Cotopaxi

I took a little break from writing anything after coming home from Phoenix. Partly because I was pissed off that I deleted this whole blog, partly because I was attempting (unsuccessfully) to finish some work related things. Plus I was still adjusting to having completely open and unstructured days, a freedom which I will be losing all too soon.

So, back to Ecuador. After a few days in Quito we decided we needed to remove ourselves from the city as much as possible. So we headed to Secret Garden Cotopaxi. Cotopaxi is a volcano, the peak of which is supposedly the closest point on earth to the sun. We had the option of going up the volcano, but we opted for horseback riding instead.


The hostel was so far removed from everything, it was wonderful. There was no electricity, and they grew much of their own food. Everyone ate together around a long table, and hung out around the fireplace at night. The private rooms were more like two story cabins with wood burning stoves and bathrooms downstairs and a bedroom upstairs with a window looking out to the volcano. It was surrounded by lush rolling pastures bordered by the mountains, there were lots of animals (the dogs were great) and we saw rainbows every day.


As I said, we skipped out on going to Cotopaxi. We also chose not to do the canopy zip line or the mountain bike trip. We did do a lot of hikes on our own (including a crazy one up a creek bed to a small waterfall), and did a half day trail ride up one of the mountains, into the clouds.

One of the best things about the Secret Garden hostels was that we met so many people who would somehow factor into our trip further down the line. A lot of people who were staying at Cotopaxi had been in Quito with us, and many of them would follow the same path down through Ecuador.