Today we visited a rural farming community in Galtes, which is about an hour south of Riobamba, and a potential beneficiary of POP’s fundraising efforts. The community rests in the mountains at over 11,500 feet and has recently seen 8 months of drought.

Local production of the Sound of Music

One of 11 wedding parties that day

Sharing some hard boiled eggs with community leaders

After Cotopaxi we headed 2 hours further south to Riobamba en route to a mountain community we planned to visit the following day. While in Riobamba we visited a Canasta Comunitaria, an urban food buying club. The Canasta consists primarily of urban families that pool their financial resources to buy food in bulk directly from the producers (farmers). The food is delivered every week and divided evenly among the members of the Canasta.

Counting fruit

Canasta

1:00pm: Depart Tambopaxi for an hour long car ride through the national park to the base of Cotopaxi. Once there we gathered all of our gear (clothes, boots, crampons, axe, sleeping bag, headlight) and made the 40 minute hike up the mountain to the refugio at 15,912 feet.

3:00pm: Glacier practice.

5:00pm: Primitive dinner at the refugio and a few restless hours of sleep.

12:00am: Wake up and get ready for the climb.

12:30am-7:00am: The morning starts out with a 90 minute hike to the glacier, which was surprisingly difficult in the pitch black and with big boots on. The moon was nonexistent, but it was a perfectly clear night with a ton of stars and Quito in the far off distance (all week we had previously seen Cotopaxi from Marta and Ramiro’s roof in Quito every morning). At about 1:30am we made it to the glacier and strapped on the crampons for the ascent. The ensuing hours, until we reached the summit at about 7:00am, went by pretty quickly. It was tough, but the fact that we were on a glacier in the middle of the night above 16,000 feet was enough to keep my mind off the difficulty of the climb. The last quarter, as the sun was rising, was by far the hardest and went on forever, but in the end it was well worth the pain.

7:30am-10:00am: The descent was welcome as it afforded much needed oxygen and the return of coherent thoughts and sentences. It was also warm as we were about as close to the sun as one can get while still having their feet on the Earth. We made it back to the refugio around 10:00am and in one piece to start the next leg of our trip to Riobamba, which is in Central Ecuador.

Sheltering in a glacial foxhole for a quick drink

The darkness

One very large shadow (of Cotopaxi as the sun rose). The mountain in the distance is Iliniza Norte, the one that had given us so much trouble just a couple days earlier.

Victory

Waving to some passerby...in a commercial airliner

Altitude sickness

The sun shed some light on why a guide is a good idea...

The Tambopaxi Hacienda is situated inside Cotopaxi National Park about two hours south of Quito and for us was the last destination before attempting to climb Cotopaxi. The elevation at Tambopaxi is about 12,303 feet and thus it is a good place to continue the acclimation process. We arrived late in the afternoon from Quito and spent the night before heading to the mountain the next afternoon.

The main lodge with Cotopaxi looming

Gratuitous mountain shot

Sweet dreams...

In what was one of the sketchier days of the trip Emma and I set off with our guide, Chapico, to attempt the smaller of the two Iliniza mountains. After somewhat of a late start the weather got pretty challenging as we made the final ascent culminating in a virtual whiteout at some points. The entire climb took much longer than expected due to the conditions and ended up being the most challenging part of the trip for me. It was particularly interesting when we finally got to the summit and had to dash back down due to static electricity in the air from the lightening overhead.

Chapico and I at the outse

Nervous smile at the refugio ... the last bastion of warmth for the next 8 hours

precarious ridge

The abyss

Ascent

Brief stop at the summit

The long way home