Cotopaxi

so we watched some awesome movies in the bus, as always. I’m really getting to appreciate how much I love Sandra Bullock, I keep watching movies with her and she’s seriously such a great actress! We arrive at the entrance of the Cotopaxi Park, and it’s about an hour ride to a spot with a wall where we stopped to look, of course, at some rocks. I really felt like I was in the middle of nowhere, it was wild. Almost like some sort of weird desert at times, because every once in a while there was nothing on either side of you, and then it would just drop off and you couldn’t see anything else. We continued up for a while longer until it was realllll cloudy.

We arrived at our destination: a parking lot, 4500 meters, and ya know, there’s just some wolves frolicking about, playing around some other parked cars.

We had about 2 and a half to three hours I think to reach the glacier, but you could barely see 20 feet in front of you. 

I started up, not promising myself to stay with any groups because I wasn’t sure how I would do going up. Not only is it hiking up a steep hill, it’s in some pretty crazy conditions. 

The ground is at times really rocky, at other times really soft dirt that steals your feet away from you. Not to mention the altitude. Needless to say, I was working at a snail’s pace. I would take 20 steps, then count 15 seconds for a break, then continue with 20 steps. I eventually got to 40 and even 50 steps sometimes! Crazyyy I know!

You really couldn’t see that much, and at one point I found myself on this sort of natural bridge, where we were kind of on a mini hill and if you walked too close to the side you’d probably fall about 15 feet. This part was level, and then it continued uphill of course. Some people were jogging then taking a break, but you’re really not supposed to do that. I liked my tortoise pace, and although I didn’t get there first by any means, I did get rewarded in the end…

We had been traveling for a long time, and I really didn’t know if I would make it. Luckily I ate lots of chocolate before I even left the bus, because sugar/chocolate helps with the altitude, so I wasn’t sick or anything. I only sat down once, and took an extra bite of chocolate just in case. I didn’t want to sit around and then later regret not making it to the glacier. I had come this far, and it was the day of the Penguin Plunge in Vermont! I couldn’t just sit on the side of Cotopaxi and eat chocolate all day!

We made it to a Refuge, and I thought to myself…uh oh, why is there a place to rest here? How much longer could there be?!?!?! So I took a bathroom break and a breather, and continued from this stop at 4800 meters. The “path” here was getting smaller. Before it was like walking up a big hill at least 30 feet wide, and right before the refuge it was more like 5, and at times 3, but now I was walking right behind people. You could go on other routes, but it got rocky and it’s always easier to follow someone else, watching where they slip and get good footholds. 

We also started seeing little rivers, coming down from much higher. They were tiny but so fun to see! It started getting a little chilly, but even tho I packed so many layers I didn’t want to wear any of them! It also started misting a big.

Well, it was getting really hard to see any sort of path, and I had no idea where I was going. Luckily I ran into the other professor that comes with us on the trips, and so I didn’t feel so bad that we were starting to run into the time where we should head back. But I really wanted to see the glacier!! We ran into some other students from the class, who said they made it. Some of them said it was really close, others say oh it’s a half hour. I didn’t know whom to believe. You also have to remember that 5 minutes downhill can be 20 minutes uphill in these conditions. The professor wanted to get there just as much as I did, so we kept on truckin! When we got closer, some Ecuadorians steered us in the right direction which was really helpful bc we had to head way over to the right to find the glacier. It got scarier and scarier, and a bit colder, but obviously worth it! We reached the glacier and I was so excited that I forgot it was ice and wiped out. A few scratches but not bad. Of course my first pic is me in my PENGUIN PLUNGE t shirt, obviously. 

And then, the trusty founder’s society sweatshirt-just for you Dustin!

We headed back down, and once I got to the refuge I was by myself, only because the girls behind me were staying at the glacier and i didn't want to get left behind, and also because the professor I was with was taking too long and walking too slow. I started running down to make up for lost time, and oh my goodness was that interesting. I made a video of it, that I'll eventually put there. It was so wild though because at that part the ground is so soft that it went to my ankles, so I had to lift my feet up out of the ground to keep going!

I caught up with a bunch of people from my class and we made it back to the bus. I peeled off my clothes and started to get cozy, only to get summoned off the bus. I figured it was just to chat about what we did and find out what was happening next, so I only had on a long sleeve shirt and a notebook. Well, we had another adventure of course-always be prepared with Theo. He walked us over to the side of the parking lot,and then kept doing at the top of a very steep part. I'm not sure if it was a caldera or not, but it was realllllll steep, and so misty/cloudy we couldn't see anything. It was misting, but I couldn't go back to get anything so I just listened....apparently we were going to run down this hill. Now I don't just mean any hill. I'm no good at degrees but it was STEEP. like if you laid on it you'd almost be standing up. So Theo told us to run, and since I didn't bring my camera I couldn't film everyone scurrying down the hill. Oh well. He should have told me to be at the ready!

Anyway, we had to run down in zig zags, because if you tried to go in a straight line you'd tumble, and if you tried to go slowly you'd fall. It was very scary but also awesome at the same time. This time the dirt went up to my calves, almost my knees at some points! I didn't have time to slow down at the bottom so I fell and cut my thumbs, they're still healing a bit even though that was about 3 weeks ago from the time I'm writing this blog. 

We then stood in the rain for about 20 minutes, listening to Theo talk about volcanic rocks and whatnot. I wasn't sure if we were going to walk somewhere to meet the bus, because there was no way we could possibly walk up that hill that we just ran down! Well, low and behold of course we had to walk back up it. Or climb, really. I slipped a lot and took a lot of breaks, but what a view at the top. Since it had rained, the clouds moved out and we could see where we had just been and it was GORGEOUS. i'm still trying to find someone who has a picture of it but oh my goodness it was so beautiful I hope I never forget it.

Unfortunately since it was so rainy that weekend we didn't have a great view of the snowcaps, aka we couldn't see them at all. but wow that view after I wheezed my way back to the parking lot was definitely worth the trouble.