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Cotopaxi
We were up at 5.30 am to get a lift from the guy at CarpeDM to Toffee Coffee where we would get the bus to Cotopaxi. It was really nice of him because he wasn’t going to New Town he was going to the airport but said he would give us a lift if we would get our pictures took in front of his CarpeDM van to go on his office wall which I thought was a good deal.
We arrived at Toffee Coffee had our free hot drink (voucher from CarpeDM) and watched the Netherland game (not Holland), at about 7.15am we set off to Hosteria Papagayo where we would pick some people up and our English speaking guide Archai or something like that.
After the Hosteria Papagayo 15 minute stop we got bacj in the bus (now with 15 mountain bikes attached to the roof) and headed to Cotopaxi. Archai told us about the history of Cotopaxi, the nature around the mountain and other information about the avenue of the volcanoes. We had a short stop to get water and food; we got a mini chocolate cake for energy and a 2 litre bottle of water. Then
we stopped again so people could get warm clothes most of the group got traditional woolly hats, I got some thick black gloves.
Just 1 more stop before the car park where we would start our climb and that was at an open, what looked like a renovated house which someone had painted a map of the avenue of the volcanoes on and put in a stuffed Condor (NOT IMPRESSED).
We left the museum (run down house) and it took about 45 minutes to get to the car park, Archai told the group if we wanted to go fast go with the native guide (which you now need to enter any national park in Ecuador, new law) so me, Hollie and 5 Americans set off with the native guide. About 10 minutes up a German girl got sick and dizzy and had to go back to the bus, quite a couple of the group felt sick during the accent.
It took us 45 minutes to get from the car park (4310 meters) to the refuge (4500 meters) which the native guide said was a very good time and kept saying I was well conditioned but I reckon we could have
done it quicker! I knew the faster you did the refuge climb the more chance you get of going to the glacier so I was happy when the native guide said we would definitely have enough time to reach the glacier.
Just before setting off to the glacier we were all given a free hot drink, me and hollie got hot chocolate because we had clicked on by now that Ecuador does the best hot chocolate in the world!
It took us about 30 minutes to get to the glacier (5000 meters) and we were now higher than any mountain in Europe but still not a smudge on the Himalayas. We took pictures, a small video and headed down, at that height your chest feels soo tight its kind of hard to breathe. When we got back to the refuge the native guide had prepared us all soup and a buffet of bread, ham, cheese, crackers, crisps and biscuits which was good as we were all starving from the climb.
We headed back to the car park after this, the guide running down which I wasn’t confident about doing. Archai then asked everyone if they would like to mountain bike
down from the car park to the lagoon at the bottom, me, a Chinese/American lad and an American girl said yes. The guy at CarpeDM had warned me about the bikes so I tested my bike thoroughly first bike was a duff no back brake which you kind of needed on this track.
Bearing in mind this was the first time I had downhilled and the first time I had been on a bike in 3 years I got quite far before I fell off and landed on my head, good job I was wearing a helmet or my overconfidence might have seriously hurt me. We completed the rest unhurt and met the bus at the lagoon where we put the bikes on the roof and returned to Hosteria Papagayo. Me and Hollie had decided not to go back to Quito and try and hitch a lift on a bus to Banos. We got a lift from Papagayo on the back of a pickup truck (average speed about 50 mph) to the tool booth which was interesting.
After 6 buses ignoring us the 7th stopped and charged us $3 to Banos, it took about 3 hours to Banos (which is
how they charge there fares in Ecuador a dollar per hour on the bus) when we got there we got a taxi ($1.50) to our hostel. The taxi driver on the way give us an introduction to Banos in Spanish, very interesting if we had any clue what we was?
We got to our hostel and KO´d from the Cotopaxi climb we went to bed.
Muchos love
Brown
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