Laguna de Cubilche

It was the end of the week and it had been a couple of months since my last mountain, but it felt like it had been ages. This mountain season started with a fairly easy hike up a lesser volcano that is part of the Imbabura volcano complex. We started the day at a small "town" called Ugshos which is really a small cluster of small farm houses and their respective fields. The sky was grayish but it wasn't cold and after some minutes of walking uphill we had to stop to take off some of our layers of clothing. 

The walk was pretty painless even if walking up a mountain at more than 3,000 meters after two months of relative inactivity is not exactly easy. 

climbing up the Cubilche Volcano

The flanks of the Cubilche volcano are covered with tall paramo grass. There was no real trail so we had to create it with our own footsteps. This was was fun, especially on the way back down to the bus since it was slippery. The trail we had created managed to turn into a grass slide that we used just as we would have when we were kids. When falling over to a side or slipping the grass created a soft plush pillow for you to fall in. One of the most comfortable things you can do is throw yourself into the grass and just sit there contemplating the surrounding mountains.

The other "lakes"

Finally on top of the volcano there are three small lakes. Actually, now there is only one lake left, the Cubilche lake, since the other two dried out. Sadly, the Cubilche lake will probably dry up as well leaving only a bright green concave spot where it used to be. 

Laguna de Cubilche

Saudade

 The north side of the city were you could always see airplanes landing

If you listen carefully you can still hear the planes flying thousands of meters above the city. Its a soft distant roar that doesn't compare to what we heard all of our lives. 

During almost 26 years I lived in this city, a city where it was normal to hear planes landing right in the middle of the city.  Named after the Venezuelan-born independence hero Antonio Jose de Sucre, the Aeropuerto Mariscal Sucre began its operations in 1960. It was one of the highest airports in the world (at 2,800 meters), and it was located in the northern part of the city, 10 minutes away from Quito's financial center, but most importantly for me, less than 5 minutes away from my house. 

A satellite picture from google maps showing the Old Mariscal Sucre Airport right in the middle of the city

Landing in Quito was a wonderful spectacle; If it was a clear summer day you saw the whole city expanding beneath you and surrounded by mountains. If the plane came from the south side of the city you could catch a glimpse of the city center and the Virgen del Panecillo. Sometimes, when the city was covered with fog if you were lucky enough to land the city would appear magically out of a sea of whiteness, however, when there was too much fog it was most likely that your flight would not land in Quito and they would send you to Guayaquil to spend the night. Landing on a clear night instead was a show of lights. The city glimmers like gold jewels at night. 

The issue is that an international airport in the middle of a city, especially a city at high altitude which is surrounded by mountains, poses a lot of problems. The airport has a history of at least 6 serious accidents and several minor incidents. Some planes have crashed into buildings, others seemed not to have enough space to land and slipped off the runway. Apart from that, the increasing air traffic needed a larger airport for larger planes, but because it was in the middle of the city it was virtually impossible to expand the airport. For all of these reasons a couple of days ago, on February 19, Iberia operated the final flight coming out of the Old Mariscal Sucre Airport, and the next day all operations began in the New Mariscal Sucre Airport, approximately an hour away from the city, at least two hours away if you count the traffic. 

I found this picture using Google Images. You could always find people standing out of the airport watching planes land and leave. 

Another Google Images picture, the airplane in the city

Now Quito is a quieter city. I am sure some people are happy, especially the people who live right next to the airport, the people who live near the Gonzales Suarez area, and especially the teachers and students in the Alianza Francesa who had to stop lessons every time a plane landed because the noise made it impossible to hear anyone speaking. On the other hand, there are many of us who miss the sound of the airplanes landing, to me it was the sound of Quito. The city seems a bit empty, as if the music had been turned off. 

I will always remember the sight of airplanes landing in the city, the sight of a plane passing directly above me at a close distance, the smell of the city when you landed in the afternoons, the city glimmering like starlight right below you at night and my grandmother who loved standing by my window whenever she came to visit us when we were young. She always stood there, fascinated, watching the planes fly in and fly out. 

And finally a quieter city, where you can no longer see planes coming in the horizon

0 mountains and 4 months later

Sometimes you have to turn things upside down just for fun.

the lake from the mirador

The Quilotoa, is a crater lake that was formed after an eruption around 800 years ago. It is a very popular tourist spot where people go to peek into the crater to see the bright green water. The mountain itself is approximately 4,000 meters high at its highest peak. One of the most popular activities is to around the caldera, which is 10km in diameter, and then to descend 400 meters to the lake. Of course once you walk down you have to walk back up to get out.

Our day with Zona Verde, the mountaineering group I do most of my walks with, started pretty early. We left Quito at 4am since the Quilotoa is not exactly close to Quito. We passed by the small andean town Zumbahua and started hiking at around 10am. Our guide, Jaime, has a predilection for adventure and always likes to explore new paths, so instead of circling the caldera counter-clock wise as most people do (and as the path is signaled), he decided we should circle it clock-wise, just for fun. And the truth is it was fun, there was a moment where we off the path for a while and started descending down the outer side of the mountain, which is not what you are supposed to do, but it wasn't too bad. The Quilotoa is a really easy mountain to hike and you can do it without a guide, but I believe it is more fun to climb mountains with more people. I also love hiking with Zona Verde, it might be an acquired taste,  Jaime is not exactly the guide for everyone. He is very demanding and most walks with him last at least 6 hours. He loves taking detours and exploring new paths which sometimes leads to getting "lost" and walking a little bit longer on rougher terrains, but that is exactly what makes it more exciting.

at the highest point of Quilotoa

We reached the highest peak at around 2:30 pm and continued towards our starting point. Most people go back to the mirador and then climb down to the lake, we of course didn't do this. Instead Jaime had seen an alternate path that went down to the lake and possibly connected with the most used path. Some of us decided to follow Jaime in this adventure, knowing that this new path might not meet the most used one and we might have to walk a lot more to get to the end of our hike and back on the bus. It was a lovely walk and we reached the lake just in time for the last rays of sun, since after that clouds filled the sky and it got a bit cooler. A couple of people jumped in the lake for a short refreshening splash. I stayed outside because I can never handle the idea of jumping into cold water, not even when I am pretty hot from walking for almost 5 hours.

some of the guys enjoying the incredibly cool water

Although the hike around the Quilotoa was fairly simple, by the time we reached the lake I was completely tired. It had been about 4 months since I did any sort of physical activity, so the climb back out of the crater was hard on me. I felt as if my lungs weren't big enough for all the oxygen my body was asking for. However, I made it out of the mountain and into the bus, concluding our lovely trip to this mountain. I am glad I went to this volcano, it was the perfect way of starting this climbing season.

2013

Its hard to grasp how fast time goes by. 

It is the beginning of a new year. A year that will be full of change and movement, full of great projects, obstacles and problems. It will be a great year indeed.