South America - Part 2
Day 3:
So after staying up a bit late due to finding those bars we missed on the first night, we grudgingly got up bright and early to meet our guide to take us to Cotopaxi volcano. It wasn't Jeiro, who was originally planned, but some other guy who's name both Jonathan and I failed to catch. So from here on, we have decided to call him Carlos. We got in his minivan and proceded to head out of the city.
One thing I had noticed the previous day, and again today - that a lot of the houses were only half built, but seemed to have people living in them. They'd be a single floor, with iron reinforcing beams sticking out of the top at funny angles, and sometimes had a stairway sticking up into nowhere. I asked "Carlos" about this. He said that quite often people did not have enough money to build a house. So they'll build a part of one, and then move in. Then over the next 15 years or so, they'd slowly add bits and pieces onto it. Give the place a bit of a shanty-town look, as lots of them didn't have proper roofs yet, but would have some iron sheets thrown on and weighed down with things like car tyres and what-not. The ones that were finished were wonderful amalgamations of different building styles with strange bits stuck on at random.
Along the way he pointed out several other active (but smaller) volcanoes that surround Quito - one of which last errupted in the 90's - just threw a bit of ash into the sky and some mud - but a big erruption would pretty much bury the city.
It had been quite cloudy - so at over 2000m, we couldn't see to far into the distance, so it was about an hour of driving before we could see the Cotopaxi volcano clearly - and it is massive. 5897 meters high - about 1.5 times that of Mount Fuji, which it strongly resembles.
After stopping at a small museum at the base, and taking a 20 minute hike to get (minimally!) acclimatised, we continued driving up the mountain to the final car park, where we left the safety of the minivan, and donned our fleeces and windproof jackets. We were around 4400m high, and had passed the snow line.
Our guide set off, and we followed. GOD DAMN its bloody hard work walking up a 1 in 3 slope at that sort of altitude, but we were determined to not give up. Even when it started lightly snowing on us. Small steps, deep breaths. Stopping every now for a rest. Jonathan started getting some small signs of altitude sickness - his head was spinning, and his lips were looking a fetching light blue colour :-0 but wasn't affecting him too badly, so he kept soldiering on.
We got to 4800m where there was a hut for people to stay in overnight before tackling the summit. We weren't intending to go any further, but gratefully had some hot chocolate, and tucked into our packed lunch.
It took us a bit under an hour to climb the 300-400 meters to the hut. Apparently length-wise, we only covered 900 meters - half a mile! Seemed like so much further!
The guy who works in the hut makes it up in around 18 minutes each day. Bastard ;-)
Still, at least I kicked Jonathan's butt on the way up - I guess all the snowboarding has come in useful at last :-)
While we were having lunch, the weather started turning - the clouds had moved in, and there were thunderclaps - so we decided to head back down quickly. The clouds really had moved in - all around us - could not see more than a few meters in front of us - so was good thing we had a fairly obvious path to follow.
We did notice one of the other groups heading back up on foot from below the car park - they must have missed it in the clouds, and gone too far.
The trip back was uneventful, but we did arrange with "Carlos" for another trip the next day - we'd be heading to the Cloud Forest, to go crossing through the jungle canopy on zip lines.
Day 4:
After being somewhat sensible, not to mention exhausted after our high altitude exertions, we got to be at a rather reasonable hour (we did get in a couple of sneaky beers though, and buying a hat for J) we met up with "Carlos" at 8am, and set off once more in his mighty minivan.
First stop was going to be another volcano - nothing nearly as impressive as the previous days one, but it did have something somewhat crazy going on - inside the caldera, is a whole village of people living there. There's a small dirt trail that zig-zags down into the crater, which they come up and down by foot, or on horses and donkeys. The volcano is still active, as evidenced by the thermal springs they have coming out of it. These people like living dangerously.
Bought some postcards and a necklace from the tat-vendors by the lookout and headed off to Mindo where the zip lines and things are.
The zip lines were amazing. We crossed 15 different lines - over 3.5kilometers in total - quite a long way above the ground in many cases - was pure adrenaline rush. We declined to do the "Superman" where we fly across face down with someone else attached to us to do the breaking when needed :-)
Will post a video of that later, when i am back in civilisation and a decent net connection.
Also went and visited a butterfly farm while in Mindo - which was kinda cool. Jonathan proved his manliness yet again by freaking out when a butterfly landed on him :-)
Tomorrow, we had to the Galapagos Islands. Not sure if there will be any way of accessing internet there, as we'll be on a boat in the middle of the pacific. Will try to remember everything we do in order to update when I get back.
So after staying up a bit late due to finding those bars we missed on the first night, we grudgingly got up bright and early to meet our guide to take us to Cotopaxi volcano. It wasn't Jeiro, who was originally planned, but some other guy who's name both Jonathan and I failed to catch. So from here on, we have decided to call him Carlos. We got in his minivan and proceded to head out of the city.
One thing I had noticed the previous day, and again today - that a lot of the houses were only half built, but seemed to have people living in them. They'd be a single floor, with iron reinforcing beams sticking out of the top at funny angles, and sometimes had a stairway sticking up into nowhere. I asked "Carlos" about this. He said that quite often people did not have enough money to build a house. So they'll build a part of one, and then move in. Then over the next 15 years or so, they'd slowly add bits and pieces onto it. Give the place a bit of a shanty-town look, as lots of them didn't have proper roofs yet, but would have some iron sheets thrown on and weighed down with things like car tyres and what-not. The ones that were finished were wonderful amalgamations of different building styles with strange bits stuck on at random.
Along the way he pointed out several other active (but smaller) volcanoes that surround Quito - one of which last errupted in the 90's - just threw a bit of ash into the sky and some mud - but a big erruption would pretty much bury the city.
It had been quite cloudy - so at over 2000m, we couldn't see to far into the distance, so it was about an hour of driving before we could see the Cotopaxi volcano clearly - and it is massive. 5897 meters high - about 1.5 times that of Mount Fuji, which it strongly resembles.
After stopping at a small museum at the base, and taking a 20 minute hike to get (minimally!) acclimatised, we continued driving up the mountain to the final car park, where we left the safety of the minivan, and donned our fleeces and windproof jackets. We were around 4400m high, and had passed the snow line.
Our guide set off, and we followed. GOD DAMN its bloody hard work walking up a 1 in 3 slope at that sort of altitude, but we were determined to not give up. Even when it started lightly snowing on us. Small steps, deep breaths. Stopping every now for a rest. Jonathan started getting some small signs of altitude sickness - his head was spinning, and his lips were looking a fetching light blue colour :-0 but wasn't affecting him too badly, so he kept soldiering on.
We got to 4800m where there was a hut for people to stay in overnight before tackling the summit. We weren't intending to go any further, but gratefully had some hot chocolate, and tucked into our packed lunch.
It took us a bit under an hour to climb the 300-400 meters to the hut. Apparently length-wise, we only covered 900 meters - half a mile! Seemed like so much further!
The guy who works in the hut makes it up in around 18 minutes each day. Bastard ;-)
Still, at least I kicked Jonathan's butt on the way up - I guess all the snowboarding has come in useful at last :-)
While we were having lunch, the weather started turning - the clouds had moved in, and there were thunderclaps - so we decided to head back down quickly. The clouds really had moved in - all around us - could not see more than a few meters in front of us - so was good thing we had a fairly obvious path to follow.
We did notice one of the other groups heading back up on foot from below the car park - they must have missed it in the clouds, and gone too far.
The trip back was uneventful, but we did arrange with "Carlos" for another trip the next day - we'd be heading to the Cloud Forest, to go crossing through the jungle canopy on zip lines.
Day 4:
After being somewhat sensible, not to mention exhausted after our high altitude exertions, we got to be at a rather reasonable hour (we did get in a couple of sneaky beers though, and buying a hat for J) we met up with "Carlos" at 8am, and set off once more in his mighty minivan.
First stop was going to be another volcano - nothing nearly as impressive as the previous days one, but it did have something somewhat crazy going on - inside the caldera, is a whole village of people living there. There's a small dirt trail that zig-zags down into the crater, which they come up and down by foot, or on horses and donkeys. The volcano is still active, as evidenced by the thermal springs they have coming out of it. These people like living dangerously.
Bought some postcards and a necklace from the tat-vendors by the lookout and headed off to Mindo where the zip lines and things are.
The zip lines were amazing. We crossed 15 different lines - over 3.5kilometers in total - quite a long way above the ground in many cases - was pure adrenaline rush. We declined to do the "Superman" where we fly across face down with someone else attached to us to do the breaking when needed :-)
Will post a video of that later, when i am back in civilisation and a decent net connection.
Also went and visited a butterfly farm while in Mindo - which was kinda cool. Jonathan proved his manliness yet again by freaking out when a butterfly landed on him :-)
Tomorrow, we had to the Galapagos Islands. Not sure if there will be any way of accessing internet there, as we'll be on a boat in the middle of the pacific. Will try to remember everything we do in order to update when I get back.