Leif, Tyler and I got in one hike up Rucu Pichincha, the 15,000 foot volcano that looms over Quito (and it's the smaller of the two volcanoes that sit just above Quito). We seemed to have a snowball effect as we went up the mountain, gathering companeros as we went. First we met a columbiano, Luis, who reiterated what I had heard from several travelers: Columbia is beautiful and fun to visit, just be sensible and avoid the parts where the guerrillas hang out. Then there were the two chilenos, serious characters. They were on peyote, drinking herbal tonics, smoking a joint and cracking themselves up on their way up the mountain. That said, they'd been hiking since 6 am and had come up all the way from low elevation on foot. We had taken the gondola and arrived mid-morning.
Our motley crew of: chilenos on the right, columbiano in the back and estadounidenses (Leif and Tyler) left front. It was mostly cloudy and misty, but then it hailed.
We three headed out with grand ambitions from Quito to do a major and lesser known hits tour of glaciated Ecuadorian volcanoes. Starting with Los Ilinizas, a split volcano with one glaciated, taller peak, Sur, and a rough scramble to the lower peak, Norte, we arrived mid-afternoon after coming up one of the roughest roads I've ever encountered. It was rough in the 'oh, now the road is a river' and 'the "road" is an ongoing series of ditches and potholes,' kind of way. Of course we got dropped off and it started raining, and then pouring, and then thundering. However, in the morning we were treated to this:
Iliniza Norte.
And the view from our campsite of Cotopaxi,
a great big, beautiful volcano that you'll hear more about later.
We squeezed some hiking up to the refuge into this one daytime window of non-rain that we had. The rest of our stay at Los Ilinizas is a blur of failed climbing attempts, rain, scary thunder, dry but small tents, weird nighttime altitude induced gasping, and more rain. I finally convinced the lads, at least for that moment, that suffering isn't really worth it. That's when we decided, "To hell with the mountains, we're going to Banos."
