Quito to Baños

 Long story short, I am on day one of five days of travelling with my three new German friends Lucas, Caroline and Nadine, along with our wild-haired tour guide Jose and our driver Jonathan who is careening us through the Andes in this little van. It’s not his fault, I think careening is the only way you can do this.

Included among the many things we did today was a hike around Cotopaxi National Park, which is named for this volcano, Cotopaxi. The trails close the volcano are closed right now because the magma is getting suspiciously warm, and since scientists can only predict eruption dates with a margin of error of “from tomorrow to someday,” prudence dictated not having us out there if it blows. And I didn’t realize this, but once she does blow, it can go on for a long time. They measure volcanic eruption durations in years.

After hiking around the park at 12,000+ feet above sea level without passing out, we were all very pleased with ourselves and celebrated by driving to this canyon where I admired how much money the government of Ecuador must have saved by not putting up any guardrails or signs on these 18-inch wide spits of land that drop down several hundred feet on both sides and also provide great photo opportunities for youngsters and large groups on multi-generational family outings.

On the ride over to the other side of the Andes (happy to provide more geographical information for anyone who’s interested) I marveled at how severe and steep these hills are and wondered how people could travel, work and thrive in an environment. I was also thankful that our morning hike didn’t include any steep grades. 

Big mistake. Because our afternoon hike was down to a lagoon at the top of an inactive volcano. We all sort of slid, hopped and sashayed our way down the trail because it was way too steep for normal walking. At the same time, we saw lots of people on their way back up, mostly looking like they were thinking about what to put in their will in case they didn’t make it all the way. In the meantime, a heavy fog had rolled in and we could barely see ten feet in front of us, let alone the water in the lagoon. We had passed a nun (not kidding here) on her way up and she reassured us that when she got down to the water, the fog briefly lifted and she enjoyed the view very much before she headed back up. But realizing that in terms of modifying natural phenomena, we don’t have nearly the pull that a nun does, Caroline and I decided to turn back and have a cup of coffee at the top while everyone else in our group kept going. Which turned out to be a good decision because when they finally showed up, they were soaked. “Oh is it raining?” I asked, taking a full-face inhalation of my café con leche. “We hadn’t noticed.” 

And one final note. On our way to our destination this evening we got delayed at a police checkpoint. Turns out Ecuador just recently passed a law allowing people to possess guns, so the police do random checks to make sure that anyone with a gun also has a license to own it. Fresh set of eyes here – it seems like if you’re a country that relies on tourism and has a problem with armed drug gangs that are keeping the tourists away, maybe that’s not the optimal time to change the laws to allow guns. I know that reading this you’re probably all upset and now want to write to the Ecuadorian government to register your opposition. But don’t bother because the President dissolved the entire government a couple of months ago when Congress was about to try him on corruption charges and there is an election scheduled in August to elect a whole new government. So now there’s kind of no government here at all.