Cotopaxi

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So, the landscape here is pretty much all volcanic and so I can't wait to do one of my dream experiances....climb up an active volcano.
I book a tour for the next day (costs $35 day trip) which is the average price here. So next morning I sit and wait at the local coffee shop for my pick up and play 'spot the other gringo's on the trip today'.
Two Aussies, a French canadian, 3 Colombians and me head off to the area where we are to acclimatise (4,000ft) and buy snacks, water or anything else we may have forgotten to bring. Its a beautiful day with blue sky and hot sunshine but our guide advises us to buy gloves and hats if we havn't brought them....we all look at him skeptically but buy cheap ones just in case.
We drive to the refuge at 4,800ft and drink some Coco tea, which wards off altitude sickness (surprisingly nice) and then put all our cold weather gear on for our 1km climb up the Volcano.
We start our acent and all find it hard going at one stage or another its FREEZING!.....most of us suffer palpitations, and lightheaded feeling. Some get minor headaches or a touch of nausea.
The sleet starts coming down and with us walking into the wind every step is exhausting!
After several stops on the way up for rests, we get to the refuge and wait to see if our guide can get us further up. They have had several days of snow lately so the summit may not be possible for us to get to.
We all take cover inside, warming ourselves up with big mugs of hot chocolate. Louis comes back in and says we can head 20ft further up, but no further as higher up needs ice picks and crampons. We all head out the get onto the snow for photo's then slip and slide our way back down the the bus to unload our mountain bikes.
We pretty much freewheel all the way down the 11km of beautiful road looking around at the Volcano's and valley's that lead to the lake at the bottom. We all chat about what a great day its been, joking with each other and laughing about what we would usually be doing on a Monday back home right now.
Can say without a shadow of doubt that when we got to the bottom, sat by the lake and gazed up at the snow covered peak of Cotopaxi behind us we all agreed this would go down as one of our best days ever.

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