Pinsaqui to Cayambe Town Exhausted and crashing asleep, I fail to notice that I’m sharing a bed with a rubber hot-water bottle, and I wake with the startle of someone realizing their inebriation brought home a surprise guest. I’m not the first person in that situation to slip out for breakfast without saying goodbye. On […]
Today we drive two hours to Otavalo, and then do a short climb to Fuya Fuya. Otavalo is home to a sprawling market of countless mobile stalls selling arts and crafts. We park near the market and have an hour to kill, which proves far more than needed. Some vague sense of obligation pushes us […]
Rucu Pichincha is spectacular. The weather forecasts higher winds — 20+ mph — and thunderstorms in the afternoon, so we expect it could get nasty. We drive from Rumiloma to 11k feet, take a gondola to 13k, and then climb to 15.5k. We net only about 2.5k in vertical gain, but it takes 5.5 hours, […]
At breakfast, we meet Carl, another climber. It’s his second time in Ecuador, and he has already climbed Cayambe and Chimborazo. He is back primarily for Cotopaxi, which was too active to attempt in his prior trip. Carl catches a barely-audible pan-flute rendition of “The Sounds of Silence” as it tries to worm into my […]
We arrive in Quito at 12:30am and take the world’s shortest cab ride around the tarmac to the airport Wyndham. The driver is ecstatic for the five dollar fare, even if it dumps him at the back of the airport cab queue. (We’d later learn that such cheap taxi and Uber fares are courtesy of […]
February 7: E-Day
Travels With Burma Jones 