Volcán Cotopaxi is the second tallest volcano in Ecuador, standing 5.879m (19,288ft) tall - tall enough that the top 600m are covered in snow all year round, even though it's on the equator. Since we visited Parque Nacional Cotopaxi on only our fifth day in Ecuador, we couldn't rightly climb the whole thing volcano, so instead we climbed to the first refuge, which was plenty. Upon entering the park we found a few artesian vendors selling hats, sweaters, gloves, scarves, or pants. I took this picture of a young boy whose mother was trying to sell us scarves.
The park has many different volcanoes, which you can see in the pictures of us below, but Cotopaxi is the most famous and the most commonly climbed. Later in the semester, I'd really like to climb either Cotopaxi or the tallest one, Chimborazo, which is about 400m taller. The top of Chimborazo is said to be the farthest point away from the center of the Earth because of the oblong shape of the globe... so I want to go there. There are several different companies you can go with and the climb (up Cotopaxi anyways) takes about 6 hours from the first refuge. You have to aclimatize beforehand, so the longer I've been doing my running in Quito, the better. I promise to post about my climb when I do it. I'll make sure to get a picture of me at the top of the world. I'll leave you with some pictures of us climbing up the slope and hanging out at the refuge:
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