Hurricane Cotopaxi

9-8-08

So we didn't catch anything. And the road we took the bikes on was horrible. First a dirt road which was not very smooth and then a cobblestone road which was obviously not smooth, and not meant for bikes, or cars for that matter (I don't know what could comfortably travel on cobblestone). It was about 3 miles to the river, 3 painful miles. With the altitude and quality of the road we found the stream just in time because my lungs were ready to collapse. It was Unger, me and a couple that was traveling around the world before relocating from Canada to Australia. We have met many people but as expected not many Americans (We are currently riding the bus to Banos with 2 American girls but Americans are a rarity. I would say it is because of the economy but everything is so cheap here that now is the best time to travel) Anyway back to fishing. We finally found the raging river which was about 3 feet wide and maybe 2 feet deep. You can see right to the bottom and there were no fish anywhere. We walked up and down the stream looking and finally just dropped our lines into a deep pool. We got no bites and and decided to leave. Of course Unger tangled his line so we waited for him to untangle it. We rode back, ate lunch consisting of bread and vegetable soup. I took my first shower in 3 days and first hot shower in South America. I took a five minute nap and then read and talked to the other guests for about 2 hours. Dinner was very good BBQ chicken. Unger and I played scrabble after dinner and I crushed him. We went to bed early because in Cotopaxi everybody goes to bed early.

9-9-08

I awoke at 6:30 ready to take our day trip to Cotopaxi Volcano. 8 of us loaded into a pickup truck (four inside and four of us in the bed). It was a miserable hour and half on the same cobblestone road. It was pretty cold and the wind had picked up, so the four of us (Unger, me and the two girls we are with right now) covered ourselves with a blanket from the bed of the truck. We arrived at the base of the volcano and began our ascent. The incline was about 45 degrees and the wind was really picking up. Also there was so much cloud cover we couldn't really see anything. We couldn't look up anyway after about 50 yards because 50-60 mile per hour winds were blowing sleet into our face. The guide said we could turn around and go visit a lake instead. I thought that was a pretty good idea (understand I have never seen weather come even close to this and the guide later told us this was the worst weather he had ever seen up there) but our Australian friends Norman and Hanne were set on making it to the top. Norman is 71 who looks like he is in his 50s. So we continued on through ice and sleet and wind and finally reached the "Refuge", the building where we would be eating lunch. We ate hot soup and bread and at that point discussed going to the glacier about 300 meters further up the mountain. Now my lungs felt like I suffered from asthma and have been smoking a pack a day for years so I chose to stay. Did I mention I have a problem with altitude? But I figure there are plenty of other glaciers to see in the world. Ok, I'm an idiot and I think the altitude prevented at least half of my brain from functioning. Norman, the 71 year old businessman from Australia made it to the glacier. 46 years my senior and he made it and I didn't. I'm a little embarrassed. The highlight of the trip was the Andean wolf about 15 feet off the trail. We went back down the mountain and rushed back to the hostel to collect our bags and take the hour trip to Machachi which is about 15 miles away. I am now on a bus to Banos as stated before with Unger, Brittany, and Michelle (our new American friends). Back to civilization, sort of. It is sad.