Day 6 to 10 – What a weekend

After a weekend of excitement, I finally got something to tell you besides my rather boring day to day activities…

Saturday we (Colette, Eva, Stephanie and I) decided to go to Otovalo, the next larger town, about 1,5h drive by bus from Quito. Because we wanted to visit the famous Mercado, we had to get up quite early to be there on time. This meant getting up at 6:30 on a Saturday, getting a taxi to the bus station in the north - which is about 30min - and then finally taking my first local long distance bus. As we were all a bit hung over from the last night, the bus ride wasn’t that pleasant, especially for Eva :)
Arrived in Otovalo, their mood suddenly turned around… All those little booths and their shiny stuff, the last night was already forgotten. I guess there were probably 4 different kinds of booths; jewelry, cloths, food, and bags – so the shopping tour could have been over after 20min. Eva and Stephie have had a different opinion though…
So we wondered around for about 3h, seeing the same stuff over and over again. But I actually liked watching all those people, screaming, bargaining and chatting with each other.
After they also had enough of shopping (actually they ran out of money) we decided to go to a nearby lake to take a walk before we headed back to Quito.


On Sunday we went to the second highest peak in Ecuador. The 5896m high volcano Cotopaxi. So we got up at 4:30! and started the same procedure – taxi and bus. We arrived in Latacunga at about 8:00 in the morning. Here we started our tour to the Refugio on Cotopaxi at an altitude of 4913m. We climbed into a jeep which first broad us to the Museum where we had a 20min break (and coca tea) to acclimatize. Then we drove on to the parking lot at 4600m. We just had 300m of altitude to climb which isn’t a lot. But at 4600m, just walking a few meters to take a photo turned out quite hard! We then started to accent, step by step – one foot in front of the other. It took is 1h to walk the 1km up to the Refugio while strong winds tried to blow us off the path and snow, hail and rain made us feel miserable and cold. At the hut, our guide prepared the winner meal while we had a hot chocolate. I was feeling pretty well but Eva and Stephie were tired and a bit dizzy – no wonder at over 4900m we were higher than the highest peak in Europe!
Our guide than told us that we could go up until the glacier which is at 5000m. The girls were not excited about that, but I couldn’t miss the chance to break the 5k barrier :)
So the girls turned around and our guide and I left for the glacier. As he didn’t want them to be waiting a long time in the cold, he started to walk really fast… It took us about 25min to the glacier, but when he stopped I needed about 5 more to get my breath. It was really cold and windy, but I couldn’t resist checking the altitude. The GPS showed 5013m with an accuracy of 6m. So I definitely climbed over 5k!
Be began a fast decent and arrived at the car shortly after Eva and Stephie…
Cold, wet but happy, we made our way home, past a beautiful alpine lake.

Next weekend we’re going to Banos, for mountain biking, rafting and zip-lining :)

Wish you all a nice week
Greets from Quito,
Alex

Mercado de Otovalo


Food, and screaming people everywhere


The team - Eva, Stephie and Colette




Coca tea to cope with the altitude





Shortly before we attempt to climb to the Refugio


The way up


At the Refugio






Our guide