Some of the Aussies from the Galapagaos Trip were going to the small Secret Garden hostel with fabulous views of Cotopaxi about 2 hours south of Quito. This sounded good and so I spent 2 days there enjoying very social, relaxed surroundings of communal meals, walking and mountain bike trips to the volcano.
First day had a 1.5 hour jeep ride to a car park at about 4400m on the flanks of Cotopaxi. Passed through dry montane grasslands climbing up through the lava with more sparse, low growing and tough colourful flora to the bare rocky, lunar type landscape. When the low cloud waxed and waned, I recall well the spectacular panoramic views over bare jagged rock peaks and rolling paramo grasslands to the valleys below.
It took about 45 minutes to walk 300m up a path to a lodge due to the altitude and sand blasting wind. The hot chocolate and biscuit was more welcoming than I thought after what was a short distance but it was hard going! We decided to walk a further 200m to the glacier edge at 5000m. I’d never been at such altitude and was curious to see how I’d react particularly with a susceptibility to asthma. I seemed Ok apart from the much harder work on the lungs and heart and feeling a bit lightheaded.
I thought about horse riding the next day as its an activity that has long been scary although enticing for the freedom to amble about, but there were no other takers and so joined 3 others to return from Cotopaxi car park on mountain bikes. I’d never liked biking down hills on gravel and this track had hairpins too and the brakes were thin. I told the others who were faster to carry on and I continued at my sedate pace, stopping to examine the vivid colours, waxy leaves and other adaptations of plants growing in this severe environment. I recall well these paramo flora in the intense sharpness of light with the wind whistling through the grasses.
I surprisingly caught up with them half an hour later. The 2 blokes got punctures and took them 1.5 hours to try and mend as the repair kit had no inner tubes so the 90% ripped valve with bits of material and glue just didn´t hold. One of the Aussies had seen guys on TV using vegetation to pack between tyre and tube, so in the cold biting wind and drizzle we tore off clumps of tough grasses to wedge in. The tyre lasted about 2 revolutions. Our jeep found us as it returned with other visitors and kindly allowed us to share the 2 remaining, working bikes so we could have a blast back along the flatter ground. I liked this and scooted away, working hard for about 40 mins along the gravel track which at the altitude was pretty good going.
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