Cotopaxi

So its long due for another blog... dont even know where to begin-so i'll start by telling you of my mini- impromptu adventure this weekend with my ñaña (sister) :) there weren't too many mishaps during our trip as there has been in previous travels (which i still need to fill you in on 2 more) but Ecuador wouldn't be ecuador without having atleast couple

maybe half of it is our fault for deciding to do this trip on a whim and then even better-planning it 100% dependent on my best friend: lonely planet (travel guide book) all i knew was that i had to get the heck out of quito because

a. time is dwindling down or en espanol : el tiempo esta volando (time is flying) I only have 2 months left=8 weekends

b. i had just spend 25 hours-let me repeat-25 HOURS at the university this past weekend (Friday-Sunday) participating in a mandatory model united nations for my international relations class (I represented Argentina in the model UN conference over IAEA regulations and nuclear terrorism....that is all I am going to say on that matter)

c. why not :)

so molly and I had been discussing a trip to a mountain-and not just any trip to a mountain we wanted to escalar one (to CLIMB one)

***molly and I are always a little ambitious with our plans

first thing that discouraged me was that is was around $200 per person for a guide to take you to the summit of cotopaxi but later on a friend of ours informed us that her Andinsmo class (mountain climbing class) at the University was taking a weekend trip to another mountain called Cayambe, and that we should come it. It was only $20 plus renting our equipment....the list of the equipment was the following

Ropa de abrigo (gorra de lana, impermeable, chompa de abrigo, guantes de lana). Tendremos mucho frio.
· Comida para el fin de semana.
· Sleeping y Aislante
· Bloqueador solar y gafas
· Necesitan llevar líquido para estos dos días.
· Linterna.
· La ropa, sleeping
· Estudiantes extranjeros el Censo y los nacionales la cédula
· Medicamentos básicos. Para dolor de estómago, de cabeza, dolores musculares y, curitas.
· Medias de repuesto y camisetas.
· Botas de Plástico para nieve
· Crampones
· Arnés
· Mosquetón
· Los DOS cordinos
· Piqueta
· Carpa. No duerman solos que hace mucho frio.

I didn't even bother finding out what some of the words meant after seeing how long the list was AND after seeing the word "pickax" and "harness" and "warm clothes" including "hats, and gloves" no thanks

i had imagined mountain climbing as a nice hike-without having to use a pickax... who am I to go climbing Ecuador's 3rd highest peak without any experience lol acutally i might have done it (lol) but the teacher wasn't allowing any non-students to go along on the trip

**molly got to go because she registered for the class at the beginning of the year- key word:registered does NOT mean she goes to this class if i'm correct she's been to 2 classes all year haha i cant wait to find out how she did

but since i couldnt' go i was back to the drawing board and on friday night sophie ( my sister) and i decided we are still going to go to Volcan Cotopaxi - the earth's closest point to the sun, and see the snow! and we would leave first thing the next day...where to stay? what we'll do? no supimos (we didn't know)

but we did know we wanted to get there by El Boliche which is (as quoted from the lonely planet p 150), "Just outside Parque Naccional Cotopaxi's western boundary, the Area Nacional de Recreacion El Boliche is a recreational area popular with Quitenos on weekend outings. It's also the destination for the weedend TRAIN from Quito. Although touristy, the train has wonderful views (from the roof, of course!) The train leaves Quito at 8am on Sat and sunday and arrives at El Boliche around 11am.....If you plan to ride on the roof, bundle up-it's freezing in the morning..."

so sophie and I leave our house at 615 am and take 2 taxis and one bus to get to the train station: "estacion tren chimbacalle" and we packed warm (kind of forgot how to do that lol) and we arrived early- everything was going smoothly- too smoothly for ecuador traveling...

that's when sophie and I looked around- while waiting outside the station waiting for it to open-and realized that everyone around us had tickets......mmmmmm...

but i figured just like a bus station or any other train station on this planet you could buy tickets at the station......NOPE

we were quickly informed that we had to pre-purchase our tickets through a travel agency in Quito but lucky us someone in line had two extra tickets!!!!!!!!!! but don't worry-the guard or ticket collector wouldn't let us swap tickets he wouldn't let us in do to "security." WHAT!!! .....since when??? and since when do two "gringitas" look like terrorists??? anyways i was really impressed with sophie who argued with the guy in spanish-who didn't budge-and then she may have swore at him in english and stormed off.....

not that that helped us any. we are now in god knows what part of quito at 8 in the morning-ready to go with warm freakin clothes... we decided we had to still do something-we were packed, here, and didn't wake up early for nothing. so we said, "let's just pick a place..." so we sat on the train station steps and looked through lonely planet some more and came to the conclusion that the majority of places in ecuador recommends bringing a swimsuit-not sweatpants and sweaters

so we did the logical things and went to the bus terminal in quito to get a bus to Latacunga-the market town just outside the base of Cotopaxi. It actually worked out perfectly bc when we got there-the next bus leaving was just in 5 min-so we bought our tickets for $1.50 and ran for the bus

got there-looked around-and said this cant be it...we were thinking beautiful mountain and nature-instead we were dead center in the middle of a huge bustling indiginous market surrounded by not too much of a town. Actually lonely planet informed me that Latacunga has more barber shops per capita than any other town in Ecuador................... :)

so we literally opened lonley planet to "sleeping" picked the hostel with the best review and took a cab there. we ended up at "Hotel Rodelu: Just off the parque Vicente Leon, Hotel Rodelu is the sharpest hotel in town. the rooms are comfy, with lots of wood paneling, indigenous motifs adorning the walls, TV and telephone."

we ended up paying $40 for the room-which is ironic because I still think that is nothing- in the US a Super 8 is $80 and a decent room is easily $100 but not in ecuador that was an expensive hotel-most hotels are $10-15 a night

but we got hot water, 2 beds, fluffy towels AND cable TV (unfortunately in Spanish) lol but thank god for the TV and beds bc that is ALL we did Saturday (and eat at the hotel's restaurant) bc we could not get a tour until sunday-and being that the thing to do in Latacunga is get ur hair cut-we slept and watched TV lol

Sunday we definitely didn't get the luxury of being bums....we met at our travel agency ("I tours") at 8:30 am ready to go-as ready as I could be to hike part of a mountain and go mountain biking (atleast i wasn't wearing flip flops lol)

two men greeted us at the agency: one was younger-in his 30s, fit, handsome-definitely had to be our guide....not the other guy who was easily in his 50's with a beer belly and a neon jump suite.......NOPE the older guy with the beer belly and jump suite was named Luise and he was our guia (guide) hahaha we watched as the other guy waved as we drove away in the jeep with the bikes loaded on back....

Luis actaully ended up being a blast-even though he didn't speak a lick of english (which was great practice for us anyways)

but climbing the mountain let me tell you was NOT a blast in the first 5 min i kept thinking, "mountain climbing is NOT for me.." lol not to complain but the wind was frigid, it was early in the am, and we were doing rigorous-no-IMPOSSIBLE physical exercise

there literally should be a sign saying: "climbing this may kill you...if your legs don't cramp and give out-your lungs will." lol

it wasn't THAT bad and i did end up enjoying it but i honestly was no naive for thinking, "How hard could it be? climbing a steep hill???" yea right

its hard- no matter how in shape you are, if you are not aclimatized to the altitude you are going to feel like you are walking with 100lbs of bricks in your shoes and that every step you take your destination takes two steps back....lol

We didn't even climb that far...at least it didn't look like it but it sure felt like it we actually drove from the park enterance all the way through the park and up the base of the mountain (The drive through the park was beautiful!!!! We were discouraged at first my all the niebla (fog) and overcast but the higher up we got, the better the views. We even got to see a rare sight-caballos salvajes-or wild horses!) We drove all the way up as far as cars could go to the Parqueadero which was at an altitude of 4500 meters. All we were going to do was climb to the refugio, or refuge, at 4800 meters. Piece of cake. The big yellow refuge nestled in the mountain seemed like it was a hop skip and a jump away. I literally appeared right there-just in the near distance......

about an hour or so later we finally made it to the damn refuge i couldn't breath and sophie felt light headed and our 50 year old guide was just dandy There was no way we were going to reach the snow cap (even tho like I said it looked sooo close) but we made it and got to have our packed lunch (complete with oreos!!!! lol) inside the refuge

its amazing how many crazies there are out there that do that for fun there were people of all ages ready to go with all their gear who were just stopping in for some hot choclate or tea. They were from everywhere too. I heard german, and spanish (obviously) and some languages i didn't even know. Then I got excited when i heard some english and turned to meet a family of a dad and his two daughters from colorado who were here on a 2 week vacation. The best part was that they had just arrived the night before! and they were already scaling a mountain!!!! people like that make the rest of us look bad lol

after lunch the fun part came-going gown (bajar) instead of going up once we made it back to the car we got all our gear on-we looked ridiculous!!! definitely not sexy with all of our mismatced gear: black sweat pants, navy blue sweatshirt, north face, scarf, our guides enormous neon mittens, funky helments, knee pads, and elbow bads lol and then we literally rode down the mountain until the parks enterence squeezing our breaks the whole way for dear life lol

once our tour was finished and my legs were completely numb, our guide took us for a treat in his home town (which was on the way back to the bus stop to get us back to quito.) He kept bragging about these "ecuadorian pizzas" famous in his home town. He said they were really small with cheese and onions...thats all i really understood-which was obvious when we got there-and when i say "there" i mean a tent and a grill on the side of the road-i saw not the "ecuadorian pizza's" at first but the remains of a decapitated pigs head.....teeth and all turns out they were using the pigs fat to fry the "ecuadorian pizzas" which turned out to be corn tortillas (kinda like a hashbrown) with onions and cheese in it. yummmmmyyy...but it is rude to turn down food so i at them-weren't to bad apart from thinking about the pigs head nearby....

and then we finished up eating our yummy snack by watching a street game of pelota nacional (national ball) we were informed it was a popular game that is only played in Ecuador. It reminded me a lot of pickle ball/tennis but the street was used as the court and the key difference was that their paddles or rackets were a whopping 10lbs!!! i literally could barely swing the thing (hence why we watched instead of played lol) and the ball was a big rubber blue ball that seemed just as unusually heavy.

After a great and successful trip, we of course had to travel back to quito which is never my cup of tea. Something usually always goes wrong-and of course-we just waited for the bus at the bus stop in Luise's town instead of loading at the terminal in Latacunga....so we didn't get seats-we had to stand for the 80 mile ride hot and crowded ride home...... lovely

but it was definitely vale la pena (worth it) but i dont think i will be scaling a mountain anytime soon :)