We arrived there in a rather large group, the hostel can only accomodate 8 people at the moment because the Cabañas aren´t finished yet.There were Tara and myself, Arian (English) and Sarah (French), as well as a group of seven travelling together for a short while, Stephen and Dave and Tommy (Irish), Meg and Matt (Scottish), Dave and Toby (Aussie). Aline (American) was the Volunteer that came with us.
The "tour" consisted of 4 nights and 5 days at the hostel for only $99, all meals included, and a free trip up Cotopaxi itself. Tara and I had organised that they would put up a tent for us, because the tour was actually full by the time we arrived and tried to get in on it. The tent was warm eough, with our flash sleeping bags, but one person had to sleep a little hard on a camping mat because they only had one mattress. No worries, we drank enough to make it comfortable and the view was amazing!
We did several activities that did not involve playing cards or drinking.First we climbed the mountain behind the hostel, Pasa-somethingorother (I really must take more note of names.) Trekking through the river bed, up towards two waterfalls.
Several times ropes had to be employed in order to get around obstacles, and up waterfalls.
We had lunch above the second waterfall and enjoyed a view that could only have been better if the clouds were not covering the top of Cotopaxi.
Tara and I turned back then, not wanting to climb all the way to the summit for another 2 hours, in grass that would trip you up every second step. Most of the others made it there, but they came back just before dark and were totally shattered. Being the brave, and stupid, girls that we are, we declined the use of the rope at one stage when Carlos, the guide, offered it to us. Unfortunately just before the bottom of the obstacle, Tara grabbed onto a branch that broke and fell about 2m. She landed on her leg, but luckily didn´t break it. She did make it back to the hostel on her own steam, with the help of Carlos, but was in a serious amount of pain. This is what her leg looked like a few hours later.
The next day all but Tara, due to her leg, went via Landrover to the carpark on Cotopaxi. The car park is at 4500m and we had to scramble up loose sand to the Refuge 300m straight up. After the refuge, and a rest with some hot chocolate, we scrambled the rest pf the way to the bottom of the glacier.
The big group of 7 went horse riding on the Thursday and enjoyed it immensely. The rest of us stayed at the hostel and did nothing. And enjoyed it immensely.
It was our turn for horseriding on the Friday and we went out for about 3 hours before lunch. I was sceptical about it because I had such a hard time in the Galapagos, but this was so much better. Firstly the horse was big enough, and then the stirrups were long enough for me to rise.
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More about the place and the people...
The food was absolutely amazing. Tarquin (Aussie) and Katherine (Equadorian) own the two hostels, and are currently living and working in the Cotopaxi one. Katherine is a chef and everything she touches turns to delicious. I don´t have a picture of Katherine, but here´s one of Tarquin at the BBQ on our first night, and their oldest son, Thomas, with Tara.
They have built a compost toilet that also has a view...
The guests were great too. We played a lot of shithead (stupid head when the kids were around) and poker, I even managed to win a round one night, the rummikub came out eventually, and a lot of nonsense was spoken.
Obviously the sunsets were just amazing, but I have narrowed the many photographs to just two.
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