Cotopaxi

Five days in Quito was more than we expected to stay, but we had a lot of fun in the 2nd largest city in Ecuador, including celebrating my Birthday on our last night there.

Troy and I rode out of the city, taking a couple wrong turns, even with the GPS, since the streets in this mountain city don't seem to follow too much of a grid pattern .  It is easy to get sidetracked on all the numerous one ways, construction zones and streets that split suddenly without warning.

Riding south, we were thinking of either trying to make the coast, or stopping to do a little hike up the active Volcano of Cotopaxi.

Since it took us longer to get out of Quito than we had planned, we got to Cotopaxi a little late in the day, and decided to stay overnight and get up early to explore this 19,000+ foot active Volcano.

From Wikipedia:

Cotopaxi is a stratovolcano in the Andes Mountains, located about 28 km (17 mi) south of Quito, Ecuador. It is the second highest summit in the country, reaching a height of 5,897 m (19,347 ft)

Cotopaxi has an almost symmetrical cone that rises from a highland plain of about 3,800 metres (12,500 ft), with a width at its base of about 23 kilometres (14 mi). It has one of the few equatorial glaciers in the world, which starts at the height of 5,000 metres (16,400 ft). The mountain is clearly visible on the skyline from Quito.[4] It is part of the chain of volcanoes around the Pacific plate known as the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Cotopaxi from the window of our Hotel.

We left early in the morning with a local driver (Sadly, we weren't allowed to take the motorcycles up the trail).   It is about an hour ride as the road meanders up the Volcano.

The fist stop is a lagoon, at 12,655 feet (3830 meters) it is a short way up the side.  It gave us a wonderful view of the snow capped peak.

Our first stop, the lagoon. 

The Lagoon. 3830 Meters

In the parking lot at the Lagoon.

Cotopaxi!

We continued up the winding, washed out road.  We passed a grader plowing, there were a couple water crossings to make, as it is washed out in 2 places.  

After about 45 minutes, we came to the parking lot.    From there, we had to climb to the start of the glacier at 16,400 feet (5000 meters)

The parking lot

Making our way up to the Glacier.

We were filming along the way.  There will be a lot of heavy breathing in the audio.

It's not a hard climb, but the altitude really took it out of us.  Our guide, who does this 8 to 10 times a week, strolled up it like he was walking around town.  We were huffing and puffing and out of breath every 15 feet.  But finally, we made it to the top, where there is a nice small building with hot tea and cookies.  

Tea at the top.

The view was spectacular. and Troy enjoyed playing in the snow, which he has only seen a handful of times in his life.

Tim:  "Woo HOOOOOOOO!!!"...

Troy:  "Woo HOOOOOOOO!!!"

Troy:  "I'm tired"  Tim:  "Me too."

This was a good day.