Chuguiragua Lodge and Spa, Ecuador – For the last three weeks, I’ve felt like there has been a little rain cloud above my head. Blocking the sun out. Dampening my spirit. I couldn’t put my finger on why. STA woes. The cold temperatures. Post trip ‘What am I going to do?” worries. A negative Scottish guy whose every remark felt like a underhand dig at my character. A combination of all the above. The fact was, I wasn’t enjoying Ecuador. I didn’t want to be here. And then Wednesday, I left my G Adventures tour and checked into Bouquito hostel. The funky bright interior design, more like a home than a dingy hostel, and it’s friendly, like minded travellers inside started to bring the warmth back to my soul. Miraculously the sun started to shine again outside too and a spring like warmth returned to the air. And after today’s trip out of town, I can firmly say I’ve fallen in love again with travelling, and dare I say Ecuador.
Cities are nice, and have their benefits – like quaint coffee shops and trendy resturants – but nothing calms my soul like the expanse of the great outdoors and particularly the height of tall mountains. Today I left the city of Quito for two days and headed South to the heart of the avenue of volcanoes. Called such as 8 out of Ecuadors 10 highest summits are found here amongst the two parallel chains of the Andes that run North and South through the middle of the country. Our destination, the perfectly symmetrical shaped cone of Cotopaxi (meaning neck of the moon), the highest active volcano in the world rising to 19,347 feet (5,900m). I don’t know why, but when I think of volcanos, I think heat, somewhere hot, particularly when that volcano is only a mere 100km from the equator. This couldn’t be further from reality for Cotopaxi whose peak is a permenant glacier covered by snow year round.
Luckily our trip only involved an hour hike up to the refuge at 4800m and a further 30 minute ascent to the glacieral line at 5000m. Still, at this altitude, the hike was a challenge for my out of shape lungs. I took it slow as I zig zagged up the mountain. At the refuge, we pushed on through the snow covered tracks and cold sleet hitting our faces. The reward, the chance to touch the blue glacieral ice. I had missed out on seeing a glacier up close in NZ as I was still frightful of small planes after my skydiving plane crash and also a few days earlier in Cayambe due to a knee injury. Although Cotopaxis wasn’t as spectacular, it was nice to finally see a glacier up close all the same.
We ‘snowplowed’ our way down on imaginary skis through the shifting deep volcanic sand like ash to the main parking area, where we switched our wholly hats for helmets and mountain biked the rest of the way down. At this lower altitude the sun was beaming brightly and warming my frozen fingers and toes. The spectacular views of the national park was worth every unforgiving gravel bump in the road sending shock waves up my arms. The only thing dotting the fairly barren landscape was two giant condors sweeping overhead (apparently only 51 exist in Ecuador and we were lucky to see them) and a herd of wild horses roaming free near the bottom.
For most, the official part of the the trip ended with a 3 course lunch at the lodge. Clever me, had booked an overnight stay at the spa resort, so whilst everyone else boarded the bus for the long trip back to Quitto, I was checked into my private bedroom. A blissful surprise as I had only booked the dorm accomodation. A very welcome upgrade! A warm shower and a small nap later, I’m now relaxing in this beautiful senic countryside retreat waiting for my dinner and then my evening sauna, steam, jacuzzi spa. And to think my shared dorm bed and dinner back in Quito would have cost me the same!! Seriously enjoying this downtime break, in the countryside, with my own space. Tomorrow, more adventure awaits with a trip to another, yet very different volcanoic spot – Quilotoa.
**Afternote. Oddly, despite it being a Saturday night of a holiday weekend, I appear to be the only one here. Well at least I was the only one at dinner and in the spa and I haven’t seen anyone else. Although there were three place settings for breakfast. Still how can they make any money. They had at least 5 staff looking after me at dinner. Very unsettling!
