Ecuador

I had initially planned to end my traverse of South America in Colombia, where I wound up after taking a boat across the border from the Peruvian side of the Amazon River. But after a two-week stint in Colombia, I rerouted South to Ecuador for my last month on the continent.

As I mentioned in the last blog, I am headed to Pakistan this summer to climb a 23,000 foot mountain, a plan that materialized in a Bogota Starbucks. In a single morning, I researched the climb, called the expedition leader, and paid my deposit. In the weeks that followed, I traveled through Colombia and contemplated three things: 1) my climbing resume was light for the Pakistan expedition, 2) this could easily be fixed in neighboring Ecuador, and 3) Colombia wasn’t really my vibe. So I set off for Quito to climb Cayambe (19,000ft) and Chimborazo (20,500ft). Here’s a photo of the harder objective, Chimborazo:

Once in Ecuador, I first spent about ten days acclimatizing, a process of progressively hiking to higher elevations to adapt to the altitude. First up was the Quilotoa Loop, an incredible three-day trek through remote villages in the Ecuadorian countryside. My trekking partner was my French friend Anatole, who I’d first met in Peru. We’d previously trekked the 8-day Huayhuash Circuit together, along with our friend James, who I’d been traveling with at the time. After the Huayhuash, Anatole had come straight to Ecuador, where he’d been volunteering on a cacao farm (whatever that means) ever since. He’s one of the strongest hikers I know, so simply keeping up for three consecutive days was the best Pakistan training I could possibly conceive of. Here we are on the final day:

After the absurdity of the Huayhuash trek (which I described in a prior blog), the Quilotoa Loop was a dream come true. Super cozy, mountain-lodge style hostels have emerged along the trail, offering accommodation, dinner, breakfast, and a packed lunch for $20 total. Objectively, it may be the most comfortable and economical trek on the continent. The views were also gorgeous:

After the Quilotoa Trek, we returned to Quito to play chess on the rooftop of the Secret Garden Hostel and to climb the Rucu Pichincha volcano, an awesome urban hike:

The Secret Garden is worth a mention, since unlike any other hostel I’ve been to, it is the complete epicenter of the backpacking scene in not only Quito, but all of Ecuador. A travel partner for practically anything can be found on the Secret Garden rooftop, which is consistently full of socializing, long-haul travelers:

After our quick stop in Quito, Anatole continued North to Colombia and I set off for the final component of my acclimatization regime: sleeping at higher altitude. I accomplished this at Punanti, a mountain-lodge style hostel in a super remote village at the base of Cayambe (my first climbing objective). Punanti was recently opened by a Swiss guy named Antoine, who spent a year driving his van across South America, during which he somehow wound up managing the Secret Garden. He eventually left his Secret Garden job to build Punanti. Directly from the hostel, Antoine took me on an additional acclimatization hike to 15,800 feet. Here’s a photo of him returning to the hostel from our hike (the llama was a parting gift to Antoine from the Secret Garden owners):

Here’s another photo of the view from my room at Punanti:

After two nights at Punanti, I was officially acclimatized and set off to climb Cayambe with a French couple and a Canadian backpacker, whom I’d found on the rooftop of the Secret Garden (naturally). Unfortunately, wind and rain destroyed our plans for a summit attempt, and we retreated back to Quito from the climbers refuge, without so much as setting foot on the mountain.

Back in Quito, the French couple flew to the Galápagos as planned, and the Canadian backpacker postponed his mountaineering career to Bolivia (it’s cheaper there). I slept for two nights, then arranged for one of our guides, Fausto, to take me back up. The second attempt went drastically better than the first, and we reached the summit just before sunrise. My summit photo was of painfully average quality given the significant effort put forth (probably because I forgot to turn my headlamp off), but at least we got up:

I took some nicer photos on the descent:

After Cayambe, I checked back into the Secret Garden (for the fourth time), slept, then took a bus to Riobamba, the town closest to my next objective, Chimborazo. In Riobamba I had planned to both rest a few days and find a climbing partner at the town’s only hostel, which consistently sends backpackers up Chimborazo. However, according to the weather forecast, there was one decent summit window in the coming week, and it was unfortunately the very next day. So I called up Fausto (my Cayambe guide), and he hopped on the next bus to Riobamba:

The next morning, we stopped by a gear-rental store and then set off for the mountain. Chimborazo is typically climbed over two days, with a night spent partway up at a fixed high-camp. But given the weather forecast, we lacked the time to sort out the logistics of spending the night at high-camp, so we started our climb at 10:00pm from the base of the mountain (as I’ve described before, climbing is safest in the night, since during the day, heat from the sun can cause portions of the route to collapse). We climbed for 9 hours and reached the 20,500ft summit at sunrise:

The descent took another 6 hours, including the hour I spent immobilized in the high camp with a migraine from the altitude and strenuous ascent. Fausto took a photo:

I am now back in Riobamba, resting and handling a few administrative tasks (like posting the blog). I fly out of Ecuador in one week, so one such administrative task is sorting out what to do for the next six days. I may go back to Punanti, or I may go to the coast. Either way, next week I fly to London where I’ve rented an apartment for the month. It may be awhile before I post again on the blog, since my time in London will mostly be spent resting and getting organized for the Pakistan expedition in August. Thanks for following!