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Published: June 30th 2008
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Cotopaxi
The beautiful Cotopaxi volcano as seen from the Secret Garden Cotopaxi hostal hola everyone!
we´ve finally arrived in banos after a great few days in cotopaxi. the area around where we were staying in cotopaxi is one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen. the hostel was in a valley surrounded by 7 or so volcanoes (don´t worry though.. only one is active). the active one, cotopaxi, is of course the one that we did some hiking on. cotopaxi is arguably the highest active volcano in the world. i say arguably because some charts have it as one, others have it at two or three. regardless, the volcano is really high. the hostel we stayed at was somewhere around 3,500m. from there we took a day trip up to the volcano and started hiking at around 4,500m. we hiked up to the refuge (where crazy people climbing to the top spend time to acclimatize) and then we hiked up to the base of the glacier at around 5,000m. To put this all in perspective, the highest point in the lower 48 is about 4,440m and the highest point in europe is 4,800m and charming little blacksburg sits at a whopping 634m. so we were high.. really high. when we pulled
Brrrrr!
Taking a break in a crevice in the glacier up to start our hike, we saw where we were going and thought it would be an easy 20 min walk. we severely under estimated how hard it would be to hike in air that thin. we literally took baby steps the whole way, and had to stop to catch our breath every 10 steps or so. and this was after 2 days of being at altitude and it was still so hard!
but the views we got were amazing. we could see for miles from the volcano, and it was really neat just playing around on the glacier. along the way we met several groups of people climbing all the way to the summitt.. which is an additional 6 hours or so climb from where we got to. most people climb it overnight so the snow stays hard. its supposed to be an éasier climb´ but it still looks really tough.
our other days there were spent hiking in nearby streams, doing a little mountain biking, and relaxing by the fire enjoying the view of the andes. we also spent time playing with the two dogs that live there- a 2 year old weiner dog, and a
few month old dalmation puppy who is extremely cute. we´ve got some good pictures on the disposable so hopefully they will come out and we can show them off.
this morning we got up and headed off to banos. we caught a cab from our hostel in cotopaxi to the nearest town of machachi, which is about an hour away. from there we hailed a bus along the highway and managed to get ourselves 2 hours down the road to the city of ambato. we were under the impression that the bus was going all the way to banos, but turns out it wasn´t. so we were dropped off at the bus station in ambato, only to find out that buses to banos don´t leave from there. we managed to find a cab to take us to the other bus area, a 10 min drive, and as we pulled up we were literally pulled from the cab, our bags thrown onto a bus following us, and the bus pulled a way. although a bit hectic, it was really convenient and we didn´t even have time to get confused.
about an hour later the bus pulled into banos and
Trying to breathe..
... did we mention it was close to impossible to do so?! we managed to find our way to the hostel. to put it simply, this town is beautiful! it is surrounded by huge green mountains. the mountains on one side of the town have alpine trees and farms and look very andean. the mountains on the other side of town look much more like jungle, with long, sweeping, green vegetation and a huge waterfall. at only 1800m now, we´re getting close to the amazon and are thinking of taking a day trip out there (about 2 hours from here). tomorrow morning we´re going to head up to the rooftop of our hostel where they apparently serve world famous pancakes with fruit, and walk around checking out different tour operators. theres also a few hikes we might do, and we are obviously going to hit up the thermal springs this town is famous for. there is a decently active volcano that watches over the town, and on clear nights its possible to see the lava spewing in the distance. it was cloudy earlier but maybe we will get lucky enough to see it tonight.
that´s it for now.. i think we´re going to head back up to the roof for a
Ahh the hailstorm
Taking cover under a tree... little bit and then off to bed.
goodnight!
ryan and mindy
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