So Saturday we chilled in Mariscal for a while in the morning where I bumped into some of the others who were looking to rent equipment to go camping at cotopaxi, which is the second higest volcano in Ecuador and surrounded by a nationa park. Sounded pretty cool so decided to join them even though they were going next morning and ment missing the tennis (though turns out wasn´t much to miss by looks of things!).
Then me and Erin went over to the volunteer house where Amy had made these awesome enchiladas and rice. Was a little spicy but seriously good! Just hung out there with the others for a couple hours and watched some Dexter :) Anyways figured bit after 8 ought to head home as Erin wanted to see the family and get photos etc as Friday family night was not a success. They weren´t home when we got back so assumed they´d just popped out for a while. We´d got some rum for the occassion so decided to start on that. But several hours and half a bottle of rum later they still weren´t back. Even tried texting them though they didnt respond. Round bout midnight in rolls a rather drunk Edwin with Marie and Emy in tow. Rest of night went downhill from there as the rum gradually disappeared and Edwin became harder and harder to translate! Unfortunately ended in Edwin and Marie having a massive shouing match at like 2 in the morning across the house. And couldn´t go to bed still as had to wait up for Erin to leave as she was getting picked up at 3am!
Needless to say, was bordering on dying next morning having to get up at 8 to meet my friend at the trole station at 8.30 to go get the bus to the town near Cotopaxi. But couple hours later, lot of water and some bread things were looking up and the bus to Latacunga only took 1 1/2 hours as opposed to the expected 2 :) The others had gone the previous night somewhere else and were meeting us at Latacunga. Unfortunately they got lost so we had to wait like an hour and a bit but gave a nice break to have a nap. Then when they arrived, it turned out Thomas´friend who lives here was giving us all a lift though it meant fitting 8 people into a car which was a teeeny bit squished! Also people had to hide everytime we went near police as even here, in town can´t do that!
Arrived at the entrance to the park only to be informed as we were foreigners we couldn´t be trusted to enter the park ourselves, we were allowed to stay in by ourselves but not allowed to go along the straight road with no detours minus a guide. AKA a giant scam to rip off the gringos. Unfortunately having no choice we had to pay the guide to come with us where he drove us like 20 mins to this ´laguna´more like overly flooded grass, though still pretty, then another 5 mins to the campsite. Toms friend didn´t have enough gas (petrol in real english) to make it up to the car park we wanted to go so left to get more whilst we set up camp. Was actually quite a big 5 man tent and easily accomodated the 6 of us. Anyways, the car park is part way up the volcano and then you can hike another hour up to the refuge which is where people who are going to summit it spend some time acclimatising. We could seriously feel the altitude going up and whilst it didn´t look that far was really hard and were walking on a kinda sandy/rubbly surface meaning every step you took you kinda sank and slided back a bit!
Was totally worth it once we got to the top with the awesome view especially of the sunset. Would have been cool to reach the snow but that was quite a bit higher and the refuge is already at 4,180m or so. Also is insanely expensive to summit it as have to have a guide and all the equipment to do so! Having taken so long to get up, literally took 5 mins to run back down!
Was kinda chilly by time we got back to tent and said goodbye to toms friends who´d been so nice and helpful. Also couldn´t light little gas burner outside so had to do so in the tent to boil water for our ´pot noodles´. Also made some hot chocolate and I had my speakers and ipod so had some music aswell. Then Tom and Vida got a fire going outside aswell. Only issues swhen we went back inside the tent with our $3 bottle of watermelon vodka. Vida like paniked at every noise outside and grabbed my arm spilling my vodka everywhere, then when emily went outside to the toilet, she started screaming there was a cow outside - which im still certain there wasnt - causing more spillage. Then to top it off someone scared vida with a noise outside and she like dived across the tent with another cup of vodka, so had to clear that all up. Then i think we were probs in sleeping bags by 10/10.30! I didnt sleep too bad though kept waking up from the cold every now and then. When we woke up was tipping it down though so after eating our cereal, more hot chocolate and some bread, packed up and were set to go. Had originally planned to walk out the park down to the Panamericana(highway) which was a 5/6 hour walk. But after an hour in the poring rain, not being able to actually see the scenery or anything, managed to hitch a lift from a passing man in his truck who took us all the way to where we could catch the bus back to Quito.
Kinda was tired so just slept and read for the rest of the evening then went to bed early as i was up at 6.45 for our morning exercise hoy, which was harder than usual!
Anyways, Cotopaxi was really cool looking was only a shame we didn´t get a chance to do some actual hiking though was really glad we made it up to the refuge as liek i said the view was awesome!!
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