South America, Days 46 to 48 - Stage 11: Quito, Ecuador

Notice at the top of the cable car in Quito. This took us from 2800m to 3947m on Pichincha mountain. So we're centre bottom and doing the orange route (which looks like yellow), classed as 'Medium' grade, followed by the green route to the summit classed as 'Expert' grade, finishing at 4696m

Day 46 Saturday continued

Our taxi arrived at our hotel in Mindo bang on 12.00 which is very impressive, so we've booked him to take us to the airport on Tuesday. We got back and checked back in, to our new room, without the noisy bathroom fan, she'd read my TripAdvisor review. Our luggage was already up there (now on the 3rd floor) which was lovely.

We went out, ate and blogged. It always takes him longer than he thinks it will!

Fabulous views back down in Quito from here and many people just come up here for the views without walking. Quito occupies a valley, which we've heard some people believe is an ancient volcano crater. Interesting facts about Quito: it has a population of about 2.6 million people, but the greater metro area has a total of 4.7 million. At an average 2850m altitude it is the second highest capital in the world (after La Paz in Bolivia) and is the closet capital city to the equator

Day 47 Sunday 

The only thing left that we (he) really wanted to do in Quito was go up the cable car 2500m to see the view and then walk up Rucu Pinchincha, a volcano. The weather forecast was for thunder storms, all day, but looking out of the window it didn't look like it. We decided to go for it, even if we had to abort. See our Relive video with some photos: click here

To the lobby to book an Uber to find someone sitting there who had just booked an Uber to the cable car, so we crashed his ride.

Of we went and there is our first view of our target, Rucu Pinchincha, the sprawling volcano that dominates the skyline of Quito. There will be climbing to get to that summit!

We'd seen Cain at breakfast but not spoken to him, turns out he is in S. America for 2 1/2 weeks to do some trail running. He'd only arrived yesterday, so this was his first outing. Altitude just doesn't bother some lucky people. We started off together, stopping and starting and chatting, but eventually left him doing some stretches as his knee was a little painful.

The first part of the walk was up an easy path so we couldn't work out how this could possibly take 3 hours, until we rounded a bend and came to a hideous sandy slope. Two steps up and one step down. We should have kept right, but we didn't know this. 

Meet Cain from Kansas City, Missouri, USA. A really nice, easy to talk to guy who is in South America for 2.5 weeks just for trail running. This is his first, Later today he's off to Peru, then Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. A packed schedule! He's done marathons, ultra marathons, triathlons and the Barclay ultramarathon. We decided we wouldn't try to keep up with him!

Brian was feeling ok, but was taking it very slowly, which is quite unusual, but slow and steady makes sense. Once at the top of this hideous section came a scramble. There were groups putting helmets on, we didn't have anything like that, and the clouds kept rolling in and out making route finding a little tricky. I think it was about here a guy we'd spoken to earlier in the week aborted as it started hailing. 

We finally made it to the top 4696m and it felt a real slog, but we'd done it, even with a view. No chance of relaxing for long though, one small biscuit, as all I wanted was to get to below the sandy slope before the weather changed. Off we went and walked out. 2 1/2 hours up, and 2 hours (including all the stops) down. We were pretty pleased with ourselves. We should have been hungry, but Brian actually felt a bit sick, and we both had slight headaches so we went back for a chill and the second shower of the day. It had not been anywhere as cold as we'd been expecting up there.

Finally went out to eat about 17.00 before back for crossword and a movie (which was rubbish) to try and keep ourselves awake.

We'd already come a way, the cable car is off down past those masts in the distance. We're feeling good, acclimatisation is finally paying off and we're going at a steady pace

Day 48 Monday 

We were very pleased to see Cain at breakfast as we hadn't seen him since about half an hour into the walk. He had also summitted, not long behind us by the sound of it, but he had been told to keep right on the way up, so I guess that's where we missed him. Long chat before we felt we were out staying our welcome in the breakfast room, so perhaps we'd better go and do something.

San Francisco church and Convent, and museum had been recommended by Stefy on our walking tour, so off we went. The church was beautiful and the convent grounds very peaceful. Coffee and cake (see, I do listen to you Bev,) and a little amble.

Fairly steep climbing in places - and the summit is going into mist

Then thought we'd come and blog as tomorrow we are off to the airport 06.30 to Coca and our trip to Sacha Lodge in the Amazon. We think that will be busy so maybe 5 days till the next one, which, we hope, will be from Cuenca. We've booked a car for the 8 hours from the airport to Cuenca as it was more convenient and considerably cheaper. Flights however appear to have come down and Gov.uk has put an advisory on the Ecuador page about demonstrations and road closures. Edwin, the driver, however says it's not a good website and he had just returned from Quito, so fingers crossed it will all be ok!

Already up to 4177m! Still someway to go

See these two guys in front? We did actually pass them later on and we were almost together on the very loose, steep part, where the one was encouraging us on when we were struggling and he was shouting to his mate to carry on. He summited just as we were on our way down, don't know if his mate made it

4331m and I'm starting to slow down. I went ahead to set the pace, which was still reasonable, but I was aware Jackie was right behind me and would have gone a bit faster

There's our two friends pausing for breath. It was the one on the left with his hood up that definitely summited, his mate was lagging behind and not sure if he made it or waited below. Up ahead is a steep sandy slope disappearing up to the left, that was the worst part, two steps up, one down and massively energy sapping. We should have gone past that and zig-zagged up the vegetation beyond, but we didn't know that at the time

On the really loose section with views back to where we'd come. I think we took the higher path, we certainly did on the way down

The summit is up there, you can just see it in the mist. In the foreground is the loose sandy soil we are trying to get up. At this point I was doubting we'd make it as I was so spent with the effort. However my map app suggested it was only 100m away (but lots of ascent). We press on, heart pounding and pausing to catch breath every few minutes

I'm sort of pleased that Jackie looks knackered in this photo, it wasn't just me! Far below, through the clouds is Quito

On the rocky section near the summit looking back to Quito. The climbing was pretty easy with no great difficulties if it weren't for the fact that we're very tired and having to stop to get our breath every few minutes

Finally made it to the summit, 4696m

Just to prove I made it too!

We sat down to have something to eat as this Carunculated Caracara bird hopped over hoping to help us with our snack. We only had biscuits, but it devoured the little bit I broke off. Very pretty bird and non-threatening despite being so close

On our way down the rocky section

And finally Quito comes back into view. The cable car back down, an Uber back to the hotel (or nearly, it was very busy in town so we had to walk the final bit) and then out for early lunch in a fabulous restaurant. Everyone was very impressed we'd got to the summit in 2.5 hours and back down in 2 hours (book time 6 hours for the round trip), however, my tired face told the story!

Todays visit, the San Francisco Convent in Quito

Very beautiful place inside, at least the bits we could visit

They used to brew their own beer in here.

This looks like a bar with tables  and chairs and empty beer bottles stacked round the fireplace. Perhaps it still is, but it was only 11:00am so wasn't open!

The local brew (they did sell some in the convent cafe, but it was too early for us)

Christmas nativity exhibition in one of the rooms

And then upstairs to get a view into the church (is it called a church in a convent?). We'd already been in on the ground floor and it is magnificent, but I didn't take a photo as it it said no photos (others were!) and a mass was going on. However they said we could take photos but with no flash, so...

As I said, it's magnificent inside, although I appreciate it never looks as amazing as in real life, photos just don't capture it. However, the service was still going on and we were with the organist (who also sang as well as played), who was looking at his phone until it was his turn to play

Here we are in the balcony with the organist (there he is in grey on the right). The choir would normally be sitting here, but not today on a Monday

We weren't supposed to go in this room, but the door was open so I took a photo of all the people doing restoration work on the artwork. There are a huge number of beautiful paintings hanging everywhere and they all need a bit of TLC from time to time

Back at our hotel, Friends Hotel & Rooftop and this is the rooftop (except our room is one floor up - its higher one side). It is the breakfast room but is available to use throughout the day. Thought we'd use it for this blog entry. Jackie's writing, I'm doing the photos. Well, that's it from Quito for now, we're off to Coca, 1 hour by plane east of here, way down in the Amazon jungle (except someone in Mindo said they've chopped all the trees down in Coca now) and then a boat ride along the Rio Napo, a tributary of the Amazon, to our luxury Amazon adventure at Sacha Lodge (highly recommended by Ian and Helen who went there years ago)