To Cotopaxi

We left Quito for Latacunga midday and just checked into a hostel for the evening to get some rest before tackling Cotopaxi. The next morning we got up early and got on a bus heading back in the direction of Quito and got dropped off at the Cotopaxi turnoff. From there we took a collectivo up to the Laguna Limpiopungo (at 3830 meters). Along the way we stopped at the park's museum- our driver gave us the tour, just telling us about the local flora and fauna. At the museum we also so a deer and a rabbit (wow!) which suprisingly were I think the first animals we had seen while backpacking so it was pathetically exciting.

We got dropped off at the lake and the first thing that we noticed was the cold, man was it cold! Then we headed off literally into the hills, we wanted to do the hike behind the lake but there wasn't much of a trail so we pretty much made our own way- which unfortunately involved walking through a very marshy area- we were very jealous of Sagiv's waterproof boots! About 1/2 hour in we stopped and made some of Sagiv's amazing Arabian coffee with his little travel kit- it was pretty cool because all we had to do was find a clearing and sit ddown and the grasses protected us from the wind and then the temperature was quite agreeable.

After that we continued hiking and we went up this steep hill that was mayb 40 meters but it was incredibly hard- that was when we really started to notice the altitude! After that climb we got to a little plateau and it also happened to coincide with the clouds clearing in front of Cotopaxi and we got some amazing pictures! It was particularly exciting because we were told that you could be in the park for days and never get the kind of view of the volcano that we had pretty much our whole time there. After that we hiked up to basically the highest point that we could go without climbing gear so that was a lot of fun.

Then we started hiking down but instead of going all the way back down to the lake and then taking the road down to the camp site we decided to hike over another hill around the other side of the lake. Cresting it was no problem but the hike down was nasty, there was much heavier vegitation and the footing was more uncertain. As is my specialty, I managed to step in a hole and sprain my ankle. Luckily, we had our handy Israeli soldier with us who carried my bag down to the lake for me. Once we got down behind the lake, which was way bigger than we had originally thought, the terrain was a lot better so I could carry my bad. We also got to see a few fox on our hike and there were wild horses at the lake!! We hiked alongside this drainage on perhaps fresh water ditch along the lake for what seemed like forever looking for (1) the camping site and (2) some place to cross the ditch.

When we could finally see the camping site ther was no place to cross the ditch in sight and the path kept getting sketchier and harder to follow so we decided to cross it! So in the freezing cold, we took off our shoes and socks, threw them across the ditch and Sagiv carried our bags across. Then we hopped into the freezing cold knee high water, crossed the ditch, and pulled ourselves out using trees on the other side. Then we hiked another 10 or so minutes and found there was a bridge right at the camp site!

Once we got to the camp site we set up our tents and made our very late lunch- we had been hiking since 10am and we got back around 4pm. The camp site came highly recommended as having water and bathrooms which was king of funny because it had unpurified water that came form the ditch we had crossed and the "bathrooms" were hardly that. They were toilets, yes, but they didnt have seats, nor did they flush and there were no trash cans in which to throw tp. Also one had a shower curtain as a door and the other's door when closed only covered 2/3 of the doorway, so you could see straight in.

While we were there we met a group planning to summit Cotopaxi in a few days- one of teh guys was a really in shape but the other one was kind of puny and didnt seem to be in particularly good shape so that was kind of funny. Their guide was about our age and as he put it, he just followed the climbing seasons, guiding in Alaska in the summer and in Ecuador during the American winter.

After lunch we just chilled, huddled in our tent and listened to a bit of music and then promptly started fixing dinner so that we might get it in before dark- that totally didn't happen haha. After we finished up dinner we pretty much just went to bed because it was very dark and there was nothing to do. We did however get some great views of Cotopaxi in the moonlight and the stars were incredible because there was no artificial light for miles and miles. From our position the summit of Cotopaxi looked great but apparently it was a terrible night to summit- you can only summit Cotopaxi at night because the sun heats up the snow during the day and there are lots of avalanches. The summit from the refugio at the snow line is supposed to take 7-9 hours and as we would find out the next day the people who were up for that were pretty crazy!