Chimborazo & Baños, Ecuador

Chimborazo is a 20,500ft tall mountain, and we originally talked about summiting it while we were there, but ended up opting for Cotopaxi because it typically has much better weather and we were only going to have one chance at it. Instead, we went up to the high camp/2nd refuge as a training/acclimatization hike. The bus ride from Riobamba was ~2 hours, and dropped us off on the side of the highway. The highway happens to be quite close to the mountain, so you pretty much just start walking from there. The weather was rather less than ideal - we only got occasional glimpses of the summit when the clouds momentarily cleared. Near the refuge is started to rain/snow/hail and we hid out in one of the huts for a bit. We topped out that day at ~16,500ft, which we felt pretty good about. By the time we were headed back down, the snow/hail had changed the landscape and it suddenly looked like Iceland - beautiful, though still no summit views.

That evening, we took a bus to Baños, which is kind of the adventure/outdoor capital of Ecuador. As soon as we arrived we realized where all the obnoxious tourist-hunters had been hiding (miraculously absent from the rest of Ecuador). All the hounding was riminisent of Aguas Calientes, Peru. The weather here was also less-than-ideal, but we managed to have a nice time despite a few mishaps. We took advantage of our day off from hiking (rest day before the big climb) to sleep in a bit and find a real coffee shop. Then Matt rented a motorcycle, Ashley a quad, and I hopped on back (almost rented my own moto, but thought better of it). We drove up the Ruta de las Cascadas (Waterfall Route), which was a beautiful drive with lots of huge waterfalls. Unfortunately, it started to rain about this time. We tried to hit the hot springs later, but apparently just missed closing time, so had to settle for some good food and beer, and a massage for Ash.

Next up, the big Cotopaxi climb!

Cuenca & Cajas National Park, Ecuador

Next up was 4 days in the jungle. But because I'm already more than a month behind on blogging, and the jungle posts are going to take me a little longer, I'm going to skip ahead to some of the quicker ones. Jungle was awesome. Steven unfortunately had to head back to the states for work after 9 days, so the jungle was our parting. Matt, Ashley and I continued on:

After the jungle, we flew south to Cuenca. The flight went right over the 'avenida del los volcanes' so provided some great views and Cuenca was a super cute little city. We spent the day wandering around checking out markets, churches, the Modern Art Museum, the Panama Hat Factory, eating and drinking, and checking out the views.

Chimborazo - partially hiked a few days later

Cotopaxi, climbed a week later

Turns out Panama Hats are actually from Ecuador...

they are sort of sensitive about that fact

The next day we took a bus out to Cajas National Park, which was gorgeous. We did a great loop hike with crazy scenery, great views, and some serious sunshine (turns out you get burned easily at 14,500 ft).

After the hike, it was time for an evening bus down to Riobamba, a (not) fun 6 hours. Oh well, for only $6 you can't complain too much.