Pre holiday dash through the Ecuadorian Andes

I made it to Quito safely, and ended up staying at a fantastic hostel with an amazing view of the city.  One of the first people I met was Jeff from St. Paul, go figure.  The amazing thing is that the next day I met another Minnesotian from Hopkins, weird!!  I spent three days in the city, exploring the sites and enjoying the traquility that this South American city has to offer. 

For me, three days in the big city is plenty, and it was time to move on.  Where too?  The story of my travels, I teamed up with three other folks and headed to Cotopaxi, an active volcano.  The fact that we went completely unprepared made the excursion special!  We arrived in the small dusty town in the afternoon, hired a ride into the national park only to find out that the park was closed and access to the hotels within the park was not allowed.  After some pleading by the driver and the fact that he was also a guide, the guard let us in to the hostel that we were not planning oin going to.  As it turned out, it was a bit pricey - but wonderful hot showers!!  We stayed there the night and hired another driver to take us to the base of the volcano in the morning.  We arrived and began our way up to the refugio where we planned on spending the night.  It was a grueling 1.5 hour hike up the side of the volcano with my fully loaded pack.  We made it, exhausted and ate, relaxed and talked.  "Sleep" came early that night, it took place in a large dorm room of about 50 beds, no heat and at 4,800 meters.  We woke at 6AM and headed up the volcano to the glacier, as we were not prepared for the summit.  The glacier was at 5,000 meters and it was straight up through the snow, but the views were spectacular!!  We got to the bottom of the volcano, hired a car for the "bus station" and it was time for Banos.

Lots to do in Banos, we started off with a 50 km bike dride through the river valley, amazing views, lots of water falls and more.  It took us the whole day and loved every minute of it.  We returned to the hostel exhausted and slept, actually slept!  The next day we partook in some Canyoning.  This is basically repeling down waterfalls - awesome!!  The last waterfall was a 180 foot drop, no rock to rest the feet, just straight down the rope in the middle of a waterfall, amazing!!  That night , another great sleep.  The third and final day brought more adventure - motorized buggy tour of the area, which turned into a race and fast driving by skill-less drivers such as myself!  Almost flipped in once and Nikky almost killed me.

So that has lead up to today, I am off to the beach for a beer and lunch and try to figure out my next destination.  I hope everyone had a great holiday and that you are all safe!

Hobbit