Cotopaxi and Quito

One of the most memorable parts of the trip was our hike up Cotopaxi. It was a quick trip, we drove out that morning, got there in the afternoon, hiked to the hut, started hiking up that night at 1 am and drove back to Quito the next afternoon. Nonetheless, it was amazing and very challenging.

We met up with Eddie who is from Ecuador and also works with Greg at the UofU. We also met up with Greg's advisor, Bill, and a group of 4 friends that came down to tour around with him.

The most crazy part of the whole trip was that we drove up to 15,000 ft. That right there was the highest I had ever been before. Then we hiked up about a mile to 16,000' to the hut where we slept and ate.

We went to try to sleep at 6ish. The night was horrible. Between the nerves, excitement, and adjusting to the altitude it was a rough night's sleep. Greg and I would wake up struggling to breathe at times. It was pretty crazy.

They woke us up at midnight and feed us some breakfast and pushed us to drink more fluids. I was so grateful for the hot chocolate!

There were two other groups that started before us. We eventually went out around 1:30 am. We hiked up this red rocky-clay like material for about an hour to the glacier.

And then we made it to the top... 19,347 ft (5,897 m) !!!

Just like that we were on the top! Actually that's not how it went; we had to hike at a slow steady pace so we could breathe. If we went too fast we would be bent over gasping for breath. I will admit that it wasn't all peaches getting up there, as I expected. I felt nauseated the whole time (breakfast never really settled), had a slight headache, and caught myself thinking I never want to do anything like this again. Greg had somewhat the same feelings of nausea and headache, but he kept a good attitude;-)

There were a few encouraging things along the way that kept up morale. One was a massive lightning storm above the amazon basin that we could see from where we were hiking. I am a huge fan of lightning storms. This is how bad I am; I would go sit out, in a lawn chair, in my yard and watch summer thunder and lightning storms come across Utah Lake. Greg also has similar stories, so for us it was really exciting and amazing. Another thing was one of personal achievement for us. We had worked really hard to prepare for this and it was definitely paying off. The last was knowing what was lying ahead of us. Knowing that if we could continue one step at a time we were coming that much closer to accomplishing a goal we had set about 4 months earlier. We would be standing above the clouds looking for hundreds of miles in all directions.

This is the caldera of the volcano, it was massive, smoking, and hundreds of feet deep.

In the distance you can see the Volcan de Tungurahua. This volcano has been actively erupting for the past 3 months. It was amazing to see the smoke plume going up into the sky; geology at its finest!

Going down is when I was able to get some pictures of the climb. We climbed up in the dark and got to the top around 6:30 am. So going down was a whole new climb for us. We finally saw what we'd been hiking through in the dark.

That is the top! We had just been up there. Like Rainier its hard to really see how big things really are up there....

but here's what I didn't have before! Those three little dots on the right side of the picture are people. The ice had to be at least a couple hundred feet thick.

This is called an ice bridge. We had to cross a couple to get to the other sides of the crevasses.

Behind us is a heavily crevassed glacier.

A side view of a crevasse. The walls are about 100 ft high.

Walking off the edge of the earth into the abyss

The fingers of glaciers crawling down the mountain

We made it back down to dirt and rocks! It was amazing!!!! Such an experience and adventure.

Back at the hut looking up to the top. By 11:30 am we were on our way back to the car to drive back to Quito. Quick trip, but amazing all the same!

The funniest part of the trip was on our way to the car some of their military guys just had to get a picture with the blond American girl! haha made us laugh!

Volcan de Cotopaxi

Quito

This is Eddy's house in Ecuador. His family was gracious enough to let Greg and me stay with them for a few nights as we broke up our little trips. Their little brown dog didn't like us much and was always trying to bite us. It became sort of a funny game. We stayed in the little blue guest room in the top left side of the picture. It was perfect, a bed and a bathroom with a shower. They had a beautiful yard that they were very proud of and they were working on putting in another little guest room by ours. You could tell they were very proud of their home and grateful that they could help us out by staying there.

My first experience with glass on the tops of walls! Also the market was crazy with tons of things to buy and so many people trying to make you buy things. I would try not to make eye contact with anyone or look at a certain booth for too long otherwise I would get bombarded by people trying to shove things in my hands saying, " you like? you like?". I'm so not a big fan of that and didn't last to long ;-)

This is a series of pictures in a museum we went through. It shows the introducing of white men into ecuador. The middle picture is very symbolic... we were death, everything we did, whether intentional, like making the natives into slaves to mine the gold, or not intentional with our diseases, we killed thousands and thousands of people in this area.

This Virgen Mary is on top of a hill in the middle of the city. You can always find where you are if you can see her.

These two little kids asked if they could polish our shoes... we had our chaco's on so I had them take a picture with me and gave them some change in return

It was interesting to see very old buildings that the Spanish built when they arrived in the 1500s. They seemed somewhat out of place with where we were but they are a huge part of their history.

The narrow, cobblestone streets of Quito!

This cathedral was completely covered in gold leaflet. It was very impressive and... shiny. I was absolutely amazed with how much gold they had and more amazed that they had put that much money into a building instead of to the members of the church or the poor of the city. But I have no idea of how they do things down there, so I shouldn't judge or speculate. It does, however, make you think a little.

We were able to attend a concert of a German organist. His songs were amazing, I have never heard the organ played like that before. It was beautiful and fun to attend a local event. We did feel a little under dressed. Everyone was dressed up and here we were, in shorts and t-shirts and dirty from walking around town all day. Love it!