Cotopaxi, party in Quito and now Baños!

The past couple days have been phenomenal. I came back from Mindo, had dinner on the terrace at the Secret Garden, and met a bunch of new people. In Mindo I went on the canopy tour over the cloud forest (hopefully pictures to come), and on the truck ride down I met a couple of sisters from Belgium - Marie and Kim. They happened to be hiking to the refuge on Cotopaxi tomorrow and I was able to jump on their tour which was quite fortunate since I hadn't had much luck (no tengo suerte) in finding a tour until then. So yesterday morning at the not too ungodly hour of 7am we hopped in the car and started the hour and a half drive to the base of Cotopaxi. Once there we picked up a local guide, bought our passes to the National Park, stopped at the museum and then drove up to the parking lot, which is surprisingly high on the Volcano. From the parking lot it is supposed to be a 45 minute walk up the volcano to the refuge. Well, it took us about an hour and 20 minutes. The altitude was really taking its toll on our heart and lungs so we stopped a lot and rested. It was quite the climb tho, and one of the most beautiful days for it. Our guide kept telling us that he has never seen the mountain so clearly. We were also able to see Chimborazo Volcan, which is about a 3.5 hour drive south of Quito. I think it is Ecuador's (maybe the worlds?) tallest inactive volcano at 6310 meters. Our hike was from 4300 meters to 4800 meters on Cotopaxi. It was astounding views of several volanoes.

Later in the evening after returning from our hike I had dinner on the terrace again. Reunited with the Texans that are travelling the world for 3 years, and then ended up hanging out with one of the girls I had met the night before - Danielle from Canada, and another girl, Paula from Columbia. It happened to be the last night of one of the girls that worked at the hostel, so there was clearly going to be a party. Three glasses of wine later and a mini dance party on the terrace (including some running man to the tunes of non other than MC Hammer), we were all feeling pretty good. They had ordered a party bus to take everyone to the Mariscal to go out. We all went to "No Bar", which was right next to "Yes Bar." Everyone danced the night away. It was funtabulous. (You know how I like to shake my booty.)

And then this morning it was up early to catch a 40 minute taxi ride to the bus terminal in the South, to catch a 3.5 hour bus ride down to Banos. I came down with Marie, Kim and Ben (English bloke from Grimsby, which is apparently very grim). I've organized a rafting trip for tomorrow and we might rent a 2 or 4 passenger off road quad sort of thing to go up to the waterfalls. And then there is also the option of some paragliding and a bike ride down to Puyos, and a bunch of other things...I could be here a while. Only time will tell!