From Singapore to Santiago: Adventures with the Ecuadorian milk industry

We have just finished our final few days in Ecuador in true style – walking the Quilotoa Loop. The loop is essentially a collection of remote, uncommercialised villages in central Ecuador that can be reached by a challenging hike or via unpaved roads on unreliable public transport. Fun!

We set off on a rather packed bus (humans and live chickens) to Chugchillan, our first destination. From there we rode on the back of a truck to Quilotoa, the site of a beautiful lake in a volcano crater, and started an 11km walk back to Chugchillan. In an effort to ‘encourage’ visitors to hire a guide, the locals have removed all signs that offer directions. Although guide-less, we decided to be confident in the random scrawling on a rather vague map we’d been given. The map included helpful phrases such as “At the sandy outlook turn left, you can’t miss it” or “follow the path to the right after walking for ten minutes”. Unfortunately, there were many paths on the right and lots of sandy outlooks that turned out to be very easy to miss!

After a few wrong turns, we made it to a village where we hoped to buy lunch. We saw what we wrongly assumed was a lunch establishment. The signs were all promising: people eating at tables, large pots of rice and salad on the table, etc etc. But as we walked into the building, all conversation suddenly stopped and instead there was a hugely awkward silence. When asking if we could buy food, we were met with a decisive “no”. It turns out we had walked in on an official meeting of some kind. Oops. We moved on to the only other food option in the village, where they told us we could have a plate of hot chips for 50c. Unfortunately the chips were cold; the ‘hot’ bit came courtesy of a fried egg perched on top. Not ideal, but it gave us enough energy to make it the final 6.6km back home.

The following day we walked 14km with two Swiss friends and three hungry dogs to a tiny town called Isvilini. We stayed at a great hostel where we relaxed in hammocks, ate great food and played some epic games of Bananagrams (we reckon we've found a word game that trumps boggle!).

On the final day we needed to somehow get back to the city where we started the loop. We heard there was a milk truck going in the right direction, so we decided to try and catch that. It sounded ideal in concept – surely it would be 45 minutes on a large, slightly cooled milk truck with complimentary chocolate milks at our leisure. What came to pick us up was instead a very small, very dusty ute, with an open back for people to stand in and severely lacking in complimentary milk, cooling and general safety standards. There were ten of us crammed in the back tray, and while the first few people were lucky enough to get seats on rice bags and milk barrels, the rest of us hung on to rails that were missing bolts in what appeared to be essential places. While we thought we were on the milk delivery truck, it soon became apparent that we were on the milk collection truck. So we stopped at around 10 farms, where a lady from the truck would sprint off, get a bucket of fresh milk from the farmer, and then come and pour it into our barrel. Not content to just collect our money, the driver ensured we were kept busy by pushing the truck when it broke down on hills, pouring milk and lifting a small child off the truck. The quoted 45 minutes turned into an incredibly dusty 2.5 hours. It was a great adventure though, with the added bonus of having my dust-laden beard no longer appearing ginger for the first time in a month.

The trip was a great finale to complement the rest of our time in Ecuador - the relaxing in Baños and the crazy-mazingness of Galapagos. For a country we hadn't originally planned on visiting, it has been an absolute blast!