Latin American Escapade Part 2- Quito, Ecuador

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Just a quick one, as we have only really spent a day and a half in Quito.

After arriving back onto the mainland on Saturday evening, we decided to book a mountain-biking trip to Cotopaxi, Ecuador’s highest active volcano. Recommended as one of the highlights of Ecuador, we were excited to get a chance to do this trip, as we expected to miss out on it due to the changes to our Galapagos tour.

Yesterday morning, we met the group at 7.00am to go out to the Cotopaxi National Park. It wasn’t until meeting up with the rest of the group that I started to reconsider whether it was actually a good idea or not. Basically, the group consisted of me, and 5 other guys. Not a girl in sight - let alone one that had never ridden a bicycle off-road before!

We drove for a couple of hours to the entrance of the National Park, at an elevation of around 3,500 metres above sea level. That wasn’t too bad - we were a little dizzy and it was pretty cold, but nothing too difficult.

We then drove on to the carpark, where we were commencing our downhill biking from. This was at 4,500 metres, freezing cold and very strange! It wasn’t until I briefly forgot that I needed to be careful about exerting myself that I really felt it - and just by quickly walking a couple of metres uphill to take a photo I completely lost my breath! Thank god the ride was downhill!

Our first section was to ride about a kilometre vertical down to the base of the volcano. Not sure how far this was in distance, but it didn’t feel like far enough given the rate of decent I was dealing with, on a sandy road with massive rocks, ditches and random obstacles!
I made it down unharmed and very proud of myself, albeit the last in the group... do remember I was riding with a pack of testosterone-filled, adrenaline seeker males though.

We then rode across relatively flat terrain (with the same type of paths if not worse however). This I enjoyed much more. I no longer needed to permanently hold on to my brakes with completely frozen hands and could start to push myself a little. What fun! Of course last again, but it was great to give it a go - a few near falls but nothing that I didn’t manage to save.

And then the last hour or so was riding up and down various tracks. This was great, but we were still at an altitude of about 3,500 metres so very tiring!

I survived, Campbell had a blast, and that was our Cotopaxi adventure.

Today we are spending our last day in Quito before flying to Peru this afternoon. Unfortunately Campbell is sick (possibly altitude sickness but we’ll find out once we get to Lima I guess), so we only spent an hour or so wandering the city.

So, until next time, take care!

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Photos

Cotopaxi National Park
Pre-ride, at around 3,500 metres above sea level.

Cotopaxi
The summit of Cotopaxi, Ecuador´s highest active volcano (5,897 mtrs above sea level).

Cotopaxi
At the point where we commenced our mountain biking - 4,500 metres above sea level!