Day 16 - Quito to Cotapaxi
We had a later start today, and in so doing had to fight our way through 2 British tour groups at breakfast and in the foyer when we left. We did a disservice to Diego's car as Pete discovered it was a 2013 model though it has done more than 225,000 km. He has also cleaned it, so it looks a lot better. The traffic going out of Quito was dreadful again, so it isn't on our must go back list!
It had rained overnight and was still cloudy, so it didn't look too hopeful for the valley of the volcanoes. In true Diego style we didn't approach Cotopaxi National Park from the main entrance; we went via the cobblestones of Humboldt's original route. Sadly, though the rain stopped, Cotopaxi remained resolutely in the clouds, but we did get a good walk round an old glacial lagoon at 4000m.
This is where Diego comes into his own as he is a biologist who has worked in the rain forest, so his ability to spot birds and plants is amazing. We may not have seen Cotapaxi, but we did see one of only 13 condors in the park soaring over the top of one of the extinct volcanos.
We ate our lunch snack at the information centre and got our passports stamped, even though we only saw the bottom bit of Cotapaxi and just made it back to the car when it started to rain again. Then it was a drive to our hotel, where Humboldt stayed when he was exploring the area. It is over 400 years old and has fire places in the rooms. A lady came to light our fire which was very welcome as it's pretty chilly here.
When it stopped raining we went out to explore and eventually made it back round a very big block luckily we didn't get lost.
In the evening we had dinner by a roaring fire. Rice and shrimp and beef with potato cake both of which were very good.
It had rained overnight and was still cloudy, so it didn't look too hopeful for the valley of the volcanoes. In true Diego style we didn't approach Cotopaxi National Park from the main entrance; we went via the cobblestones of Humboldt's original route. Sadly, though the rain stopped, Cotopaxi remained resolutely in the clouds, but we did get a good walk round an old glacial lagoon at 4000m.
This is where Diego comes into his own as he is a biologist who has worked in the rain forest, so his ability to spot birds and plants is amazing. We may not have seen Cotapaxi, but we did see one of only 13 condors in the park soaring over the top of one of the extinct volcanos.
We ate our lunch snack at the information centre and got our passports stamped, even though we only saw the bottom bit of Cotapaxi and just made it back to the car when it started to rain again. Then it was a drive to our hotel, where Humboldt stayed when he was exploring the area. It is over 400 years old and has fire places in the rooms. A lady came to light our fire which was very welcome as it's pretty chilly here.
When it stopped raining we went out to explore and eventually made it back round a very big block luckily we didn't get lost.
In the evening we had dinner by a roaring fire. Rice and shrimp and beef with potato cake both of which were very good.
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