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Published: November 20th 2009
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Cotopaxi
active volcano and second highest peak in Ecuador After having an excellent couple of weeks on the Galapagos, we returned to Quito, and the ridiculously sociable Secret Garden hostel. Of course soon after arriving we headed to the rooftop bar for a soothing beverage overlooking the bright lights of Quito, and the first person I saw was Dawson, a guy who I haven´t seen since high school (jen) - crazy crazy small world! So, after chatting over a few beers, we decided that we would join forces the following night for the hostel trivia quiz - having not done any form of trivia for about 7 months, we were probably unreasonably excited, and probably unreasonably sure that we had it in the bag. So the next night came, and saw jeff, dawson, a cool guy from india now living in cusco called Ravi, and myself clustered around a small sheet of paper desperately whispering answers to each other. Our first grand success was winning the best team name, ´the magic sausage´- pure brilliance. After this success followed success, seeing us finally take the day by 1 point (quite possibly the point we won for our excellent name). The next hour saw us huddled around a bottle of rum, the
prize, adding coke and lime and on the whole pretty pleased with ourselves.
But the best part of the trivia prize was a night for two at the nearby Cotopaxi hostel run by the same people. Luckily jeff and I were the only people on the team going there, so the prize was ours! Even better was we already had a free night from the people we booked the Galapagos tour with, so headed off to the beautiful, environmentally friendly, but quite pricey hostel for free! yippee! The hostel was beautiful, owned by an Australian-Ecuadorian couple who had a dream of sustainable living, the view from the composting toilet is astounding! And there are dogs and horses and rabbits, oh, and the most amazing view directly onto Cotopaxi, the second highest volcano in Ecuador. So after a night of chatting in front of an open fire, then heading to our equally cosy room, we decided to spend the next day climbing up to the glacier (not to be confused with climbing the glacier, which takes seven hours, starting at midnight, and requires special ice shoes and pick things - not really for us).
In the morning we headed
out in a jeep with our guide and two other tourists to challenge the mountain. The altitude made things really difficult, starting at 4000 and something, and ending our walk at over 5000 metres, it was really hard to get enough oxygen to keep walking uphill, and we had to stop to breathe every ten metres or so, meaning it took us about 1 hour to walk about 1 kilometre. In addition, the altitude does something strange to my stomach, making me feel naseous every so often, so it was a bit of a struggle, but it was definitely worth it. The views from up there were spectacular, and there was a real sense of satisfaction from having got there, albeit incredibly slowly. We headed back down to a well-deserved lunch and a lazy afternoon spent reading in hammocks....mmmmm.
Having not quite got our fill of volcanoes yet, we headed out the Quilotoa loop to visit Lake Quilotoa, an amazing green, super-alkaline lake in the crater of an active volcano. Cool, no? After spending the night in a remarkably unremarkable small town we headed out to the volcano. The lovely lady running our hotel (fully dressed in traditional mountain
wear - excellent!) had informed us that it would only take about 3 hours to make our way around the volcano crater - luckily we packed plenty of water and food, because it took us about 6-7 hours! She must have been thinking we´d walk at indigenous pace.. significantly faster than our capabilities. The lake was amazing, absolutely huge and brilliantly green, with the steep sides of the crater rising up to jagged peaks the whole way round. The outer slopes, and sometimes those inside the crater were often covered in crops, proving that here in South America, something must be pretty much vertical before it´s considered to steep to plant. The walk around the top was beautiful, and we ran into several local farmers on the daily business, all dressed in the brightly coloured beautiful local dress, with the women often with a baby in a bundle on their backs. However, when we were about an hour away from finishing the walk disaster struck! Okay, maybe not disaster, but I fell twice walking down a really steep hill, the first time hurting my already weak wrist, and the second time, not wanting to use my wrist I twisted strangely
and they're off and racing
with rest stops every 10 metres or so! and rolled my ankle, and heard something snap. After this, I´m pretty sure I went into mild shock, couldn´t stand or sit without thinking I was going to pass out, and had to lie down, meanwhile freaking out that we wouldn´t be able to get back before dark, or possibly at all. Luckily Jeff was very level-headed and calm, made me lie down for a while, then when I thought I could walk again made me go very slowly using him as a kind of crutch. We then tried to take a short cut back to town, which turned out unfruitful..Quite a stressful and difficult hour or two later we finally made it back to town, with me hobbling like an old woman and not able to really use my right wrist or foot. Excellent.
Having decided we needed to speed things up a bit, this was our last real experience in Ecuador, besides long and boring bus trips which need not be recounted here. So farewell Ecuador, thanks for great times (injuries excluded) and amazing sights. We arrived single and left engaged, and as my ring I have an old Ecuadorian coin worth one 2,500th of a dollar
on a good day! Adios Ecuador!
P.S So you don´t worry (I´m looking at you mothers) my ankle and wrist are now almost as good as new, although they did prevent us from going on the 4 day Lares Valley trek ending at Machu Picchu. I was really disappointed by this, but we´re now having a great time making our way up their through the Sacred Valley visiting all the ruins on the way, and going gingerly down the ancient stairs, so all is well
j and j
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sus et marc
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i love your frown miss jenjen, and hope that frown turns upside down!! and take a picure of the ring so we can see it!!!! love you both xoxoxo