After staying at The Secret Garden in Quito we stayed with the same company and went with a bunch of people to Secret Garden Cotopaxi! We traveled in a squishy jeep with 8 of us packed in for a bumpy rough ride to the middle of nowhere. The accommodation was very quaint, logfires and all, unfortunately the weather was gloomy and we saw no mountains around us.
The next morning we woke up to the most beautiful sight, Cotopaxi in all its glory! A snow capped volcano at 5897m stood right ahead of us with a few other mountains close by, we had a clear sky ahead ready for our tour to the mountain. Other squishy, bumpy ride to the mountain, then a 1 hr hike up to the summit and refuge at a whopping 4800m high! We felt completely breathess but kept pushing. When we finally reached the summit, chiled for a bit only for the guide to continue further up into the clouds where we couldn't even see ahead of us. There was snow and small bits of ice dropping from the sky! A great achievement for us as we never have climbed anything before. We headed back down for some soup, hot chocolate and popcorn at the refuge, then the bumpy drive back home.....
