Conquering the Cotopaxi (well, almost)

The day we chose to climb up to the refuge at the base of the Cotopaxi volcano glacier was not the best one. It was very cloudy and rather cold, but the worse thing was that as soon as we started the ascend it started to snow (not to mention the strong winds). This time we were better equipped (apart from our trousers), so it wasn't too bad, but it was still freezing cold and wet.

The Cotopaxi volcano is one of the highest active volcanoes in the world and the second highest summit in Ecuador (after Chimborazo). It is very popular with all sorts of climbers as you don't require any previous mountaineering experience to climb it. It only takes two days, one night to reach the top and there is an 80% chance you will make it to the summit without any previous training. As we had to get back to Quito on Sunday evening we decided not to do the climb to the summit, but we still  wanted to climb up to the small refuge (4810 m) where people going all the way to the top (5897 m) stay overnight.  

We left Latacunga with our mountain guide Cristian at 8.00am. Our first stop was at a museum right at the entrance of the "Parque Nacional Cotopaxi". There is a little botanical garden in front of the museum to show the type of flora present in the "páramo", which to me looks a bit like the Russian tundra. In terms of fauna there is the Andean cóndor, foxes, rabbits (we saw some), llamas (only domestic animals these days), horses (we saw some too), deer and the rare spectacled bear (we didn't see any). As we had stopped, we took the opportunity to have some coca leaf tea to help us cope with the altitude. Yum! Glad we drank it, as later on we saw some people who were dizzy or nauseous. We were both fine, just out of breath. 

Cotopaxi about to be covered by clouds

The second stop was by the Laguna Limpiopungo a shallow lake at the base of another volcano, the Rumiñahui. This was the only time we saw half of the summit of the Cotopaxi, after that it was too foggy to see anything past a few metres.

After enjoying the sight of some birds and a few rays of sunshine we drove to the parking lot from which we had to climb to the refuge. We decided to go the zig-zag way on the way up and the straight path when coming down. I'd say it took us one hour to climb up and not even 15 minutes (probably 10) to get back down!

It was a great feeling to reach the refuge and I can only imagine what it must feel like to reach the summit on a clear blue sky day. Glad we didn't attempt it though, all we would have seen would have been a mass of white clouds....