Oh my god. I can't believe it took me this long to finish this thing. Wow. Sorry to anyone that is actually reading this. Here's the rest. We went from Quito to Latacunga to set up the climb of Cotopaxi with a local guide company, and to catch a bus to Chugchilan, a small village tucked in the Andes where we'd stay for 3 days before returning to climb Cotopaxi.
Our tour of the Andes involved going around something called the Quilotoa loop. It's a dirt loop from the main PanAmerican highway, out to a high elevation volcanic caldera lake and back. We stayed a few nights in the town of Chugchilan which is at the far point of the loop and relaxed, went for short hikes and got acclimatized. We stayed at a hostel called Mama Hildas. Every night children from the very small village of Chugchilan would go to our hostel and pull us outside and put on a dance demonstration wearing traditional garb and with traditional music. Very cute. they'd pull in a few of the unsuspecting tourists into the dance one by one, until everyone is spinning in a circle holding hands. When we were done dancing, dinner would be on the table inside and we would eat and drink and talk with the other travelers in Mama Hilda's small communal area. It was the nicest place we stayed for our whole trip. One morning at 4am, we caught the bus from Chugchilan to the town of Quilotoa, 15 miles away, and the location of the Quilotoa Lake, a 300km wide caldera. It was a little unsettling getting dropped off at 5:30 in the morning on the side of a rural road in the Andes at 11,000 feet in pitch black darkness. We stepped off the bus and nearly stepped right off the 45 foot cliff, seriously, not 8 feet from where our feet stepped out of the bus. We froze for about 40 minutes in Quilotoa waiting for the sun to come up. We were huddled together in a stick and straw stall used for the market, teeth chattering. When we could see enough to walk we started out on the trail around the lake. It was a grueling several hour hike made all the more difficult by the 13,000 feet that we were hiking at, and the loose dirt walkway. Painful as it was, it was important acclimatization in preparation for the peak of Cotopaxi, which at over 19,000 feet is the worlds tallest volcano. On our way out of Chugchilan we stopped at the town of Saquisili to go to the market, which was supposedly the best, most authentic market to be had in the Andes, where we saw some interesting things, and cool wares, but we were painfully aware of the effect that tourism has had on this "authentic" market which now seemed to be mainly selling the same overpriced knick knacks and alpaca sweaters that the locals can't afford, or wouldn't wear if they could. There was however a whole other side of the market where we could still see the whole fried pig head being sold, and my favorite, the line of old men and peddle driven sewing machines making a few bucks mending and altering things people brought up. We got a few things, a sweater, some socks and some other gifts for people back home, and were off for Latacunga. We got back to Latacunga, an incredible little city in the Andes which has been buried by the eruption of the nearby volcano Cotopaxi multiple times in the past several centuries. We know that because an old man at the Latacunga museum talked to us for maybe an hour and a half, in Spanish. Which we don't fully understand...and he would quiz us on what he already said. So we really had to pay attention. We got the parts about multiple eruptions and about the Mama Negra festival (especially when he pulled up the manequin's shirt to show that she had breasts), but for the most part it was gibberish, 90 minutes of it. We were exhausted trying to maintain attention to a nice old man while struggling to understand what he's saying. The next morning, we linked back up with the guide company and were off for Cotopaxi, which would be the crowning grand finally of our trip, before we headed back to unemployment, bills, and the rest of the reality of life back in the States. Elizabeth who hadn't been planning on climbing Cotopaxi decided at the last second, to go ahead and try, as the price was less than we had thought it would be.
We drove up to the refugio at 4800 meters, (15,750 feet). And had a small dinner, some conversation and headed to bed for a few hours of anxious restless sleep. We woke at midnight and had a quick breakfast and were out the door. We had a half hour hike to the glacier, then several more hours of glacier travel to the peak. When we woke, Elizabeth hadn't been feeling well and about an hour into the hike up the the glacier the guide asked Elizabeth how she was feeling. She was very nauseous so the guide told her that she would just get worse if she continued and if she had to turn back, I would have to turn back too. She ended up going back to the refuge before we got to the glacier, and spent the day nursing some serious nausea and stomach ache and headache she was always on the verge of puking but never did. The rest of our crew headed up towards the glacier, strapped on our crampons and pulled out our axes for the rest of the climb. We were roped up in a team of two and one of three. A guide and I on one rope, and the two Canadians we were with and another guide on the second rope. The climb was pretty simple, only a few crevasses to hop and pretty narrow. We made the peak just as the sun was coming up. Unfortunately it was completely socked in and we couldn't see a thing. The way back was pretty quick. we got back in an hour and a half or so. After rousing Elizabeth from bed and eating all the food in sight we got back in the truck to head back to Latacunga. Apparently the Cherokee we were in was having some trouble with the altitude and it was a damn lucky thing it was downhill for the next ten miles so we coasted stalled and sputtered, losing brake assist and power steering every few minutes. It was perhaps the most thrilling part about climbing Cotopaxi.
Eventually we got back to Latacunga, then to Guayaquil (10 hours on a bus) then to Miami (4 hours) then to San Fransisco (5 hours). The I drove to Bremerton (14 hours). So with climbing I traveled for a total of 42 hours in four days. After which I drove to Bellingham to climb the 9 thousand foot peak Mt. Shuksan with my brother Chad and spread our father's ashes. It ended up being the perfect finish to the trip.
Here we are in Bremerton now living it up, and looking for jobs and a place to live in Seattle. Hopefully we'll have another adventure very very soon.
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