In December 2013 I skied Cotopaxi, undoubtedly the most famous volcano of Ecuador. This 5.897 meters high mountain is not the only volcano that can be skied around the equator though. With Cayambe, Antisana and Chimborazo this small country has a few other amazing challenges to offer. Together with Ale, the Italian mountain guide I had met in Peru, I went back 9 years later to see which of those big volcanoes I could tackle.
I arrived in Quito on November 24, 2022 and had a month to acclimatize and ski those volcanoes. My plan was to take enough time to properly acclimatize and spend a decent amount of time in Quito to relax before setting of on the bigger missions and ski from around 6.000 meters. Ale was on a road trip with his wife and kid and was more or less standby to guide me. This was a huge bonus since we were extremely flexible and adjust to the weather conditions. Where one normally books a fixed program where you pay for each day also in bad weather, I was now able to pick out the good days (as far as possible but more about that later…).
Exploring Quito
Quito is located at an elevation of 2.850 meters so I took the first days to walk around town and acclimatize. I had visited the capital city before but had a different mindset this time. Instead of focusing on sightseeing and having a full agenda of things to see and do, most days were planned around a nice lunch and dinner and walking a lot in between to slowly adjust my body to the altitude. This usually resulted in having lunch in one and dinner in the other part of this stretched out city. I found some amazing little cafes and restaurants which I really enjoyed, with Bai Tam, Coffee Romance and Atávico Arte Café being my favorites.
Bai Tam was the first place I discovered. Located in a rather chic neighborhood near Parque La Carolina, it was a pleasant 30 minutes walk from the Travellers Inn, my home in Quito. Bai Tam serves delicious Báhn Mi sandwiches amongst a few other classic Vietnamese dishes. It’s one of those typical hip places which I usually don’t tend to like so much but this one turned out to be the exception. Staff was very welcoming, atmosphere was laid-back, prices were good and the sandwiches…well, they were the main reason I came back multiple times. Bai Tam became my favorite place for lunch and every time I left Quito for an adventure in the mountains, I looked forward to my next Vietnamese sandwich!
From Parque La Carolina it was a long walk to the city’s historic center, some decent exercise. This part of town attracts by far the most tourists and for good reason. Despite its beauty, I was quickly drawn away by the nearby neighborhood named San Blas. A lot of character due to the old and colorful houses and many little bars and restaurants define this area of Quito. This is also the place where I found Atávico Arte Café, a beautifully decorated little restaurant serving homemade food. The owners were the friendliest you’ll ever find and their stuffed zucchini served with a “batido de guanabana” (local milkshake) soon became my favorite evening meal.
Often I walked to San Blas in the end of the afternoon when the sun had not yet set to then sit down in Atávico and take things easy. A chat with the owners who were very interested in my adventures, browsing through one of their books and simply watching people come and go usually preceded dinner. Afterwards, I quickly hopped into the trolley bus and made my way back to the Travellers Inn, back to safety. After all, Quito is known for being not the safest city out there after dark. Back “home” I watched a movie or edited some photos before going to bed and do the same thing the following day, a perfect routine to relax the mind…
Acclimatization in Quilotoa and around El Chaupi
After a few days of settling down in Quito I met a climber during breakfast, who was about to start her adventure on Rucu Pichincha. We shared a taxi with her guide and then split ways to both enjoy this classic acclimatization mountain. It must be so nice to have such a great mountain in your backyard. The ascent went quite smoothly considering I had spent only a few days in Quito by now. Time to aim a bit higher and continue the acclimatization process.
A bus to Latacunga connected me with another bus to Quilotoa where I arrived in the afternoon. The place was deserted. Most people visit this crater lake on a day trip from Quito. I however, wanted to spend a few nights near 4.000 meters in order to acclimatize. The first night I was alone in a rather big guest house. Without any form of heating and thin walls, I needed all the blankets I could find to keep myself warm. In the end it was quite comfortable and rather cozy. The next day was bluebird and I enjoyed a spectacular 12 km hike around the crater lake, I met only a handful of people during the few hours I had spent on the loop. Back in town I enjoyed a few “batidos de mora” (blackberry milkshakes) to quench my thirst.
After some downtime in my fancy guest house, I paid Saulo’s Andean Bar a visit and that turned out to be good choice. He is a fascinating character. He moved from the city to this tiny settlement and started his own business, a tiny bar. He lives there with his cute dog, plays guitar and likes to meet people from all over the world. I have spent two night in a row with fellow travelers talking about a variety of topics. Even when electricity shut down we enjoyed the sounds of his guitar and sang along. This place had a special vibe, just like the Quilotoa lake.
Daddy wanted to move on, so I left Quilotoa and took a bus to El Chaupi / Machachi (still not sure where one village ends and the next one starts…). Well, in fact, I got dropped off on the middle of the highway. This was the closest to El Chaupi. Without any reservation I enjoyed lunch at a local restaurant where they were obviously surprised to see this tall weird guy entering the building. A lot of giggling later and only a few bucks poorer, I was already on my way to Mateospaxi, a guest house located nearby. Based on their good reviews I figured it was worth a try and boy, was I right. Arecely is the sweetest host imaginable, helps with logistics to the mountains, makes a delicious breakfast and has a few lovely dogs (and I’m not even a big fan of shepherds but this one was so nice…). She immediately made me feel at home.
The second day I met a group of ladies from Torremolinos of all places. Known in the Netherlands as the ultimate destination for pensionados, I had never considered meeting Spanish travelers in Ecuador actually living there. Nevertheless, I joined them on a hiking adventure to Volcán Corazón followed by an easy climb to Iliniza Norte (5.126 m). The latter is probably the most popular mountain used to acclimatize before people aim for bigger objectives.
On the way down from Iliniza Norte, we split ways because I wanted to spend a night at 4.700 meters. My sleeping bag had to be tested properly but more important, spending a night at this elevation is a good test for the big adventures ahead. The refugio was fully booked and Jacobo, the manager of the hut, had set up a big tent to accommodate me and a climbing party of three. It turned out to be very comfortable. The night was quiet and my new sleeping bag delivered to the fullest. Of course, I woke up in the middle of the night when the climbers left but that was anticipated and I could sleep a nice couple of hours afterwards when the place was deserted. After a lazy morning, I went down quickly, simply because I like that, and found myself back at Mateospaxi in the early afternoon. After a quick shower, I treated myself to a nice lunch at La Posada del Chagra, probably the best restaurant in Machachi.
Downdays in Quito can be quite good!
Acclimatization was completed and time had come to go back to Quito. A few days relaxing there would be the perfect recipe for the big skiing objectives which were next on the agenda. I had to do some laundry, try to get as much sleep as possible and, of course, go back to my favorite eateries and try out a new one if possible.
In the beginning of the trip, I wanted to visit Coffee Romance, a tiny bar in San Blas based on great reviews and the fact that it’s supposedly one of those atypical places in my favorite neighborhood. That time it was closed but it stayed in the back of my mind ever since. Now was the perfect time for a second attempt. On arrival, I knew I made the right decision. Cesar and his wife runs this lovely little café and live there with their kids. It’s simply perfect. They have only a few items on their menu. Besides good coffee and hot chocolate, they serve empanadas and arepas and that’s about it. While waiting for your order, don”t be surprised to see one of their kids coming down with questions about their homework. It doesn’t only give you that so much looked after homely feel, you’re actually in their home and not treated as a customer but as a guest.
Then there is the food. During my stays in Quito I visited Coffee Romance several times and I have tried all their arepas, delicious! In addition, Cesar is a great host and has plenty of stories. We discussed life in Venezuela (they had moved from Venezuela to Ecuador years ago), my travel plans, and MacGyver. MacGyver I hear you say… For some reason Cesar noticed a significant resemblance between me and the main character of the adventure series of the late eighties with the same name. Each time I entered Coffee Romance, there was a loud “Hey, MacGyver is back!” to be heard, quite funny! In short, a place I initially visited for a simple arepa turned out to be a place where I easily spent a few hours, each visit.
Challenging weather conditions on Cayambe
After a few days of relaxing and visiting my favorite places in Quito, weather forecasts gave green light to climb and ski Cayambe. After some grocery shopping with Ale, we were good to go. Ale said goodbye to his wife and kid for three days and soon we found ourselves in his van, on our way to the next adventure: climbing and skiing the mighty Cayambe. With a summit of 5.790 meters this volcano’s West face offers the perfect angle for a long enjoyable ski descent.
We reached the town of Cayambe comfortably and from there the journey continued by 4×4. We found a driver who let us store our van in his backyard while we were trying to conquer the big volcano. From the town it’s still about a two-hour drive to get to the refugio slash campsite. In normal conditions that is. This time however, the road was under construction so we were dropped off several kilometers before our final destination where we had to carry our equipment across the open road in order to take another car for the final stretch. Since we brought a lot of gear and food, we had to walk twice before we hopped in the second car. Needless to say, we had to pay extra…
Let’s say we hadn’t experienced Ecuador at its best this morning but at least we found ourselves on a deserted campsite with all our gear not too much later. Soon we had forgotten about the events earlier that day and focused on the climbing and skiing ahead…
With the lack of climbers there wasn’t much information about the conditions to be gathered. We decided to follow our mountain routine by having a tea, preparing the infamous tuna pasta and going to bed in order to wake up early and simply give it a go. The alarm went off at 2 am and soon we were climbing towards the glacier. From the campsite it’s roughly 1,5 hours to reach the snow. Unfortunately the weather got worse and worse to the point that we decided to turn around. We were still stoked to climb this volcano, so we left our gear for a second attempt…
Back at the campsite, still very early of course, we decided to take a nap. Hopefully the weather would change for the better and we could give it another go, well slept and full of renewed energy. Later that morning we found ourselves all geared up slowly gaining elevation again. On step at a time, we got closer to our stash. Once we were complete again, we headed towards the glacier, only to realize the weather was not in our favour again.
With weather coming in from the Amazon, the Pacific and being located at the equator, forecasts don’t mean a thing and stability is not a word I’d use to describe the conditions. One moment it rains, the next it’s bluebird only to be followed by thunderstorms shortly after. Disappointed, almost depressed, we turned around and descended back to the campsite. Our pasta turned out to be the highlight of the day by a long shot. We went to bed, hoping for the best for our third and final attempt…
On our last day on Cayambe the weather looked promising. We reached the glacier without any problems and we progressed steadily. Cayambe’s glacier isn’t very steep for the most part, meaning we could skin a long way. The final part though, gets a bit steeper. For the purists out there, skinning all the way is probably just possible but given the fact that we were surrounded by some interesting crevasses I preferred to bootpack, secured by some nice crampons of course.
We knew the summit wasn’t that far anymore and by now we were alone. We departed later than the climbers because of the faster descend, so all the climbers we’re already on their way down. At the same time, the Ecuadorian climate showed what it’s capable of, again, and soon we couldn’t see a thing. Goggles were frozen and crevasses greeted us on both sides. We really wanted to summit but returning alive was also highly desirable. We tried a few more minutes before we realized things were getting really dangerous. We had only one option and that was to turn around, again.
We might have been 10 meters from the summit or it might have been at least another 100 vertical meters, who knows. We valued our lives, roped up and walked back down following exactly the steps we made coming up. It was a pretty scary situation to be honest. Finally we had passed all the crevasses and we clicked into our skis / board and made our way down. The snow was quite good but due to the lack of visibility, the descent wasn’t the most enjoyable. A low morale might have had something to do with that too…
We packed our gear, had some arguments with the drivers, waited for our driver on the other side of the road works and arrived back in Quito after dark. It was totally in line with our adventure so far. We were so demoralized that skiing was not in our vocabulary anymore, let alone on the agenda. Why not watch a few movies, enjoy some food and go for a regular road trip?
Fourth time is the charm
Well, it took only one day before we started studying weather forecasts again even though we knew they were useless. But, it showed the hunger for skiing was back already. For all the other volcanoes there was some excuse not to go, so why not go back to Cayambe? Fourth time is the charm, right?
Ale agreed and only three days after coming back, we were on our way in the van towards Cayambe again. This time we were going for a quick visit of max two days. No extra days in case of bad weather, we would go up, climb this thing and ski down. We were simply forcing Mother Nature to cooperate this time!
Of course, we all know Mother Nature is slightly more stubborn than that and does not like to be lectured. The actual truth was that we figured we couldn’t cope with all the drama for another three days so it simply had to happen in two days. On arrival, things looked primising. We went to bed earlier than before in order to wake up around midnight, leaving us more time to summit. We hadn’t dropped our gear close to the glacier so we had to carry everything in the night. Without any problems and in good pace we arrived at the foot of the glacier around 2 am. We were optimistic.
Unfortunately things changed quickly. After an hour or so of skinning we found ourselves in a brutal snowstorm. There was one big rock we could use as a shelter and so we did. There, I met a guide I had talked to before on Iliniza who decided to turn around with his clients due to the weather conditions. We were really close to doing the same when Ale convinced me to give it another push for 15 to 20 minutes to allow for the weather to change. And after all, what did we have to lose at that point?
As if it was meant to happen, the weather changed. Everybody had gone down by now and Ale and I were alone on this giant volcano with blue skies. This time, things were really looking good. Were we actually going to summit? And would we possibly enjoy some corn snow on the way down? That would be too good to be true, especially after all the recent events. Let’s focus on the climb first, one step at the time and don’t get ahead of ourselves…
We slowly got closer to the summit and I really started to feel the altitude and the lack of energy. The previous days and this night in particular took quite some effort and I had to dig deep to make this one happen. But, with the summit in sight and the weather looking good, finding motivation was not an issue at all. Soon we arrived at the crevasses again and we started wondering where we turned around the last time. Once we had figured that out, we realized how close we had been from summiting which, luckily for us, also meant we were very close to the summit this time. Around 9 am we were standing on top of Cayambe, all alone!
We took in the views and recovered from a night of climbing. Well, Ale seemed totally fine but I needed some time to feel strong enough to descend. Half an hour later we navigated through the impressive crevasses, a special experience if you’d ask me, until we reached the point from where we could start cruising down in great snow. It was a true honor to ski such a big mountain with no one around, just Ale and I. The views were amazing in all directions and below us was a thick blanket of clouds. It’s almost as if Cayambe is made for skiing!
After many, many turns we were getting closer to the clouds. We took some more photos and another short break before we entered the fog. We probably had descended 75 percent, if not more, of the glacier. The final part felt a bit like an escape room. Not that I have ever been in one, but I can imagine it can cause similar emotions. We were descending in a direction which was primarily based on what was left in our memory of the way up. We could hardly see and survival skiing is the best way to describe what we were doing. “Hello, does anybody know where the exit is?”
Luckily we knew the terrain had no real difficulties and we had already passed the crevasses a long time ago. Not getting lost or getting hurt by hitting a big rock were the main challenges at this point. Then we suddenly saw a group of climbers practicing glacier skills so we had to be close to the bottom of the glacier. After a quick chat with our fellow climbers, we soon arrived at the bottom of the glacier. Exhausted but satisfied, we celebrated with a simple high five.
Here is a video of my climbing and skiing adventure on Cayambe:
Once we had collected our gear and packed our stuff, our driver picked us up and drove us back to town where Ale’s van was waiting to be driven to Quito. Back in the capital we finished our adventure in style with a dinner at what must be one of the best Indian restaurants of Ecuador, Sher E Punjab which happened to be located across the street from my guest house. A chicken tikka massala later, it was time to go to bed.
Antisana is a whole different story
Next on the agenda was Antisana, a volcano with a certain reputation. Its glacier is described as “very open” which basically means it’s a maze of crevasses making route finding a nightmare. In addition, the number of required transitions from skinning to bootpacking when crossing the snow bridges makes the whole exercise very time-consuming. To spice things up, Antisana also has the reputation of being the most deadly mountain in Ecuador. Saying that focus would be important during this mission is an understatement…
First things first though, I had a few days to relax in Quito after Cayambe. I followed my usual routine by mixing up editing photos and watching movies in the guest house and eating out at Bai Tam, Coffee Romance and Atávico Arte Café where the last two places turned out to be better and better to spend a few hours and talk about the adventures I had just experienced and simply having a laugh. They were really interested in skiing the volcanoes that they know so well for climbing.
In order to stay mentally acclimatized I decided to visit Otavalo and hike around Cuicocha lake. It would take a couple of hours and I’d constantly be between 3.000 and 3.500 meters. In short, a good day trip to stay in shape. Quito to Otavalo took me a about 4 hours, mainly because of local transport within Quito. Once in Otavalo things were quite easy. A 20 minute bus ride, followed by a 15 minute cab ride were all that’s needed to arrive at the stunning lake. During the 12 km hike around it, I didn’t see one other person, it was very peaceful. It was the perfect activity in between conquering these big volcanoes!
Back in Quito I went through the routine and before I knew, I was on the road with Ale again. Antisana is, similar to Cayambe, located nearby Ecuador’s capital city. Soon we arrived at the entrance to the national park where we received some shocking news from the ranger. The previous night three people had died on Antisana. That was all he wanted to share so we didn’t know where they had died and whether the bodies were still there or not. In addition, our permits didn’t meet all the requirements. Our driver, who had no idea what he got himself into, drove back to a closed restaurant with a printer. Once we had printed our fake permit, we passed the checkpoint easily. Next stop: base camp.
You’d expect a driver to know where the Antisana’s base camp is when you ask for a ride with climbing gear and skis. However, it turned out he thought we wanted to visit the lake. Once we had pointed out directions, he drove us as towards the base camp only to find out he did not have a 4×4 which was required to get there. We pushed him to go as far as possible until he got so angry we simply had to leave the car. There we were in the middle of the national park with all our gear hoping he would pick us up three days later. We were still about a kilometer away from base camp, so a longer push in the night would be required. Let’s say our driver would only get a 5-star rating on a 100-star scale…
When we had finally cooled down by the events of the day, we started to enjoy the serenity and remoteness of the national park. There were no other people and no faciities whatsoever, we had to be self-sufficient for a couple of days. The only companionship we had during our visit was a fox, a not so friendly one as it turned out but more about that later. Given the addtional kilometer we had to cover and the complexity of the glacier, we opted for an early night, or evening as you will. To make things easier for the actual climb, we dropped our gear at the foot of the glacier before we went to bed at 7 pm in order to wake up before midnight and spend the whole night climbing.
After our usual routine of pasta, hot chocolate and tea, I had a surprisingly good sleep. I like to think my new mattress and sleeping bag had contributed significantly. We got ready and started the ascent. Slowly but steadily we progressed and reached the glacier. I couldn’t stop thinking about the people who had died just before our arrival. The already open and dangerous glacier became even more dangerous in my mind. I tried to focus on simply putting one step after the other and rely on Ale or, in other words, “bad thoughts out, good thoughts in”!
Confidence grew rapidly once we had completed the first part of the glacier and started skinning. Where the first part was a maze of crevasses, we now found ourselves on what appeared to be solid snow. Of course many crevasses were still around but at least we could clearly see most of them. At least, that’s what I told myself to cope with the situation. After a few hours the sun started to come out and the scenery turned out to be quite spectacular with a fuming Cotopaxi clearly visible in the distance. Not your typical scenery in the Netherlands!
Shortly after I noticed a maze of huge cravesses in the near distance. I had heard about this crux of the climb around 5.400 meters where many turn around. The closer we came, the more impressive it looked. On arrival, I took a deep breath and carefully put one foot in front of the other and tried not to look too often into the deep holes in which I could easily disappear. These crevasses are both terrifying and beautiful at the same time so I had to look every now and then. The path in between the crevasses was very narrow at times so focus was needed. Is this mountaineering at its best? Not sure but it was definitely exciting!
Once we had passed the crux, we quickly skinned to the col from where we started our final push to the summit. At least, that was the plan. I was quite warm if not to say hot by now so time was getting an issue. We navigated our way through a few large crevasses before Ale stopped and raised his voice. He had put one foot on the next snow bridge and didn’t like it. I immediately told him to trust his instinct and that we should turn around. He felt guilty for not summiting but I was completely fine with that. Our lives are much too valuable and this is exactly why one hires a guide. It turned out to be a very, very good decision but more about that later…
We transitioned to downhill mode, enjoyed the views for a moment and started to descend. Skiing in a wild environment with seracs and crevasses around you while looking at a fuming Cotopaxi in the distance is quite spectacular to put it mildly. We both enjoyed every single turn before we arrived at the crux again. The crux looked even more intimidating from above because you have a better overview of all the crevasses and of the size of every single one of them. The fact that down climbing is not my favourite activity probably also added some extra spice here. Luckily Ale was there to belay me and we managed to find the exit of the maze safely. The remainder of the descent consisted of nice cruising terrain and a long walk back across the moraine and eventually to camp.
Back at camp we were confronted with an unpleasant surprise. Even though we had carefully packed all our food and left it in the tent, we had been robbed. A fox had bitten a hole in the tent and had stolen most of our food. Apparently this fox was a big fan of sugar, coca cola, yogurt, granola and more. At the foot of the glacier we had shortly discussed another attempt to summit Antisana the following day but that was quickly off the table due to the lack of food. Luckily we had pasta and tuna left and for some reason this fox didn’t seem to like cheese as well, so at least we still had a proper dinner ahead of us. While we thought the robbery was quite a disaster, we had no idea what was waiting for us the next day…
Our driver, the guy without a 4×4 who thought we wanted to visit the lake with all our gear, was supposed to pick us up around 1 pm. We completely depended on this guy since there was no phone signal nor were there other people around to catch a ride. By now it can’t be a surprise anymore that this guy didn’t show up. After 30 minutes of waiting Ale got worried since the park closed at 5 pm and spending another night without any food was disconcerning to say the least. Ale decided to run down 10 km to the park ranger’s post to see if there was anyone with a car who could help us out…
Having watched the gear for more than an hour, Ale returned in a jeep, he had managed to find the ranger and arranged a pick up. On our way down the ranger told us he had been part of the operation to get the three bodies down the mountain just days before. He also mentioned that they had died exactly at the point where we turned around. Apparently that snow bridge was very weak with fatal consequences. Ale had made the right call without a doubt. It meant a lot to him to get this confirmation and we both needed a moment to realize how thin the line between life and death can clearly be…
Back in Quito we reflected on the events over a nice dinner at Sher E Punjab, the Indian restaurant across the street from my guest house. We concluded that any attempt to climb Antisana has to be taken extremely seriously. We were aware of this before our adventure but had been confirmed during the last couple of days. If we had to do it over again, we would try to find a more reliable driver by making sure he or she drives a 4×4 and knows where the base camp is located. This probably also avoids not being picked up, although guarantees can not be given in life. We would also bring a bag to store the food in while away on the mountain so the fox can’t take it. Transport and food are essential since there is not escape in this national park. On Cayambe there are other people around and there is a catered hut making things much easier. On Antisana on the other hand, you’re on your own. Things are easy in hindsight, aren’t they?
Ale continued his road trip with wife and kid and I had a few days to kill in Quito before flying back to the flatlands. By now I felt really comfortable in the capital city and enjoyed taking local transportation. While taking local buses I could observe local life and see different neighborhoods. I went back to Cesar at Coffee Romance where I was happily greeted again with a “Hey, MacGyver!”. I tried all arepas he had on offer and simply sat around and talked to Cesar for an hour or two.
My flight back home was early morning on Christmas Day so I had to arrange a final meal on Christmas Eve. Christmas is huge in Ecuador and most restaurants are closed. I decided to ask at Atávico Arte Café for options. They told me they were closed since they had a private dinner party but that they could make a exception for me since I was some sort of regular customer by now and we got along pretty well. Aren’t they the sweetest people? The homemade stuffed zucchini with a nice “batido de guanabana” proved to be the perfect finish of quite an intense but satisfying trip!
Conclusion after a month in Ecuador
The goal of the trip was to climb and ski three volcanoes: Cayambe, Antisana and Chimborazo. As always, this proved to be very ambitious mostly because of the weather. This is a huge factor when skiing anywhere but even more so in Ecuador with different weather coming in from all directions as the ocean, big mountains and the Amazon are nearby. I quickly decided that Chimborazo would be too strenuous to be enjoyable, maybe another time. Instead we climbed Cayambe twice, once almost to the summit with a scary first part of the descent followed by a ski descent in bad weather and once from the summit in close to perfect conditions.
In addition, we experienced a very intense adventure on Antisana where Ale made the perfect call to turn around at what turned out to be a fatal snow bridge for three people just days before our visit. Logistics and paperwork turned out to be quite frustrating at times, particularly for Ale who had to deal with it for the most part. Drivers are not very reliable and even in the mountains everything seem to be about money. But, we managed to have some good and interesting experiences and we completed a few climbs and descents. All in all, not a bad “score”.
Besides climbing and skiing the big volcanoes I had a good time in Ecuador while exploring, relaxing and acclimatizing. Quito actually turned out to be a great place to relax for me. It doesn’t have a lot of sights and there is actually not so much to do if you’d ask me. However, it’s definitely home to some very nice bars and restaurants owned by the nicest people. Add some exotic local life to observe and you have a good mix to get your strength back after a few demanding days in the mountains.
Finally I have to add a special thanks to Arecely, her husband and the dogs at Mateospaxi in Machachi. The hospitality I experienced there was top notch. Spending some time with the dogs after a day of hiking was great and this guest house turned out to be a good place to meet other travellers. Going around the towns of Machachi and El Chaupi was also quite nice due to the lack of tourists.
My trip to Ecuador was rewarding and I simply had a very good time. In case Cotopaxi stops fuming and there is still snow left on its north face I might go back one day with Ale to give it a go and if I feel strong enough, who knows, we could add Chimborazo to the agenda as well!
Click here to see more pictures of my trip to Ecuador!
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