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.

"Si Se Puede"

Sorry it has taken so long for an update. It has been a very busy week.

9-6-08

I woke up the next day at 9am. Ate breakfast and just relaxed before the game. By noon we were dressed in our yellow Ecuador jerseys and got to cheer for "our" country against Bolivia. We took the bus about 45 minutes to the stadium. The game was incredible. Ecuador won 3-1 and all 40,000 fans were very happy. After the game we went back to the hostel (not before stopping for empenadas) and were ready to take salsa lessons. Unfortunately only about six of us were dancing, but it was still fun. The teacher said I was good, which as a white guy with 2 left feet, that is quite a compliment. After the dancing I went online to see that Arizona beat mighty Toledo and that made me happy. Although I didn't really want to go out, we decided it was our last night in Quito and went to "No Bar" which is a dance club in the new city (aka Gringo Landia). Without going into details it was a good night, followed by an awful 9am wakeup.

9-7-08

We packed up and took a truck the 30 miles to Cotopaxi Volcano. Two and half hours later (roads are not great here) we arrived at the hostel which has the most incredible view of the entire landscape and the volcano itself. The hostel is the owner's home which he bought about 2 years ago. There are a few bungalows with really comfortable bunk beds. I just basically sat in one of the hammocks most of the day and read and just enjoyed the scenery. The property has chickens, a pig, a sheep, rabbits, turkeys and guinea pig (aka cuy) which I have yet to try. All the food is home cooked and the meals have tasted great so far. We met a German family which we debated on the age of the son and daughter, but we think they were both in their early twenties. We discussed how it was interesting that they were doing a trip and staying in hostels like this, since I don't see many Americans doing something like this. They taught us how to play this card game that was fun. I lost but I was functioning on very little sleep. If I were rested I would have won easily. We went to bed early and now I am sitting writing in my journal about to take the bikes down to the river to go fishing. I'll update when I catch 10 trout. So maybe I will never update.