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Ecuador 2020: Quito - Round 1

I spent 4 days in Quito acclimatizing. This consisted of mountain biking down Cotopaxi, climbing Rucu Pichincha twice, then taking a day off to rest before the big mountaineering trip.

Here is a panorama of Quito I took (26MB warning): https://jsaxton.com/static_images/quito.jpg

Here is another panorama of Quito I took, this time with a 200mm telephoto lens (66MB warning): https://jsaxton.com/static_images/quito_200mm.jpg

Other photos from this trip can be found here.

On my first day in Quito I decided to bike down Cotopaxi. Here's a view from the start. At approximately 14,700', this is higher than any point in the continental United States. Once we got past the steep gravel parts, there was a lot of easy single track It was surprising to see cows wandering around It was even more surprising to see these horses The weather was perfect, and these were the best views of Cotopaxi I'd get all trip. Ecuador has a handful of llamas. On day 2, I decided to take a cable car up to a trailhead and climb Rucu Pichincha. That's the mountain I was going to climb. Believe it or not, that mountain is 15,413 feet tall. The second half of the trail had a moderate amount of scrambling. Once you get past the scrambling, you have to climb this sandy hill. From the top of the sandy hill, it is a scramble to the summit. The trail is not well defined at the top, and it was tricky to find the summit. I decided to follow this guy. Eventually I got to the point where there was no safe path forward, and the weather was starting to change, so I turned back, probably less than 100 feet from the summit. The following day I tried to climb the mountain again. This time I met an Austrian climber and we were able to find the summit! One of the sketchier parts of the trail. The following day I decided to rest a bit before my hike. While wandering around this park, a local entrepreneur tried to sell me cocaine. The weather was fantastic, not a cloud in the sky. For $2-3 you can get a set menu lunch at most restaurants. The first course is almost always a soup. The second course consists of some meat, a lot of carbs, and some vegetables. Usually juice is included, and if you're lucky, you'll get a dessert.
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