Unlike yesterday, today when I woke up it was brilliantly sunny and it looked clear up towards Cruz Loma and Volcan Pichincha! I went down to breakfast a bit early, but got side tracked talking to a couple who own 100 acres and a house off the grid in a cloud forest about 2 ½ hours from Quito. At the end they invited me to come visit them sometime this school year! They also knew of a clinic in Northern Ecuador that I might be able to spend my spring internship at. Overall, it was worth getting out of the hotel a little later in order to talk to these people who knew a lot about Ecuador!
It didn’t look to be too far of a walk to the bottom of the Teleferico sky tram, which I would catch to reach Cruz Loma and then I could hike about 3 more hours to the top of the dormant part of the volcano. Unfortunately it took me an hour to reach the tram, and I was already getting a little tired of hiking uphill. I probably should have taken the shuttle or a taxi! But I found a nice natural foods store on the way, so at least I had a delicious picnic to look forward to. Before getting on the tram, I ran into a fellow tourist from Switzerland and we ended up hiking together for most of the day, which was more fun and much safer than hiking alone.
Once on the tram, the views of Quito were gorgeous, and we could even see the snowy bases of some of the surrounding volcanoes. Where we got off at the top of the tram, the altitude was already 4053 meters (13,300 ft) and we headed off on the steep uphill trail towards the top of Rucu Pichinicha, 4680 meters (15,357 ft). Three hours of pretty intense hiking and sand and rock scrambling took us to a ridge on the side of Pichinicha. After eating a quick picnic, the clouds were rapidly approaching, so we took a bunch of pictures and decided that we had gotten as close to the top as we could without scaling a cliff, and it was time to head down. Just as we left the pass it started to snow! Our descent was sped up a bit and by the time we got back to the Teleferico, the snowing had stopped, but we were super tired. We caught an expensive taxi back into town and I walked back to my hotel for a much needed shower!
Later on I found a veggie quesadilla and chocolate gelato for dinner and I enjoyed breathing the noticeably thicker air down in Quito!
the swiss chap! yay! are you in touch?
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