Today's excursion is supposed to be more to my liking than yesterday's and I expect a veritable highlight.
The Cotopaxi, notorious active volcano near Quito, is today's destination. Again, the bus arrives at seven ready for departure, and in contrast to yesterday, the average age of the participants has dropped massively. Dutch, Australians, Brazilians, Americans of course and actually a Swiss guy from Lucerne and me.
Mountain bikes? What for?
However, I am amazed when looking at the roof of the car, where a considerable number of mountain bikes are attached. Mountain bikes? Did I overlook something? I obviously missed a lot, because all of them are equipped with a printed plan of the day with all the stages and the necessary prerequisites to bring along, i.e. equipment, physical condition, supplies.
As far as I understand, the bus takes us up to 4400 meters (my information went as far as that), then we walk up to the hut at just below 4900 meters and then back down again. As a highlight of the trip, we (?) have then the opportunity to rush down to the park entrance on the aforementioned mountain bikes.
Ah, wonderful! But let's wait and see ...
The Cotopaxi
With 5897 meters, the Cotopaxi is the second highest mountain in Ecuador and one of the highest active volcanoes on earth.
Although still active, it is the most regularly climbed mountain in the country. It is located in the national park which bears its name, about 50 kilometers south of Quito. It is part of the "Avenue of Volcanoes" in the eastern Andes. Due to its regular conical shape and the ice cap on the summit, Cotopaxi corresponds to the ideal image of a stratovolcano. The crater has a diameter of 800 x 550 x 350 meters at the summit.
The name Cotopaxi means "neck of the moon" because from a certain perspective the moon rises behind the mountain.
The journey
After driving for a good hour, the volcano slowly approaches, but it soon becomes clear that the weather is quite bad and a gray fog is hiding the summit of the volcano.
And sure enough, how could it be otherwise, it starts raining, whereupon the mood in the bus soon drops below zero degrees. The bus fights its way up the mountain over a road that is getting worse and worse, the surroundings are getting darker and darker, and the rain is getting heavier and heavier.
Rain and snow
The end of the line is in fact at 4400 meters, we get off, no longer surprised by anything. In the meantime, it is not raining anymore, but snowing.
Well, we put on whatever rain gear we might have brought with us, casting somewhat suspicious glances up the slope, where dense rows of tourists are fighting their way up through the snow flurry. It looks a bit like Hillary Step, the tricky spot just before the summit of Mount Everest, where climbers have to queue up until the way is clear.
The Umbrella
Not really according to the true mountaineering tradition, I open my umbrella and get not only astonished, but above all pitying looks.
But I don't care. As it turns out later, I'm the only one with reasonably dry clothes. Of course, the wild young people run up the slope as if chased by the devil. Some pay a high price, but that's another story ...
I take it easy, one slow step at a time, always in my mind conjuring the knee and asking to be indulgent.
The Mountain Hut
The hut is crammed with people from all over the world, all wet (except me), but all excited about their achievement.
You drink either hot chocolate or coca tea. I decide for the tea, but I do not feel anything of the promised effect of the coca leaves. As a special highlight, one actually gets a stamp in the passport (!?), which is supposed to prove that one has climbed the summit of Cotopaxi at 5897 meters. A fraud more tempting than any other ...
The descent
I anticipated the way down to be more difficult and dangerous than the way up, however the sand mixed with snow makes it relatively easy to find your footing.
That's how I imagined the trip - all alone in the open countryside, the devout silence of the mountains all around me, maybe the cawing of a mountain jackdaw, maybe the trickle of snow on the umbrella. Or is it?
What is rushing down the hill in front of me and behind me and sometimes beside me are a thousand people (at least that's how it seems to me), instead of the devout silence the polyphonic noise of young people who are having fun running, stumbling, sliding down the slope as fast as possible and with ultimate fun.
But what the heck - it's fun, and everything else is secondary. Even the silence and the loneliness ...
The mountain bikers
Down at the car park, the previously quite courageous young people have become somewhat less courageous in view of the snow on the road and refrain from the descent on the mountain bikes.
However, only as far as the area where the snow turns into rain and the road is less slippery. Of the 14 participants decide 9 to the not harmless descent on the bikes, the remaining 5, including me, find it much cozier in the warm bus watching the sometimes hair-raising rides of the mountain bikers.
But they all find their way, they all get to the meeting point, all soaked to the skin, but all completely euphoric about their adventure. Oh sweet youth ...
Mileage: 7088
Matching Song: Red Hot Chili Peppers - The Adventures of Raindance Maggie
And here the journey continues - towards the north, to Colombia ...
