Today is the day where we attempt to climb a volcano called Cotopaxi with a summit of 5897m high. It is a glacier which is not great considering we have only packed for the summer weather. I only have one thin fleece and tons of t-shirts and shorts. Fortunately some much warmer clothing is provided.

We arrived at the Happy gringo office at 8am where we met our main guide called “” that will be leading us up this enormous ascent. We were then led to a trekking shop where we got measured up and given lots of equipment. As part of the equipment we received some warm long john bottoms and top, waterproof jacket and bottoms, a big fleece, gators, gloves and waterproof glacier boots. Additional equipment we got especially for the glacier climb was some crampons (a big ten spike sole that fits on to the boots) and a ice axe. We finally, left the shop to head off on a two hour car ride to the National park where Cotopaxi belongs. Along he way, we picked up our second guide called Segunda. We had a lot of confidence in our guides as they had about 30 years combined experience in climbing, most of which was done at Cotopaxi.

When we arrived in the park, it was another hour ride until we got to a restaurant for us to drop off our main bags and get kitted up in our equipment. This was the point when we picked up our food to the climb and stuffed them into our small rucksacks. We left the rest of our luggage there and started to journey to base camp.

After another hour drive through remote terrain which started off as muddy dirt tracks and fields and slowly progressed to snow filled lands. we arrived at a car park at an altitude to 4500m. We wasn’t at base camp yet. We had to hike up a very steep and slippery mountain. It was only 300m but the altitude was pretty tough me, Mike and Chris. Kev seemed to steam up the hill without any trouble. I found it hard to catch my breath back and the slippery muddy surface just sapped the energy out of me. Every step I took, my foot would slip down a little which meant i only made about half a step rather than a full step. Eventually, about 10 minutes after Kev made it to base camp of 4800m, me, Mike and Chris made it too. The 300m was tougher than we thought at a high altitude. All the long hours of hikes we did in the American National Parks were so much easier. Anyway, we still had a bit of rest yet and time to get more acclimatised to the altitude before we attempt the hike to the summit.

When we reached the top we were greeted by some hot tea and coca with lots of snacks. Soon after we went off for some glacier training. This was to get us used to using the equipment provided such as the crampons and ice axes. The training lasted about half hour which included a hike to 5000m which was surprisingly easier than the hike earlier to get to base camp. The ground was more solid and my breathing seemed more normal. This gave us more confidence in completing this somewhat now mammoth volcano.

After training, we had about an hour rest and went straight into a hearty dinner at about 5pm. It didn’t seem that long ago since we had our snacks and training. As soon as dinner was finished it was time for bed. We went about around 6pm and planned to get up at midnight to get ready and go for the hike up Cotopaxi. This is because the conditions are better at night. By this time a few of us had minor headaches apparently due to altitude sickness. We just hope that the sleep will do us good and remove them.

6 hours passed and i personally didn’t sleep well. I must have only got an hour’s sleep and I still had a slight headache, as did the others. Breakfast was coming up and as soon as we had that our headaches were removed. Only Kev was still feeling a headache and couldn’t even eat breakfast. In the end me, Mike and Chris kitted up and got ready for the hike, whilst Kev say back at base camp to nurture his headache.

So the rest of us started the big hike up the cold, dark volcano at about 1am in the morning. The weather conditions wasn’t perfect as it was snowing fairly heavily which didn’t give us good visibility. To add to the difficulty, it snowed through the night which meant we had to walk through very thick snow. This made the hike so much harder. Every step we took, we slipped a little bit down. It seemed like we wasn’t moving anywhere. It was energy sapping and we were again finding hard to catch our breath back. It seemed like after 3 to 4 steps we needed a break to recover.

Eventually, we reached an altitude of 5000m. Up until now, we were walking freely on our own. But now form this point onwards, we would be connected to our guides via a piece of rope. This ensured we stayed as a group and didn’t lose anyone. At this point we also added on the crampons on to our boots as we were about to walk on to ice. When we started walking up, we couldn’t feel the ice at all. It was still covered with thick snow and the pace up the hill was slow. What made it harder was that we was connected to the guides which meant we had to go at the pace of the guides. We persevered for the first few minutes at his pace but eventually had to a few times to recover.

The conditions were getting somewhat worse and we were getting really tired. We had only a reached up to 5300m and only had about 550m to go. It was this point on that our guides told us that we were heading back because we were stopping too much and would take too long to get there. We also stopped because the conditions were getting worse. I was secretly gutted as i actually wanted to carry on and felt that I had a rhythm going but also glad in a sense that this tiredness and pain is going to be over. So we headed back down which actually was more difficult tan we thought. We fell over a few times and it was very tiring. It just seemed like that this was an epic journey with no end! We finally made it back to the base camp at about 5am. Soon after we arrived back, we saw other groups also returning due to the weather conditions.

We went back to our cabin bunks to some screaming noises. It was Kev who seemed to be suffering immensely from a bad headache. All we could hear was bursts of “Arggh” every few minutes. Our second guide Segunda, decided that we should go down to a lower altitude because Kev’s headache was brought on by altitude sickness. Moments after the decision, we pack up all our equipment to leave. The was a a final 300m hike down from base camp to the car park where we got into a car to drive us down to a lower altitude. Kev seem to instantly get much better. By now it was about 7am, so we decided to grab the rest of our luggage and get a bus to Banos our next destination.

So our Cotopaxi climb ended in tears because we were all beat by some form of altitude sickness. However, I have a future plans to comeback and conquer this volcano and many more. But next time, conquering it when we are properly acclimatised to the altitude which takes about 2 weeks rather than the 5 days we had! Anyway, we now have the adventure town of Banos to look forward to.