Teleférico Re-do and Cotopaxi: Crossing off "Never Have I Ever's"

Seeing as that we only had two weekends left in Quito, I decided to stay in the city this weekend and cross off some more "Quito Bucket-list" tasks.

Friday morning I journeyed with Jacqueline, Hannah, and Katie S. for round two of the Teleférico. When we first got to the base of the mountain, we were treated to the sight of painters painting a bunch (79, to be exact) of giant clay hummingbirds. After talking to one of the artist's, we learned that the hummingbirds are one of the many things for the festivities for 6 de Diciembre (the founding day of Quito) where the Quiteños rage for two weeks straight (I feel like we need to start celebrating the founding day of Duke in the same manner...). Here's a taste of the beautiful works:

The painted hummingbirds

Me with one of the artists.

As we rode up the Teleférico and hiked around, we had beautiful weather.

Quito from 12,943 ft.

After hiking five of the six kilometers to the top of Rucu Pinchincha, we stopped for a quick picnic snack break. Afterward, we decided to head back and couldn't have picked a better time because the temperature dropped and the clouds quickly started to roll in.

In a cloud!!

The moment we got back to the lift cars, it began to pour, which was complemented with huge bolts of thunder and lightening. This only made the ride back more exciting as the Teleférico routinely stopped to leave us hanging hundreds of meters high in the air for a couple minutes. Who says near death experiences can't be fun!?

Once safely back on the ground, we found a nice lady to hitchhike with (Never Have I Ever #1). She drove us all the way to Gringo Heaven, or American's Natural Habitats, or MCDONALD'S! Hey, it was pouring and we had to take shelter SOMEWHERE. The Ecuadorian McNifica and fries were delicious (Never Have I Ever [eaten McDonald's in Ecuador] #2) although it tastes the same as in the U.S. Sad, I know.

Hamburger Heaven.

That night, in order to continue the gringo-trend, some of my friends and I enjoyed several friendly games of Beer Pong--on my friend's balcony overlooking the beautifully lit-up Centro Histórico and Panecillo (Never Have I Ever [nor will I ever again] #3.


Saturday morning we continued with the hiking mania and took an hour and a half bus to Cotopaxi National Park, which contains Ecuador's second highest summit and active volcano, Cotopaxi. This volcano, which is considered the world's tallest active volcano at 5,897m or 19,347ft, destroyed the town of Latacunga three times.

Being dropped off at the park entrance required us to hire a pickup truck to take us the remaining 17km to the base of the volcano.

Riding in the back. Casual occurrence in Ecuador.

The hour-long ride in the truck was absolutely beautiful and permitted us to see just how immense the national park is. As we got closer and closer to the base of the volcano, the temperature began to drop until we were driving by snow (!). Unfortunately, like a true Wilmingtonian, I was unprepared in a T-shirt, leggings, and a rain jacket. Oops. My mom (and Gabby) would be so worried about me getting sick ;)

Warm (or not), but ready to conquer Cotopaxi!

Still, we all began the treacherous hike up to the first refugio, which our driver told us would take 40 minutes. It ended up taking a little over an hour and the hike was extremely hard. Like, Quilotoa hard. Panting and being pelted by hail and wind, we arrived at the refugio for snacks and the chance to get warm.

After looking at the sign outside of the building, my headache and lack of breathing made sense...we were at 4810m, or 15,780 feet! I only wish I was kidding. No, it was actually really cool and Never Have I Ever (#4) been that high up in my life!

Jacqueline, Noah, Katie, me, Phoebe, Melody, and Tori posing in the sky, basically.

The hike back down was MUCH easier (words can't describe how much easier) and the clouds cleared so we had the benefit of seeing a beautiful view.

The view of the park from the top (please notice the vertical hike up)

The snowy Cotopaxi

After the long ride back in the pickup truck, we were dropped off at the park entrance in order to flag down a bus. Unfortunately, all of the buses were full and alas, the only bus that stopped was...a school bus. Laughing at the irony of being on a school bus on a Saturday, we rode all the way back to Quito (Never Have I Ever #5).

Sunday was spent getting in the Christmas spirit as I helped my mom remove all of the Christmas decorations from storage, put together the tree (oh how I miss our two-story trees at my house), and decorate the entire apartment. Never Have I Ever assembled a fake Christmas tree...in Ecuador?

Just kidding, but hope you are also starting to get in the Christmas spirit as well!