Legends say that Taita Manuel Imbabura is a wise man who lives in the volcano. Every morning he would wake up early to make sure that everyone did their job. He made sure the river flowed in the right direction, that the wind didn't stop for too long to speak with the mountain trees and that every man and woman were doing their work. People respected his wisdom and feared being punished by the volcano, so they all performed their roles. When Manuel Imbabura was young he would go out at night for peaceful walks. During one of these walks he came upon Maria Isabel Cotacachi and fell in love with her. He visited her often and she fell in love with him and married him. The smaller nearby mountains Yanaurco and Cotacachi are considered their children.
Taita Imbabura is the king of steep walks. Climbing up felt like being on a step master for 4 hours at more than 4000 meters above sea level with 2 liters of water on my back. However, by now, I do feel a bit more used to climbing mountains and my legs don't hurt as much as the first time.
We left Quito at 5 in the morning and headed towards Otavalo. We went past Otavalo and through a small town called la Esperanza. It was 9:15am when we got off the bus and started climbing. From the very beginning the climb was steep and it only got steeper as we went and I am pretty sure our guide, Jaime, was guiding us at a pretty fast pace. We got to the second highest peak after 3 1/2 hours, or maybe 4. I forgot to look at the time when we made it to the top, I guess I was too concentrated on actually making it there.
The first hour or two were really beautiful because we hadn't gone into the clouds that were covering the higher peaks. From there you could see the valleys down below and even a lake, which I think might have been el Lago San Pablo. I'm not really sure though. Once we got higher up we went into the clouds that were covering the peak. The trail got steeper and rocks started appearing. The final part of the mountain was mostly easy rock climbing. Its too bad there was so much fog, we couldn't really see what surrounded us. Occasionally the fog would clear enough for us to see the shapes of rocky peaks in the distance, and by distance I really mean 10-25 meters.
It was a really enjoyable climb, however the hike back down was a little bit harder and left my knees and ankles a bit sore.
