Monday, March 9, 2009

to the top

When we woke on Saturday, alas, we had a clear morning in Quito, perhaps our first. The kids played neopets for awhile and watched some cartoons as I packed up and Nigel napped.
Leaving our backpack at the hotel, we took off on our mountain excursion. The taxi took us to Teleferico, which is this new-to-me area that you can take a
cable car to the top of the mountain. On top there are cafes and paths almost all the way over to Rucu Pichincha (the volcano that sits directly to the west of northern Quito).
The air was thin, at about 15,ooo ft above sea level, so the hike left me breathless at times (maybe because Iwas carrying Nigel too). Marshall and Stewart are real climbers, they just kept on. I would have let them go all the way to the rocky part, but Stewart was not listening to me, going his own way, which several times was frightening. I wondered if the altitude was affecting him, so I made the decision that we would try again another time.
We were tired when we got to the bottom, but the kids lite up when they saw a small ammusement park and ice cream. They had a couple rounds on the bumper cars and some Limon/Naranja Gemelo popsicles and we caught the bus back down to the neighborhood where we had stayed the night before (the touristy, bar and shop heavy- Avenida Amazonas). We picked up our pack and made our way to the Hostel, Jardin del Sol for a cheaper nights stay, again keeping us dis-connected.
The kids were purely unreasonable and exhausted by that point. We ate chips for dinner and went to bed early, I not daring to take them out again to find a clean restaurant.
picture 2: in the distance we kept seeing the hem of opalescent snow of mount Cotopaxi to the southeast of where we were.

2 comments:

Jen said...

I love reading this adventure!!! Am I going crazy, or did your hair grow a foot since you left? HUUUGGGG!

a boring sparrow said...

no, its not my hair! i had extensions before i left. it has been awesome to never blow dry, or barely wash too. super easy for traveling, and i like how it looks! Thanks!!!