This last Saturday, four friends and I went to Cotopaxi--reportedly the tallest active volcano in the world. Of course, "active" here means it puffs out bits of smoke now and again, and the last time it blew was in the late 1800's. (Kind of in the same sense that my blog is "active").
We had a 2 hour bus ride and arrived at the terminal in Latacunga when we realized we missed the park entrance; another bus and a half hour later we were shooed out of the bus on the side of the highway, in what looked like the middle of nowhere. We walked towards a little hut resembling one of the forts I dreamed about as a kid, where we were greeted by a nice young man.
He told us that the drive up to the actual park entrance was another 30 minutes, and the base of the volcano was another 30 after that--so we decided the lagoon was a nice place to stop, at 40 minutes away altogether. Then he offered to take us for $20 a head...I think three of us immediately started laughing, since we brought little more than enough money for the bus ride home. As Stacey put it, "He was trying to Gringo us" and we wouldn't have it. He warned us there was a river that we couldn't cross on foot, so we couldn't go without a car...we told him we'd try our luck. Off we went down the dirt road, prepared to simply picnic on the side of the road with a nice view of Cotopaxi a long way off.
As we were walking past a little bungalow with cows and chickens, I heard a man ask if we wanted to go up to the lagoon. He was pointing to his beater car and earnestly giving us prices--$25--for all of us. Okay, that's good, we thought, and off we went. Alonso turned out to be really friendly and eager to tell us about the area and about himself. As we jolted and rumbled slowly up the road, he waved at almost every person and car we passed, before turning back to us, offering more bits of local history.
We arrived at the "big river" the younger guy told us about, and a small uproar of indignant cries filled the car--the river was more of a large incontinent puddle. On we drove, through a canyon, past a forest of pines--replanted with 2 species, said Alonso, brought from California. That made me smile.
We arrived at the lagoon and upon jumping out of the car, a round of "Oh, brrr"s went around as we pulled out extra shirts, sweatshirts and down vests from our bags. We were still 20 minutes from the snowline, but 16,000 feet will get you even without the snow. Apparently, the summit is 19,347 feet, and features one of the few Ecuatorial glaciers in the world. Everyone took lots of photos and we goofed around a bit, enjoying the windswept feeling of the empty, lonely plain between two severely majestic mountains. The other mountain is Ruminahui--a Quichua name, like many of the place names around here. (Quichua was one of the languages of the Incas and is spoken widely today by the large indigenous population.)
We finally hopped back in the car, and, waving goodbye to Cotopaxi, began our descent. We stopped at this small exhibit/museum area where we found this great little shed for a photo op, and continued back to Quito. All in all, it was a fun and rather relaxing day trip...next stop, Cuenca! My group of 17 gringos are flying to the south of Ecuador and spending a couple days hiking, biking, caving and experiencing a little indigenous village that, thankfully, is not on the tourist line. I promise another update within the next couple weeks.
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