La Lloviza is a comfy hostal run by a very friendly family in the town of El Chaupi. We have a delicious meal - a traditional Ecuadorian meal - meat (or chicken in my case) with lentils and rice known as menestra. We have an early start tomorrow so we are in bed at 8:30 wrapped in layers of wool blankets. Hopefully I won't have too many middle of the night bathroom calls.
5 am comes before you know it and it is hard to drag ourselves from the warmth of our bed. Our goal is to start the hike by 7 am so its breakfast and pack the daypack. At 10 to 7 we are at the parking spot ready to start our day. - surprisingly we are on schedule. We are again blessed with a clear sunny day with only a little wind as we start out up the road which then meets the trail. The trail is smoother than yesterday for which I am thankful. We continue along for over an hour at a good pace and only gradual incline.
But soon we can see where we are headed and it is a scree field up the mountain. It has been dry for a long time so the scree is loose and dry - Jose is unable to cut steps for us so it is each man to their own to trudge along. For a while the trail traverses across the mountain then it starts a more direct angle up. Its a little like 2 steps forward and one slide back. I am thinking to myself - why are we doing this? My legs are a little sore but the downhill is going to be painful and we still have a ways to go. Maybe I should stick to surfing...
But my thoughts remain unspoken and we keep going. My pace has slowed and I need to stop to catch my breath every few steps. We head over to a rocky outcropping and head up along the edge using the rocks for balance.
The winds have picked up and we are occasionally caught off guard and lose our balance. I try not to look down the mountain as a slip in the scree could send you down quite a way. Maybe not life threatening but who wants to climb back up again.
The rocky section ends and we are back in the deep scree but the rocky top section is now in sight. It is so windy that I have assumed we will not go to the very top as it requires bouldering with a few exposed sections.
We make it to the ridge and seek shelter around the other side. Protected from the wind, we sit behind some rocks and enjoy our lunch. Another guide and his client make their way down from the very top. They stop to talk. Jose knows the guide. It then occurs to me that nothwithstanding the wind we will be able to summit. Cool!
We head off to the final rocky summit, scrambling up the ridgeline.
When we reach the base of the rocky section, Jose has us rope up alpine style. I am in the middle. The idea is to keep the rope taunt so if someone falls the others stop the fall. Although both John and I are thinking it, neither of us ask Jose what we are to do if he falls. He has the majority of the rope coiled around his shoulder. I decide that based on his vast experience (which we had discovered while sitting around the fire last night included over 16 years of mountaineering - 3 summits of Everest and 14 years working with Alpine Ascents) if we needed to know he would have told us.
Besides I think the rope is just a precaution and a way for us to get use to it for Cotopaxi since it doesn't really seem that exposed and but for the gusts of wind we would have felt just fine - except in one little spot - without a rope at all. Anyway - I almost forgot the cold and wind - the climb up the rocky section was so much fun, challenging but not too scary.
We made it to the top which is marked by an iron cross - so of course we took the obligatory photos...
plus a few more and then turned around for the downclimb.
The clouds had been steadily rolling in, but they cleared only for a shutter or two and revealed this little green lake on the other side of the peak.
The downclimb was a little more challenging.
As long as you didn't look straight down, it really wasn't that bad.
Before we knew it we were heading down the scree field trying to find the deepest sections so you could "moonwalk" down with a little speed - think running downhill in powdery snow - except every once in a while you hit a shallow or rocky spot and your momentum is altered -
sometimes sending you for a little slide on your bum with a "Pigpen" style cloud of dust behind you. I think John caught my fall on video. We got down quicker than I expected but it was still tedious and my knees and back are never happy with steep downhills.
Overall, including lunch it was a 9 hour day, tiring but a beautiful day and a beautiful climb.
We spent one more night at La Lloviza where I had a scalding hot shower - so much so that I had to get John's attention to go get the owner as I couldn't stand the heat (only one knob so you couldn't control temperature). I was probably the first to complain of too hot water. The owner arrived with a screwdriver so I could force some cold water into the shower. Another 3 course dinner and we were in bed before 9 pm - toasty warm and snuggled up with about 3 wool blankets - wind whipping at the windows but we slept like babies.
