Cotopaxi and around
After an exciting night bus, which broke down and so we had to wait for three hours for a replacement, we finally found ourselves in Latacunga, which is near Cotopaxi National Park.
From Latacunga we took a day trip to Saquisili market and Quilotoa crater. The market was amazing. It is set around seven or so squares, each selling different things – from cows and llamas to headboards and wardrobes!
We found the chickens and the small furry animal section the most facisinating, although it is not like we’ve never seen a chicken, rabbit or guinea pig before. Having said that, you don’t usually see rabbits and guinea pigs in huge baskets knowing that they will probably be dinner in a couple of days time! All of the areas also had a food section, whole roast pig being a definate favourite.
Just watching every day life is fascinating – we love the way children are carried around on shawls – in Ecuador the way they are tied to their mothers back isn’t as precarious as it has been in Peru and Bolivia. Half the time the only way you can tell there is a child on their back is by the odd limb sticking out, the other half they look like they are about to fall out, I guess they learn not to wiggle from a very early age! But it is not just children that are carried around in this way, we’ve seen anything from chickens to gas bottles to a crate of beer.
Quilotoa crater, although beautiful, was slightly disappointing. It was a bit of a “have I really just travelled for 2 hours to see this?” moment.
The next day we headed out to Cotopaxi National Park, to attempt to climb the volcano, one of the highest active volcanoes in the world at 5,897m. The day was generally very relaxed, getting our equipment – plastic boots, ice axe and crampons – driving to the car park and walking 30 mins or so up to the refugio (4,800m). It turned out that it was a national holiday and the place was heaving, but mostly with day visitors, there were only about 30 people staying in the refugio / attempting to climb.
We weren’t rewarded with great views of the volcano, but the clouds did clear a bit to show us what we were about to attempt.
We managed to sleep a bit, despite the clonking around of everyone and the howling wind outside. Getting up at mid-night is much easier in a refugio than a tent, and after a spot of breakfast we were set to head out into the wind.
It was also snowing, which came as a bit of a shock. We were expecting wind – August is famous for wind – but we, and the guides, had been expecting the clouds to drop overnight…but despite the conditions we headed out and we started the climb at around 1am.
It took an hour or so to reach the glacier at 5,000m, where we put on our crampons and carried on. Having said we were on a glacier, it was more like walking on a sand dune. One of the reasons for setting off at silly o’clock in the morning is so the snow is hard. It certainly wasn’t hard, it was very soft and was blowing around like nothing else. We were attempting to climb a volcano in a blizzard. Great.
The climb got steeper and steeper and the snow got softer and softer to walk in. Despite the crampons, it felt like you took one step up and slipped back two.
After about three hours of struggling uphill I was exhausted, it didn’t look like there was any possibility of us climbing out of the blizzard and clouds and so we decided to turn around. We think we got to about 5,500m before the weather and conditions got the better of us. The path that we had kicked into the snow had completely disappeared when we turned round there was so much snow/wind around.
Going down was much quicker that going up and we were tucked up in bed by 5.30am, disappointed we didn’t make it, but we certainly didn’t have favourable conditions. If we hadn’t have had a guide with us, we would never have left the refugio! I now know that I can climb is such conditions, but would prefer not to!
These two photos are both looking down from the refugio, the first the afternoon we arrived, the second the morning we left!
Tags: Ecuador, Quilotoa, Travel, Trek
Jenni
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