Cotopaxi Trek

After a couple of days in Quito driving ourselves crazy trying to get hold of 'obvious' things like maps and stove fuel, we needed to get out of the traffic fumes and off the beaten track. So on Sunday we headed off on a trek around Cotopaxi - at 5897m the 2nd highest mountain (volcano) in Ecuador, still technically active, although hasn't errupted since 1904.

The first leg of the journey involved a bus south on the Pan American highway, to a small town called Machachi, where we caught a pick-up up the valley to Pansaleo, another smaller village.

We set off with a certain amount of trepidation, as we had been warned by a fellow traveller that one side of the volcano is notoriously boggy, and I had visions of sinking up to my waist, never to be seen again. We also knew that the maps we were using were printed with water-soluble ink, and traditionally didn't show all of the geographical features (sometimes choosing to omit paths, tracks and rivers...) Still, not to be discouraged, we started walking at arond 9am that day, and sweated our way up an ascent of over 1000m (that's the height of Snowdon), which at a starting height of 3160m, with 30lb packs, was no joke! At 4000m it definitely takes more breaths to get the required oxygen to the lungs!

Still, we were well rewarded by the magnificence of our eventual destination - a sheltered camp, under an imposing cliff, with what later turned out to be our best views of Cotopaxi for the whole trip...

For the next 4 days, we worked our way around this magnificent volcano, up and down over the extinct lava flows - at moments we were treated to tantalising glimpses of the cone, with its permanent snow fields, but for the most part it remained obstinately covered in cloud! (Nej - memories of watching Mount Fuji to clear!) The weather apart from this, though, was amzingly kind to us. Considering that we were at a height which in Europe would constuitute glaciers, snow, howling wind and sub-zero temperatures, we enjoyed conditions more similar to the Lake District at home!

As this is a route seems rarely undertaken, we were totally on our own for most of the trek, (bliss, after the chaos of Quito!) with some of the more rewarding moments coming when we met a few Ecuadorian 'campesinos', complete with traditional dress, ponchos, the works.

At one point, when we were struggling to ford a river, we heard a whistle, and looked up to see a mounted Ecuadorian, (probably from the hacienda several miles away) looking down bemusedly on our attempts to make progress. (Who knows how long he had been watching us, laughing to himself!) After offering us some local insight into how we should tackle the river, he then then kindly gave us directions for the next part of our route. The locals were entirely befuddled by what a pair of Gringos would be doing trekking around their local countryside in all weather, with huge packs, apparently just for the sheer hell of it (our explanations were met with confused smiles), but they were friendly encounters.

After 5 days of hard walking, we finally made it back to Mulalo, the town at the far end of our route, and again made it back to Quito for a well earned beer and hot shower, the elusive Cotopaxi remaining hidden to the last!