need the last bit of our energy on the way back!

Once inside the crater, that is home to large farms (including some very old ones), we thought we would climb couple of the marked hills. We asked around for maps but apparently one doesn’t exist. Luckily one hostel inside the crater had a framed map which looked like a Hike route map. We had no idea how old or accurate it was but I took a photo of it with my phone. Later in the day this photo of the map would become a treasure to us!

The first climb was through the El Chivo trail. The sign said 1 hour but we made it up in 40 minutes and, after enjoying the views for about 30 minutes, took 25 minutes to get down. This gave us the confidence to climb the much bigger hill which had 2 hour climb-up time on the sign. Before this second climb we stopped (rather, were stopped) to eat lunch at a local place.

The owner was insistent but the food looked decent so, we didn’t resist. I had delicious grilled fish and coca-cola. The other guests (a large ecuadorian/colombian family) were great lunch companions.

Having figured out that we had good time to climb-up and get down the big hill, we started the walk rather relaxed. But soon realised that there was in fact no path up, at least none that we could see. So, at first we walked back but there seemed to be no other way than the dirt road we were walking on. This road went around the hill and our rough map also indicated a long but clear path.

So, we decided that we still had enough day light ahead of us to make it around the mountain and hopefully find a path above it. My watch was measuring how far we walked, we we had no idea how much the actual distance ahead. Although we estimated it to be about 10 k so, we thought that we would walk fast and have no problems!

After a while we bumped into this American guy who was on horseback and had a dog. We chatted with him briefly. Apparently he was travelling for a few months only but decided to spend the last couple of years living in a farm in Ecuador. He was trying to get to the crater where he would camp overnight to celebrate the NY. He was crazy but hey, I’ve seen enough crazy in the past year! So we smiled and wished him good luck.

We were clearly so awed by this guy that we missed the very obvious right turn and just continued ahead, only to end up at a dead-end. First, we tried to find another path over the mountain but the terrain was getting rather dangerous and, with no camping equipment or food, it would be foolish to continue.

We decided that the safest thing was to return but then, we soon saw the right turn that we had just missed whilst talking to the guy.

Studying the photo of the map from on my phone and using my hand compass (a christmas gift from Steve to encourage me to use a manual one), we knew that this was bound to be the right way up. The only thing left was to keep an eye open for another right turn marked on the map. However a few kilo-meters of painful climb later we were at a dead-end again.

Now desperate, while Steve was studying the area I decided to walk back a few hundred meters to see if we missed a turn. Thankfully I did because I saw hidden path that we had just missed. My compass indicated that this path was heading in the direction we wanted to go so, we just pressed on. Soon we were climbing up through a very narrow path that was cut into the mountain side. We felt completely enclosed on both sides and I felt quite claustrophobic for some moments. Although we were both exhausted and could feel the effects of such fast climb in high altitude, we just wanted to climb out of this tunnel as soon as possible.

In any case, returning was out of question because our last few miles and the ascent back up would be in the dark and that was dangerous.

The path was long but we had successfully managed to pass over to the other side of the mountain and were once again on a clear path.

By the time we were at the botttom of the hill we climbed down this morning, it was already New Year in Istanbul with just one hour to go for the UK. We managed to climb up and returned just in time for the UK New Year. So happy we ordered a cool bottle of champagne which was well deserved.

Unfortunately I barely kept my eyes open past 10 pm local time but fell asleep super happy and content. I have this belief that the last hours of NY eve should be spent doing what I like to do in the New Year. So as far as this belief is concerned, the New Year shall be full of super tough but fun and rewarding activities and plenty of sleep. I would love that so, 2018, bring it on!!!