Not one to sit around for long without doing something, and having spent a day in Quito old town, marvelling at the beautiful squares, churches and restaurants, I took myself out of Quito to a small hacienda hostel in the valley of the volcanoes about an hour from Quito. The intention was to climb Cotopaxi, the highest active snowcapped volcano in the world! As it was 5800m above sea level, it was necessary to do an acclimatisation climb...Illinizas Nord... at 5126m, it was a climb to be taken seriously! With warm clothes, waterproofs and plastic snow boots we were a group of 6 and a guide. The day started beautifully and the drive to the national park afforded clear views of Cotopaxi. The 5 hour climb started steady, not too steep, interesting flora before turning steep and loose shale requiring some scrambling. We pulled on waterproof clothing for the final rocky section and at this point I was glad for the uncomfortable clumsy "ski" boots as we crossed the snow line and with ropes attached we made final ascent. We could all feel the altitude with shortness of breath and some suffering from headaches but the view as was worth any discomfort, with clear views of Illinizas Sud (an eruption many years ago split the volcano into 2 peaks) and green lakes below. It then started to rain, then hail and snow and with first sounds of thunder, we needed to make a speedy descent, with me in the lead, it was 5 point scramble down the rocky section with several cms of snow falling in a short time. The shale section was easy and quick to descent however our speedy descent resulted in more serious headaches developing to our surprise. The rain held off until we arrived at the start point and then continued as appeared the normal trend for several hours into the night. I made the decision not to continue to climb Cotopaxi as cold and wet conditions were starting to take their toll on the body.... time to rest.....
A day trip was necessary to to get to Lake Quilatoa, a large aquamarine crater lake, which was formed by a massive volcanic eruption 350 years ago. The intense force of the eruption resulted in a large earthquake creating a spectacular canyon in the surrounding country side. One can walk the circumference of the lake in 4 hours or as we chose to do walk down the walls of the crater to the spring fed lake in 40mins and as I was resting, I caught a ride up on a mule! Well worth $5, quite relaxing and comfortable!
En route to Quilatoa, we stopped at Thursday market where surrounding villages congregate to sell livestock and pretty much everything else. It is one of the largest markets in Ecuador for the locals, altho it has now also a tourist attraction, it was fascinating to watch locals in their traditional clothes (eating traditional ice cream??) and observing the products for sale... llama, cow, pig, sheep, guinea fowl, fish, fruit and vegetables, and only a few souvenirs!! One needs to head to the largest tourist market in Otavalo but unfortunately I didn't quite manage to get there!
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