Quito / Cotopaxi

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Quito, Ecuador

If I remember correctly we´d just arrived in Ecuador.

After the first day of doing all the equator stuff which I told you about we decided to treat ourselves to some good ole English grub and as luck may have it there was a restaurant opposite the hostel called Paki VIP so a few light ales and a chicken vindaloo later we´re sorted right out...Could have been a Thursday night at home, except the total of the meal and beers come to $3.50!!

We hit the city proper for the first time after but for all the music blasting out from every single pub, bar, club there was really nobody about..Still at these prices I quite happily sat there supping on a few ice cold pilseners watching the Locals going about there business..Seems you are either stinking rich there or just literally stinking and have nothing. I dont really have any time at all for beggars back home but over here when a 2 or 3 year old girl carrying her few month old brother or sister on her back comes up to you to ask for a little bit of money it´s impossible to say no...

Apart from the above which is pretty sad my first impressions of the city is that I love it, pretty different to Colombia in that it´s clean, relaxed and a good few people speak English, well a couple do, which is a couple more than the last place!!

I told you about the extinct Volcano we went up but we done one better the next day..

Cotopaxi

It say´s in the books it´s possible to climb Cotpaxi with little or no mountineering experience, but you´ll need to be, fit, strong, fully acclimatized and have a good reliable guide....

So then.

1. Fit?

Nowhere near

2. Strong?

Used to think I was before Dan beat me at an arm wrestle!

3. Fully acclimitized?

No idea, find out soon enough

4. Good reliable guide?

OK, we had Roman, the ex flight attendant..So we´re climbing Cotopaxi, which by the way is 5897m high, Ecuador´s largest active volcano and one of the worlds largest active volcanoes and our guide is an ex trolley dolly!!! No wonder it was so cheap!

So then the truck arrives to pick up me, Gower and a yank called James who was staying at our hostel..All seems fine on the 2 hr drive to the national park, we arrive, stop to take a photo from the bottom of what we are about to climb jump back in the truck, go to start up the engine and nothing, not a thing, so completely unfit about to climb a volcano, struggling to breath anyway and we have to push start this huge beast of a truck.Still eventually we got it started, parked up and begun the climb.

As soon as we started we saw 2 condor circloing above our heads, we were also told to expect to see mammals like, deer, Andean foxes and puma´s..Quality this is going to be good...

10 minutes into the climb and the guide is blowing out of his ar5e, 20 mins in and the yank begins to fade, 30 mins in and gower is having trouble with his back!! I can´t believe it i ´m leading the pack, feeling it a tiny bit but nothing major and all the non smokers are wheezing below me..

As you keep on walking you realise how high you really are when you remember that when we set off the sun was attacking us hard and now your surrounded by huge glaciers and walking on snow..Really hope the photo´s come out well as it was really a special sight...Not tough at all either just had a frozen bonce from when I freshly shaved it that morning before we left....

Once down the bottom we get back in the truck and a few hundred meteres down the road notice it´s a pretty bumpy ride..Try to imagine, this is an actice volcano so obviously they´re not likely to build a town anywhere near the surrounding area..Of course the bumpy ride turns out to be the puncture that we´ve got..Luckily, thank god we´ve got a spare..Pessimist that I am though I say "I bet the f;;;king spare´s flat". Of course it turn´s out that it was!

So stuck in the middle of nowhere (proper) we have to send the guide with the flat to the nearest main road to hopefully get picked up, driven to the nearest garage, get the tyre fixed then hopefully get a lift back to us..We could be out here weeks! Luckilly I at least have 1 fag and a bottle of water...

Turns out we only had to 3 hrs and amused ourselves by playing baseball with a lump of wood and a volcanic rock!

All fixed we head back to Quito and apart from the truck dying on us again, it all went swimmingly....Back at the tourist office we´re asked if we would consider them again and let them take us on a trip up the Amazon!!! "Erm, not f;:_ing likely amigo!!!!

Next day we met up with a German lad called Karl, anyway we head along to watch some football. Their top league and saw Deportivo Quito Vs Deportivo Quedo, just as I imagined South American Stadiums it was huge but knowhere near full at all...The standard was terrible, I mean really terrible.... Still it was a funny day, just watching the crowd and the great chants they had, no idea what they were saying but sounded dead passionate whatever it was..Quito won 3 - 0 somehow.

From there Me, Gower and Ze German went along to u Quito old town to see some cathedral, wasn´t really that interested in going at first but turned out to be quite impressive, we climbed to the top of it which was pretty high up (Gower didn´t quite make it all the way) and whilst up there bumped into the first English we´d seen in ages who turned out to be the newsreader Peter Snow and his Mrs..Said our hello´s and went back down into the pouring rain, my and Gower got absolutely drenced but of course the German was very EFFICIENT and had bought along waterproof everything to him right down to a little case for his GPS so we didn´t get lost, still he might have been dry but he still looked a tw@t !!

That night went out for a few beers with our new mate, and ended up in a club packed to the rafters with stunning women, a lot more can and will be said about that night but you´ll have to wait until the book comes out. It was a great night though....and a great way to spend the last night in Quito .

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