It rained all night and was still raining this morning, so even though I set my alarm for 5.30am, I didn't bother to go looking for birds.
We had breakfast at 7am and loaded up the bus to head for our next destination. The bus wheels were spinning trying to get up the steep driveway onto the road from the lodge, and the driver had to make a few attempts with a bit of a run up.
We headed back towards Quito, up over the pass at 4600 metres, and then skirted around the edges, passing roadside stalls selling pretty much anything you could eat or drink.
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| Roadside stall |
We turned left at a place called Tambillo, to head into Cotopaxi National Park. Cotopaxi is a conical shaped volcano that is still active, though not currently. Here we are hoping for some landscape photography, as well as a few rare birds.
We stopped for lunch at a hotel just outside the park boundary, and had quinoa soup, followed by steak and chips.
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| Steak and chips for lunch |
Here's some pix of the countryside we went through en-route.
We continued on to our next lodging, which is actually inside the Cotopaxi National Park. This gives us more freedom to move around the park outside opening hours, which is usually 8am to 5pm.
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| Our lodge |
The hotel is split into 3 main buildings, this is ours near the entrance. It has 4 double rooms. There is another building with 4 bedrooms further up towards the restaurant.
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| My room. |
Ali made a bit of a fuss, as her, Rhona, Paulo and me are the 4 allocated to the above building. She thinks the other building is nicer, as they have a balcony, so threw her toys out of the cot because she thought we three, who were given what she considered were the inferior rooms at the last lodge, should be given the best rooms this time around.
Rhona, the saffa, chimed in and said she thinks people should "do the right thing".
It was all a bit awkward, especially when Guy said he was happy to move rooms. Ali replied that we were a team and if couldn't all move, none of us would.
I wanted no part of this "team" demanding the best rooms, so I said I was quite happy with my room. Rhona patted me on the back and said "good for you". Sigh.
So it left all of us with a bit of a sour taste I think, especially the guides who allocate the rooms. When I got the opportunity a bit later to talk with Paulo on his own, I said I was perfectly happy with my rooms, I am in Ecuador and having a great time.
The joys of traveling in groups 🙄
We have had a complete change of scenery and climate from Guango. Here at Cotopaxi, we are at an even higher elevation than Guango at 4500m. The temperature outside is currently 4 degrees that feels like 2 degrees. The landscape is a mix of old lava fields and large boulders that were spat out in previous eruptions. No rainforest, not even any trees. We only seen bits of the mountain so far, it has been covered in cloud. This is typical.
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| Cotopaxi |
We have already seen Condors flying high above, as well as the Hillstar humming bird that is unique to this location, lapwings and some other large bird I can't remember the name of that overturns rocks looking for food.
At about 5.30pm our time I got a viber message from Joe saying Trump had been shot at a rally. As news kept coming it, it became clear it was an assassination attempt, thankfully unsuccessful. Terribly sad that someone attending the rally has been killed.
Tonight's dinner was lentil soup, grilled chicken with rice and mushrooms and salad with tiramisu for dessert.
No night time activity tonight, but we have a 5.30am start, hopeful of catching a sunrise if the weather plays ball.
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