Mule Train! Quilatoa Edition

Why am I on the back of a mule at the bottom of a trail to a lake in a caldera of an active volcano?

Bad vacation choices that actually worked out well. And this features a mule fight. With me on the back of one of the combatants. All this and more in this Ecuador edition of the vacation blog.

We motored over to from the Shalala viewpoint to the trailhead, where you can walk the 1.7km trail (about 1.1 miles) down to the shore of the lake in the caldera of the active volcano Quilotoa.

Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time.

Perhaps the steepness of the 1.1 mile descent is more visible in this shot:

Plenty of people were walking down and, this is the surprising part, walking up on their own volition. Surely someone in the flower of their youth, in such awe-inspiring physical shape as me, could handle this trail.

Off we go. Or, to be more precise, down we go.

It was early on that I started seeing the mules. Usually empty going down, always with a rider on the ascent.

Should have been a clue.

Lots of dogs on the trail. Some stray. Some family pets out on an outing.

Lunch break for some mules, with others are still on the clock:

This is the pen near the base where you can hire a mule for $10 for the ascent. At this point in the walk, I was seriously thinking that a mule ride would be my only option for making it back out of the trail alive.

And finally I arrived at the destination, the shore of the beautiful blue-green lake in the caldera of Quilatoa, an active volcano.

It is active in the sense that gas bubbles up from the bottom regularly. Anyway, for those who have not gotten enough physical activity, there is kayaking available on the lake. I passed.

Actually, despite the elevation being over 12,000 feet, which is not an elevation at which humans live in North America, my heart and lungs were perfectly OK. I was not in the least but winded. My heart was not pumping any more than normal. It was that my legs were complete jello. And not one of those good flavors. One of the nasty flavors. Red. Which you aren't sure if it is strawberry or cherry or raspberry because it doesn't taste like any flavor. It tastes red.

That was the condition of my legs. And even though I had only been on horseback once in my life, and never on the back of a mule, I knew there was no other option.

My only option was Norm The Mule.

Now, I seriously doubt his actual name was "Norman," He may not have even had a formal name. But he looked strong. Mules are known for having very even, even mellow, temperaments. And he actually obeyed my gentle commands, in that he would stop or start when I gently tapped him on the neck.

As you can tell, I am not looking entirely comfortable here. I was not born to ride a mule. How I even got my extremely exhausted right leg swung over the saddle to get on board is, without a doubt, a vacation miracle.

And now, it begins. The Mule Train.

There were four of us from the tour who opted to ride the mules out. The other three opted to walked out, as did the guide. The first one got way ahead of us, so the other three of us were a mule train. I was in the back.

Because I was hanging on for dear life the entire time, I have no pictures of the ride up. It was eventful. Very eventful. And one of us in the mule train ended up on the ground, tossed from their mule. Shockingly, it wasn't me.

The front two mules in our little mule train did not want my mule to get ahead. The middle mule kept looking back at Norm The Mule and shooting him dirty looks. One time he lunged at Norm The Mule when he was trying to pass and Norm backed off. As I said, nice, even temperament on my mule.

Then, about three-quarters of the way up, the middle mule turned around and started to attack my mule. Norm just backed up, rather quickly and jerkily, but definitely playing defense and not offense, and I went wobbly, nearly falling off. Well, the guy on Mule #2 was not so lucky. He hit the ground. Luckily, he was not hurt. The guide said that he had never seen anything like that in the years of doing this tour.

A first! Anyway, here is Norm The Mule at the top of the trail. I never would have made it out alive without him.

Then it was time for a late lunch at the Chukirawa, which is named for a flowering plant whose flowers are steeped into a tea that you can drink for good prostate health.

After a late lunch of beef, potatoes in a cilantro sauce (the potatoes were excellent, by the way, very buttery tasting even though there was no butter), and rice. Ecuadorians love their starches. In other words, Quito is not keto. (It makes sense if you sound it out.)