Still on could nine after summitting Cotopazi we had another beast of a mountain ahead of us. The highest volcano/mountain in Ecuador, Chimborazo, standing at a whopping 20,565ft. Unfortunately, the day before Fernanado had told us the weather had been super bad, but we will see what happens, he also called us muy loco for doing Chimbo so soon after Cotopaxi, but we were feeling good after waking up from 10 hours of sleep.
The drive in Chimborazo was brutual, because it was sooo long. The best part was for lunch Fernando took us to a buffet in a town about 2 hours from Chimbo. Though Ecuadorian buffets are nothing like American. They had rows and rows of fresh fruit, chicken, sushi, and different types of meat. It was super good, especially since i was starving since it took us 2 hours to get to this place. After a few more detours (one of which was to Fernandoäs house to get an extra ice axe, and im thinking why do i only have one and he has two?) we finally arrived to the first refuge of Chimbo. Bad news right when we got in, no had summitted in about a few weeks and werent getting much higher than the second refuge. AFter some swear words from Fernando he sat us down to talk. He told us we were going to check it out, but its not sounding good and to not be sad. Jean and I were somewhat bummed, but i knew fernando knew what was best for us. We packed up our gear and hiked the one hour to the second refuge, Whymper at 5000m high.
Once agin we were the only ones there until a guide and an ecuadorian came in a lot later. Then it started snowing, and raining, and snowing. Arrg not good! We ate some dinner of pasta that FErnando made and Fernando told us if we wake up and its still like this we werent going to be able to go. So we headed to bed at 7pm, just to get woken up at 11pm. I left Fernando my ipod touch since he was amazed at it and wanted to listen to help with his English. I put on NPR for him, haha.
Sure enough i didnt sleep at all and at 11pm Fernando came in with bad news and told us to come outside. Sure enough teh snow was still falling really hard and there was a lightening storm. Huge bolts would light up the sky...umm yeah having an ice axe and crampons on hiking in lightening wasnt ideal to me. We talked about it for awhile and Fernando said it was too dangerous to start hiking at that time. So we went back to bed and he ws going to wake us up at 4 to start hiking then, though that pretty much meant that are thoughts of summiting were gone. I was a little bummed, but when its the weather , its out of your hands.
4am rolled around way to fast and the god news was the weather completely cleared up and we could starting hiking as far as possible before we would have to turn around. AFter an apple and some yogurt and cornflakes we geared up and hit the trail. The snow was insanely deep, so we didnät have to wear our crampons. I called it land mines though since you would try and stay high on the snow, but then you would make a wrong step and WHAM snow up to your thigh, and it was super exhuasting freeing your leg from the snow. WEslowly treked up the mountain, but the sun was coming up fast and once the sun came out that could mean trouble. Sure enough 2 hours into our hike Fernando stopped us and told us to look up. WE could see massive rocks and areas of mixed rock and snow that were softening up, and rock fall was evident. It was too dangerous for us to go any further as on the way down rocks were going to be falling and the ground very unstable. BUMMER...I was super bummed, but we took some pictures and headed back to the refuge. Dang, Chimbo got the best of us, but it will be there again for us to climb!
When returning to the refuge there were a ton of locals that were there and it was 7am. What was going on? So this week is holy week for everyone and they believe being on the mountain is getting closer to god or something like that. All i knew is we walked into some interesting music and signing that was fun to sip to our tea and listen to them. Though we didntä stay long and started down to our car at the first refuge. It probably had snowed at least 7 to 9 inches the night before so once again deep snow and our car was covered. So what does Fernando so, grabs some hot water, jumps on the car and poors it all over it. On top of that our car was having problems and the only way it was going to get started was with Fernandos knife, it was super comical when he would start the car with his knife and the key would be laying on the seat next to him.
We started on our way with a beautiful drive through the mountains and valleys, and then stopped at a "hot springs" where really it was just a bunch of dirt and holes with warm water. All the Ecuadorians looked at me like an alien as i walked in. Oh well! After another 3 hours we finally arrived back at the hostel tired, but ready to head to quito for a night out.
The drive was insane to quito, i think we got the worst driver in ecuador to take us to our hostal. Not only did she have no idea how to drive a stick shift and we were bouncing all over the place, she got lost about 5 times and we almost got in about 3 huge car accidents. I mean cars screetching to a hault. It was nuts and Jean and I were holding on for our lives. That night we just had a nice steak dinner and cheered to mojitos before we called it a night and Jean was headed back to New York and I had Sunday to explore Quito before I headed to Galapagos (where i am now writing this :))
No comments:
Post a Comment