Descent into the Crater of Guagua Pichincha

Legends say that thousands of years ago two of the greatest warriors of the Andes, Cotopaxi and Chimborazo, fell in love with the beautiful Tungurahua. For many years they battled constantly through violent eruptions and seismic activity until Chimborazo proved to be the strongest warrior. He won the heart of Tungurahua, married her and together they had Guagua Pichincha (guagua means child in quechua). It is said that when the Guagua cries his mother wakes up to see what is wrong with him. 

Back in 1999 the Guagua Pichincha became active; it covered our city with of ashes many times over the following years. And a couple of months after its activity started the Tungurahua also became active and has been ever since. 

The beginning of our climb up to the Guagua Pichincha

The Guagua Pichincha, is part of a large volcanic complex that lies approximately 10km west from Quito's city center. The Guagua, the highest peak of the complex is an old stratovolcano that is currently active. The summit is 4,784 meters high, but that was not where we were headed. We started our walk at about 4,000 meters and instead of taking the easy way up through the dirt road, we climbed through the mountain side. We climbed up for a couple of hours until we reached a fork where you can either go to the right and arrive at the Refugio at 4,500 meters, that is the path you should take if you are attempting to reach the summit. However, we weren't going to the summit, so we turned left through a path that takes you to approximately 4,600 meters. This path reaches the rim of the Caldera and it is a popular spot for people who want to see the inside of the volcano. 

The Caldera is approximately 6 km wide and shaped as a horseshoe, as one of its walls collapsed after one of its eruptions more than 50,000 years ago. Inside you can easily spot an old lava dome that remains from the 1660 eruption. This was the last major eruption, it lasted 12 hours and left Quito covered in 30cm of ash. Near the dome there is a large crater created in the 1981 eruption and besides that one a smaller crater that was left from its latest eruption in 2002. Inside you can also see a very active fumarole that has a constant stream of water vapor and other gasses coming out of it. Our plan for this trip was to reach this fumarole. The climb down into the volcano was not exactly easy, in fact what started out as a a pleasant walk up a mountain turned into one of the hardest climbs of the year for me. 

The inner walls of the volcano are steep, sharp and scary looking. They are a mix of large stable rocks with smaller loose rocks and a very fine and slippery sand-pebble mix. Not only was it scary and hard, it took us almost 4 hours to climb down the 600 meters needed to reach the fumarole. Once we reached our final destination it was 2 in the afternoon and I felt completely worn out. I had fallen a couple of times so I was a bit bruised, I was covered in dirt, and my enthusiasm was pretty much gone. I might have even shed a tear or two. And the worst part was knowing that I still had to climb back out of the volcano. 

Usually our climbs up the mountains are "easy" because you climb to the summit and once you are up there and tired all you have to do is walk back down, and walking down a mountain takes a lot less effort than climbing up. This time we climbed up a mountain, down into a crater, back up to the top and back down to the bus. The truth is I felt like giving up more than once. But in cases like these, you can't  give up, it is not an option, you have to continue because you can't stay inside of a volcano for ever, and no one is going to send a helicopter to pick you up unless you are gravely injured. So you have to put all your fear, all your insecurities, and all the pain in your muscles aside. You have to put all that in the back of your head and find a way to keep on going. 

In the end it is worth it. It pushes you out of your comfort zone. It breaks you down. But after it you are left with the satisfaction of knowing that you made it. 

standing on the rim of the caldera

The inner part of the caldera, you can see a larger crater from the 1981 explosion and right next to it a smaller crater from 2002

Climbing down the inner walls of the Volcano

This is what the walls of the caldera look like from the fumarole...the red line is the route we took to reach the craters

Standing right next to the fumarole, probably not the safest or smartest thing to do

Climbing back up the steep and unstable walls of the Volcano

The beautifully sharp peaks that form the walls of the volcano's caldera

The 1999 eruption that darkened our day, covered us with ashes and filled us with fear. I did not take this picture. 

Chuquiragua flowers, found only above 2,600 meters and endemic to Ecuador

Wonderful Cities: Shanghai

I landed in Shanghai on a saturday night, tired, after two days of traveling, to find a city that was not exactly what i had pictured. 

     Instead of the incessant rivers of people crowding the streets I found wide spaces with less people than I thought there would be. The modern city I had heard of was only half there, mixed among older buildings, temples, two floor highways and small alleys. 

     I also learned that the sun set early in the night, at around 6pm, but it also rose early the next day, giving the city dwellers approximately 12 hours of sunlight. In the mornings, as the sun came up, elderly people came out of their apartments and filled parks and plazas. I saw them everywhere doing tai-chi, practicing their instruments, walking and stretching out. 

     As the day goes by in Shanghai, the city starts to wake up; bicycles and motorcycles crowd every intersection and fill every available parking space on the sidewalks. None of these vehicles seemed new, in fact many seemed rusty and held together by magical forces. Some of them were so loaded with boxes and sacks of fruit and vegetables, that I wondered how their riders managed to keep their balance. 

     There were less cars than I expected. 

     The city is huge, and from its highest easily accessible viewpoint, at 474 meters, on the 100th floor of the Shanghai World Financial Center, I could see the city expanding endlessly in every direction. 

Shanghai is believed to have a population of 23million people, but rumors say that it can grow up to 40million during certain times of the year if you count chinese tourists and the illegal immigrants that come from the countryside looking for an opportunity of making it in the city. However you don't really see them on the streets. I believe that this city was planned so that all its inhabitants could get by smoothly without it feeling too crowded, because of this everything seems vast and sort of desolate for such a large city. 

     However the people are there and although the streets are wide, the living and working spaces are small. People's lives pour out into the sidewalks. They hang their clothes to dry out on the streets; sometimes on trees, sometimes on clothes racks placed in the middle of the sidewalks and sometimes even on light posts. In some areas of the cities people's work also happens on the streets, and so you find tailors with their old sewing machines fixing clothes outside of their shops and restaurants cooking right out of their doors. 

     Shanghai is a city of contrasts where rich mix with poor, modern urban locals with countryside immigrants, modern offices in skyscrapers with older residential buildings, atheists with believers; ultimately the old and the new. 

Back to the Mountains

A couple of months have passes since the last time that I climbed a mountain. My original plans were to keep on going to the mountains (and exercising in general) until we began a new mountain season, but plans usually fail and instead I ended up going to parties, barbecues and dinners. I can't complain, it's been a fun summer, but as the summer ends its time to go back to the mountain, more or less.

So the on sunday I got back together with my mountain climbing group, Zona Verde, and we went to the Ilaló. The Ilaló is a small mountain (3,194mt) right between two valleys: Tumbaco and los Chillos. We went up the less frequented route that starts in los Chillos. The climb was pretty easy, not too steep, sunny and it went through a lovely forest. Our first stop was the second highest "peak", also known as the Cumbre de la Cruz. At its top there is a big metal cross which you can see in the pictures and which you can climb up to if you dare. I doubt it is a normal activity to climb up the cross, there aren't any stairs, just the structure that the actual cross is made out of. So if you are careful and you want a great view, climbing up is lots of fun. 

 The cross, the climbing up the cross and the view from the center of the cross

 After a quick stop at the cross we continued to the highest point of the Cerro Ilaló. After that we came back down towards a town called Tingo where we had lunch and then we headed back to quito.

It was a great summer day although maybe too sunny and very dry. You can actually see what the summer has done to the mountains around Quito. If you look at the picture that I took from the top of the cross you can see a dark black area on the left side. That is what is left from one of the summer fires. However, even with the sun, heat and dust it was a great first mountain for the season.  New ones will come in the following weeks, after I come back from my summer vacation in Turkey!

The Cerro Ilaló

VPS #3

I climbed to the top of a mountain and came back down and you were still not there.

VPS # 2

my whole existence asks for love, yet the world doesn't know how to give it

the end of a season

Lake Cuicocha

This season of mountain climbing has come to its end. It feels a bit weird, I had gotten used to getting out of the city and getting away from everything every weekend. I guess I will miss it a lot, but I know I will start again with lots of energy in September. The last two mountains I climbed were the Cotacachi and the Morurco. Cotacachi is a mountain, also known as María Cotacachi de las nieves, which is believed to be Imbabura's lover. It was a lovely walk to the top with a great view of the Cuicocha lake. I didn't actually get up to the highest peak on this climb because I am still terrified of rock climbing, and Cotacachi is known for its vertiginous falls and crumbling rocks. Maybe next time I will dare to go up. This time I stayed with the safer walk up to the second highest peak. It wasn't terribly difficult, but it wasn't easy either. First of all we had to walk through snow for about 20 minutes, which was pretty fun. And then we had to walk up ice, which is a bit scarier because it's so slippery. It was incredibly cold up on our peak so we didn't stay there for too long. It was definitely a lovely mountain.

Getting closer to Cotacachi's peak (not the ones in the picture)

Walking on ice

Then last weekend we went to the Morurco. This is a small mountain on the south side of the Cotopaxi. Now, Cotopaxi is one of the most beautiful mountains around here; I'm so glad I get to see it almost daily from my city. It is also a harder mountain. The whole area surrounding Cotopaxi is made mainly of arenales. My best translation for arenales would be sand fields, even though they are not made of the type of sand you find at the beach; here the earth is very loose and made up of volcanic ash and small rocks, its difficult to walk through and even harder to climb up. On our trip to the Morurco we didn't actually climb the mountain, we just walked all the way around it. It was a beautiful walk, very different from the other mountains we have done. The colors of the earth were spectacular and there was almost no vegetation so all we saw was rocks and more rocks in many different colors. Since the Morurco is right by the Cotopaxi we also got a very close view of the mountain and its glaciers for a moment, then it got a bit cloudy and cold and we didn't get to see much more. 

Cotopaxi and Morurco

I call the Morurco a small mountain because compared to the Cotopaxi it looks relatively small, however the highest point we reached in this mountain was 4,750 meters high and its highest peak is 4,900 meters. This however seems nothing compared to Cotopaxi's 5,897 meters. It was a great walk to close the mountain climbing season. I can't wait for the next one to begin. 

Cotopaxi

The Illinizas 

Walking through the arenal 

cotopaxi