Valentine's Day
COTOPAXI! Cotopaxi is a perfect cone volcano and Ecuador's 2nd highest peak, at 5897m, or roughly 19000 feet. And I climbed up more than 4800m of that!
Okay, so the day started off at 6AM, leaving Quito and we went straight to Parque Nacional Cotopaxi. Once in the park we learned a few things about the volcano's activity and the effects that it has had as well as the effects an eruption would have on the surrounding area (basically everyone is going to die, because no one is prepared.) After this the bus took us up to this parking lot area, which was awful because the bus was at this really awkward angle and it was just uncomfortable. Okay, so this parking lot area is basically completely covered in fog and you can barely see 20 feet ahead. So Theo, our volcanology professor takes us over to this hill, that's at like an 80 degree angle and tells us we're going to run down it. At first I thought he was joking, but then he started running down the hill sideways and we all followed, it was pretty cool but a little scary because I was pretty nervous about falling. At the bottom of this hill we had another lecture on the volcano and lava, and some of us climbed this huge rock, that I think was made out of lava, or was part of the volcano before it erupted back in the day.
After awhile we had to make the trek back up the hill, standing at the bottom of the hill and looking up was just so daunting. Just walking on semi-flat ground we were all breathing heavily. So getting up the hill was kind of rough, there were mini-rockslides caused by the people ahead of you that you had to avoid and Theo was picking up rocks and chucking them at people. It was pretty crazy! Once I finally made it up the hill, I was trying to catch my breath and man, I was so tired! It was like I had just finished playing a soccer game, but was even harder because the air is thinner so it's a lot harder to catch your breath.
After climbing up the little hill, I was a little bit worried because the hardest part, climbing up to the Refugio and up to the glacier was still to come. Theo gave us about 2 hours to try to climb and explore, at least 50 minutes of which he said would take us to get up to the glacier. So we all started climbing, and climbing, and climbing. At first it was just dirt, but then as we gradually got higher up there was snow covering the path and a lot more cloud cover. You could only see about 50 feet ahead of you and the 85 degree angle or so we were walking up was ridiculous! You basically had to learn over forwards the whole time, or risk rolling down the path, ha-ha, and then there'd be people coming down from the top who are like running out of control so we had to dodge them too. I was so tired walking! From just walking up the path for about 30 minutes, I felt more tired than I ever have and I would look up and could only see clouds. Finally though I reached the Refugio! At 4800m! Yey! Behind the Refugio, the landscape was covered in snow! I was so excited! And wishing that I had brought a sled! So my friends and I continued the climb, right past the "Peligro, area de avalanches" sign. After about 20 minutes we reached the end of the rocks and 3 feet of snow! It was amazing and so cold! I felt like for a moment I was back in Ohio, but then remembered that I was actually on a glacier on top of a volcano in Ecuador, by the equator! This by far, was the most amazing thing that I have ever done in my life up to this point! It was amazing!!! (Oh and I forgot to mention, at this point I was the only girl, and we kept hearing thunder, which made a lot of people turn back and it was hailing/snowing the whole time too.) The view was pretty cool, and we got some pretty awesome photos up there.
Once we started to descend the glacier, it was really funny; because the snow was so deep you would start running almost and then face plant into the snow. I did that quite a few times, but did manage to get down pretty fast. From the Refugio, getting down was pretty easy; the sideways running thing worked out really well. It was crazy though that it took so much effort and time to climb up, and then took only like 20 minutes to climb down. However, I did get a little lost in the fog and freaked out for a second, because I couldn't see any of my friends or the bus...but I did end up finding it, so everything was okay!
When I reached the bus I started to realize how cold and wet I really was. My jeans were soaked, there was snow and rocks in my boots and yeah, I was freezing cold! It's crazy to think to that I went from the beginning of the day at 65 degrees to 3 feet of snow! This was definitely one of the most challenging and spectacular things that I have ever done, and I'm totally inspired to climb Cotopaxi and maybe Chimborazo too!
Then we took the bus back through the park, stopped at some lake and continued on to Baños. Baños is a pretty chill, party town that has lots of crazy things to do, like bungee jumping, whitewater rafting, mountain biking and climbing.
February 15th
Today we left at 5:30AM on the bus to go to Al Pailon del Diablo, which is a waterfall. Of course, like everywhere else in Ecuador getting there required some hiking. Ha-ha, after yesterday I was so tired! (Walking back up the trail to the bus I was so tired, I felt like a fat kid who just ran up a flight of stairs, except I was more tired than that!) Once we got to the waterfall, we went on a bridge that had this huge warning sign about no more than 5 people, but we definitely had lots more than 5 people on that bridge! After that we learned more about the eruptive behavior and effects of the volcano Tungurahua, which was some 40km away. Tungurahua was most recently active in 2006, and on our way back to Baños we saw a clear view of the volcano, it was pretty cool! Once we got back to Baños we went a little outside of town and saw some lahars and pyroclastic flows that were produced by Tungurahua's eruption in 2006. It was crazy, there were houses completely covered by the pyroclastic flows! Then we had a lecture from someone who was in the area for the eruption and from Baños, he told us about how they are trying to prepare for an eruptive event and how the government and people have reacted and how they should react. He also discussed evacuation plans and how they've failed in the past.
On our drive out, we saw the Baños bird. There used to be two of these giant macaws that were like a welcome sign to Baños, but in 2006 a pyroclastic flow destroyed one of the birds and now the other is barely above the dirt. After a quick photo-op we returned to the bus and headed back to Quito. As we were driving down the highway, I was taking some pictures out the open window, which I was leaning out of a bit and then all of the sudden; this bus going the other direction comes out of nowhere! It was less than a foot away from the side of our bus. I flung myself back into the bus and was freaking out; I thought I had like lost a hand, or worse, my camera!
This field trip was by far the coolest, most fun field trip I've ever gone on in my life! It's crazy though and seems like this all didn't happen in the last two days, (probably because of the lack of sleep), but it was totally amazing and I loved every minute of it!!
