Chimborazo Hike

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This morning when we woke up one of the four guys in our group was feeling sick. He decided he wanted to go to the hospital and so went back to Riobamba. We later found out that he went back to Quito and then home because he felt that he didn’t trust the accuracy of the malaria tests in the hospitals in Quito. He had been travelling in Ecuador prior to our trip and had been in places that had malaria and wasn’t taking any medication. We never heard anything about him so we assumed he ended up being alright. Despite that setback this morning we all had a good breakfast and then took a bus a mile or two to a lodge directly at the base of Chimborazo where we would start our hike. We were hiking up to 4600 m (15 100 ft) to cave where the locals brought offerings to an altar in the cave. Apparently there wasn’t anything in the cave, and it was just a cave. When we started out there was fog everywhere and you couldn’t see very far ahead of you. We would all take about ten steps and then rest. We all went very slowly. The whole hike was about 14 km. Everyone was exhausted. It was very gentle at first but then it began getting rocky and very steep. A few of the group had stayed back at the lodge and didn’t go on the hike. Along the way we ran into a herd of alpaca which are like llama. At about half way there a few of us decided to go back to lodge. We went back and had lunch. The lodge was really nice and it had a few beds for those who wanted to sleep. About six hours after we had started the hike the rest of the group got back. They all were very tired. They had lunch and we all go on the bus to go to Riobamba where we stayed overnight at a hotel.

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Photos

Getting Ride to Hike
Me, Brittany and Kayla

Water
Adam crawling to the top.