Cotopaxi, Ecuador –
It’s quiet, at the top of the world.
Peaceful, with the only sounds being the wind, and your travel companions.
Well, and the occasional suicidal bicyclist.
Of course, it could be that we’re here in the middle of the week, so everyone’s home, at work or at school.
Coming here on a weekend or holiday might be a different story.
Still, there’s a certain beauty in the desolation.
The absence of most life.
Well above the tree line, where the vegetation is mostly scrub.
And other than the wild horses, there’s not much in the way of wildlife to be seen.
Of course, there are plenty of rocks and boulders.
After all, this is an active volcano that we’re standing on.
Or, at least, semi-active.
There seems to be some debate as to when the last eruption might have been.
But it does still shake and shout every now and then.
That makes it active in my book.
And there does seem to be some sort of argument as to whether it’s the highest active volcano in the Americas or not.
See, there’s a higher volcano in Chile, Llullaillaco.
At least it’s higher as measured from sea level.
Considering that Cotopaxi is just south of the equator, and sea level is higher at the equator, well…
It seems that many Ecuadorians claim that Cotopaxi is higher, measuring from the center of the earth.
Whatever…
It’s still high, either way.
The fact that it’s high enough to have a permanent snowcap, complete with a glacier, while sitting next to the equator — that’s high enough for me.
And it’s a good thing that we’ve been staying up in the Andes for the past week, so that we’re already adjusted to breathing at high altitude, or else we’d be very short of breath up here.
Not that we’re doing anything too strenuous while up here.
Sitting in the van, walking around, taking pictures.
You know, elite athlete stuff.
Or as elite-ly athletic as we’re ever going to get…
For now…
Although the volcano is popular among mountain biking types.
One almost ran into us, as he sped down the road.
Going downhill.
And we saw him again later, resting on the side of the road, looking like he was waiting for his riding companions.
Which we never saw any sign of.
In fact, while we were up there, we saw very few other visitors.
Period.
Even though this is supposedly a popular place on weekends, with up to 100 people climbing to the crater rim.
Maybe that’s where they all are, up in the snowcap, climbing their way through the clouds.
As is often the case with active volcanoes, there’s pretty much a constantly shifting cloud cover.
While it may be clear of clouds when you start up, that may change by the time you get up close to the snow level.
Of course, as seems typical with our luck, it waits until we’re down and off the mountain to clear out and give us a peek at the summit.
As it was, while we were up there, the clouds were so thick we often had trouble making out where the snowcap ended and the clouds began.
So, after making a circuit of the main loop below the summit, we headed back down to the park rest area, where they’ve got a nice little garden of decorative plants and trees that will grow at this high altitude.
The rest area was located back below the tree line, so there were actual trees as opposed to mountain scrub.
Then, once we had seen enough, we headed further down the mountain, out of the park, and into the town of Lasso, where we stopped for some lunch at Hacienda La Cienega, an old colonial mansion that is now a hotel and restaurant.
And it is still decorated very much as it probably was back in the late nineteenth century and still a private residence.
With its own chapel.
After all, if you’re a wealthy landowner or province governor, you’ll want your own place to worship without having to mingle with the common peasants.
You don’t want any of their common-ness to rub off on you…
But now, anyone can come and enjoy living like the upper class did, back during colonial times.
Dining in the restaurant.
Wandering the gardens.
Taking a splash in the pool…
Yes, we were wandering the gardens, during the “heat” of the day, wearing warm coats, looking at the pool and thinking…
Really?
I can’t imagine it gets much use.
Unless they have a lot of visitors from colder climates, where temperatures in the 50s and 60s (Fahrenheit) constitutes a heat wave.
I can remember once, as a kid, we were camping across the river from Montreal.
I don’t remember what month it was, only that the temperature outside was probably in the 60’s at most.
Maybe even in the 50’s.
The campground where we were staying had a pool, and all of these French-Canadian kids were swimming in it, splashing and running around all dripping wet.
I just assumed they were French-Canadian, as they were all chattering in some language I didn’t understand (I was only a young kid at the time), so I assumed it was French. (I did understand their laughter, however.)
When I remarked on how it was too cold to go swimming, my mother explained to me how those kids were probably from somewhere further north of where we were, and that it probably felt warm to them.
Obviously, it was warm enough to them to go swimming in an outdoor, unheated pool.
I guess it’s all a matter of what you’re used to.
Just like how, by having been staying in cities like Quito for the past week, high up in the Andes, we had gotten used to the altitude and the thinner air.
It enabled us to be reasonably active while up above the tree line on Cotopaxi, without getting too short-of-breath.
I mean, we weren’t up there riding mountain bikes, but we were doing a bit of walking about.
And if we had just stepped off the plane from Dallas, we probably would have noticed the thin air a lot more than we did.
Good thing we had done this at the end of our trip, and not at the start.
For more photos of Cotopaxi and Hacienda La Cienega, click here.
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