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.

On our final day before we start our accent of Cotopaxi we visited Otavalo market on a Saturday which is the best day for Gringos. We boarded the bus from the terminal and had to pay our departure fee, after leaving the terminal we found everyone else gets on just outside to avoid the fee. We though we would have a quick journey but the bus stopped alot in pretty much any place someone wanted to get on or off, there didn’t seem to be any bus stops on this route.

The market was huge covering so many streets, I’ve not seen anything quite like it before, it was split up into a food/veg section, a restaurant section and many stalls selling knitted and wooden products. We were disappointed we couldn’t find Guinea Pig but we still had plenty of time to find it.

The next day we picked up our washed and folded washing that had cost 40cents per kilo and tasted our delicious free breakfast of 2 slices of cold half cooked toast, chemically enhanced pineapple juice with froth on top straight from their washing up bowl and cafe con leche which was nasty black and after adding milk found it was nasty white as well. That was it for Quito which means hi ho hi ho it’s up Cotopaxi we go…

Our next day started at 7am for our 77km bike ride from Papallacha, where we met Simon who had also had an encounter with the pick pockets only on a more severe scale, he had had his backpack slashed at the bottom when he had it in front of him on the bus, he didn’t have anything taken luckily (Incident count 3). We met with our guide, Fernando in a well used Toyota Land Cruiser.

We picked up our bikes on route to Papallacha and started our crazy journey up the mountain. On the way up there were some risky overtaking manouvres including overtaking 2 lorries and another car on a blind bend and driving very close to the cliff edge, for the rest journey some of us avoiding looking out the front window again.

We reached the start of our decent, slightly higher than normal, 4100m because our guide said we were very lucky with the weather given the season. We could see the snow capped tops of the Andean mountain range including Cotopaxi, Chimborazo which would be climbing in the next few days in the distance.

He was so suprised by the weather he began taking pictures himself. Because it was such a beautiful day our guide suggested going further up the mountain for more off-road mountain biking however this distracted him which led him to forget the bag of helmets and knee/elbow pads which he didn’t realise until the end of the day when were giving our equipment back.

The start was on an off-road section containing lots of uneven ground and loose gravel surfaces, it gave us the opportunity to put the well used bikes (with no suspension) through their paces, there were a few close calls mostly involving going around the uneven corners to fast.

After we had travelled the first 42km of the off-road section we stopped at some very relaxing hot springs (and some very cold), we were only given 1 hour in the springs which I can see why, any longer and I’m not sure we would want to get back on our bikes for the next 35km downhill ride back to Quito.

Unfortunately our fantastic day couldn’t be left that way due to a minor problem in the room next door. Kev was fast a sleep, I was listening to music and Mike was using the laptop - John came into the room and asked why there was water on the floor around John’s bag. News to us, so we began to investigate initially we thought it was from my hydration pocket in my rucksack, John’s had leaked when we were hiking in the Canyons. Nope it wasn’t that - John moved his bag and within 10-15 minutes the whole floor was covered in water.

Went down to reception to report it, they might mop it up though it looked like it was coming from the room next door. The toilet had overflowed there was poo all over the floor and was what had leaked into our room, at 11.30 we commence moving to another room not too far away luckily.

Our third day we visited the equator in Mitel del Mundo (Middle of the World) where we jumped on a local bus to try and find our way there. After the stories we heard from other people Kev experienced his first attempt at being pick-pocketed from the pocket hanging from his fleece he had around his waist, luckily in our strong team of 4 I twarted the attempt by pushing the guy away from Kev who then turned around with a beaming smile on his face, it startled Kev a little and entrigued Mike and John as to why I was so keen to get on the bus. The first bus we caught was a bargain but we got of in a small town leaving us with little idea of how to go the rest of the way, were it not for a bus on the other side of the road with a massive sign saying “Mitel Del Mundo” on the windscreen.

We first visited the equator located 50m away from the real equator, on the equator was a monument containing additional Inca history for Ecuador similar to what we had already seen in the Museum in Quito. It also provided the perfect opportunity for plenty of pictures involving the line.

After visiting the wrong equator we went to the real one 50m away and first impressions it was alot less grand with a rickety wooden gate however we were approached to take a tour with a guide something not offered in the other museum.

Part of the tour involved a demonstration of water circling down a plug hole in the northern, southern hemispheres and on the equator line. We also had the opportunity to balance an egg on the head of nail which we all did successfully and earnt ourselves a diploma to prove it.

The final tests involved walking along the equator line with our eyes closed not as easy as first thought and testing our body strength on the line and away from the line by seeing how easy we could pull someones thumb away from their hand and pushing their arms down whilst being held up. We also had the opportunity to try a blow pipe firing at a dartboard rather than a real moving animal.

Of the two equators, I think the real one was much better value for money it provided a much more fun and interactive tour but did lack some of the local Inca history present in the monument located on the fake equator.

In the evening over a few cheap beers in the hostel we discovered our next incident. We hear a story from another traveller who experienced having her rucksack stolen by someone who appeared to be associated to the coach she was getting on, he showed her to her seat told her about the journey, ask her to put he bag in the storage above her seat - she refused and put it by her feet. The guy must have distracted her whilst and accomplice took the bag from in front or behind her. He got off the bus and she realised they had taken her bag as he casually walked out of the station with it on his back - she went after him jumped on his back where he luckily returned the bag without putting up a fight.

After travelling through North and South America for the past four and half months we have looked forward to a different christmas… one in the sun, on the beach with a BBQ, instead of indoors in the warm sheltering from the cold weather, wind and rain.

We had initial reservations after a few spells of rain and thunderstorms we thought we could be back in the UK were it not for us being by the beach and still walking around in shorts and thongs. This bit of bad weather didn’t last long, we woke up on christmas day to see bright sunshine coming through the window and on to our christmas tree.

The goonies wish you all a Merry Christmas from sunny Coogee, Sydney.

Edit: After a slow start the sun came out and we spent the rest of the day on the scorching hot beach!

After a nice time in Salta, we went off to Mendoza which was a 15 hour journey. We finally got to the main bus terminal where we grabbed a taxi to our hostel. This soon turned out to be one of the most costly rides yet…

So, we arrived at our hostel and it wasn´t until the taxi raced away that Chris realised he left his little rucksack in the taxi along with a bag of gift wrapped Christmas presents. Fortuneatly, there was a second cab following which Chris managed to get in and attempt to chase the runaway taxi. But luck wasn´t on our side and the taxi was no where to be seen.

After a whole day, hanging around the bus terminal and a tough time speaking Spanglish at the police station, we gave in considered the bag lost forvever.

We lost a lot in that bag which included the following items.

1. Laptop, power adapter and black wallet with screen cleaner
2. Tripod, Canon Ixus 860 Camera, 4GB Crucial Memory Card and wrist strap for camera
3. 160Gb Hard Drive with just under 40Gb used (which works out to be 3 months worth of photos/videos)
4. Tupperware Box with pasta, toothpicks, camera case, money belt (with drivers license, $20)
5. 80GB iPod, case and headphones + all the music + Chris´s high Klondike score
6. Flight Tickets, £10, Insurance Certificate, Yellow Fever Vaccination certificate, 2 Malaria pills, Vaccination history
7. Pack of mini playing cards
8. Various coinage from Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru
9. Diploma for egg balancing on the equator in Ecuador
10. Postcards from all the places we have been so far and notebook of suggestions for places to visit next
11. Christmas presents Chris had wrapped the day before (with the exception of one)
12. Travel Adaptor
13. North Face Daypack - Ios 20 (Rubbish)
14. Along Came a Spider book, already read by Kev, John and Chris
15. Various free Pen’s from most dangerous road, Mariel hotel (Lima)

As you can see, we haven’t updated the blog for a while but we had lots of posts about to be posted, but all that was lost as it was stored on the laptop.

Anyway, there´s no need to worry about us as we have replacement equipment coming our way and we are still working on the posts to catch up.

Hola,

You may have read updates from our road trip around the National Parks and we’d just like to explain we finished the road trip back on 19th September and have since visited San Francisco, driven the Pacific Coast Highway, partied in LA and wizzed through Miami before we ended our North America leg and began our South America in Quito, Ecuador and are about to start the Inca Trail. However, due to our packed itinary we’ve neglected posting what we’ve done in each location, whoops!

We are slowly catching up on our previous posts each day, if you miss any check the archive on the left hand side for all of our previous posts.

In the mean time you can check out the latest pictures in the gallery, which are up to date!

Bye for now,

The Goonies.

We arrived in Miami at about 8:30am where we had about 4 hours sleep in 24 hours. All we wanted to do is sleep. It took over an hour on two buses to get to our hostel. When we arrived we were told that there was no room ready until 3pm which meant no sleep for us. The good news was that the receptionist upgraded us to a private 2 double bedded dorm with a flat screen TV and en suite bathroom. So we locked up our bags in the hostel and just walked around Miami for a bit.

The weather wasn’t great. It was dull and cloudy. Most of the side streets were flooded right up to the entrances of shops. There was a supermarket we was interested in going to which had a small bridge to get over the flood. Unfortunately, it was crap and still got our feet wet.

We really not much motivation to do much, but as we had s much time on our hands before check in, we decided to do the half hour walking tour to see some art deco examples around Miami. It certainly had lots of it.

The half hour tour turned out to be a 10 minute tour that we cut short. We headed back to the hostel we slept on the common room sofas and played free pool for the rest of the day. By the time we could check into our room, we just grab the keys and hit the bed for a few hours. We were so shattered. We got up about 8pm and headed towards Espanola Way and treated ourselves to a decent meal.

The next day, we just headed to the beach for a few hours to catch the sun before it hid away again. We had a dip in the Atlantic ocean which we shared with jellyfish.

We didn’t want to do too much this day as we were heading to Ecuador the following day. After the beach, we grab a few beers and some fod to cook at the hostel and just enjoyed a few games of pool, table tennis and watched a few films showing on the big screen TV.

Not a huge amount happened in Miami. Just the beach, some pool and mainly sleep.

We left Ventura our last stop on the Pacific Coast Highway before we get to Los Angeles after filling ourselves up and our bags on a free and full breakfast, we raced (obeying the speed limits) along the interstate to drop our bags off at the USA hostal bang in the centre of Hollywood and drop Sheila Number 2 off at LAX.

We left dropping the car off to Mike and Kev leaving them a couple of hours to return the car whilst we explored in and around the hostel. Before we left hostel Kev came racing back into our the room completely out of breath, almost collapsing with exhaustion to say the car wouldn’t start and the key was stuck in the ignition in a petrol station and we needed to call Avis to let them know. As I got downstairs to make the call Mike came racing in saying the car was working and the reason it wouldn’t start was because the gear shift wasn’t in Park (rookie mistake). They rushed off once again to give back the car, returning later to let us know the little detour had made them 8 minutes late and cost us $60 for another hour.

Another expense added to the PCH, another lesson learnt we started to explore Hollywood! beginning with Hollywood walk of fame towards the Hollywood & Highland Center home to the Kodak theatre where the Oscars are held and one of the places you can see the Hollywood sign from (albeit not the best view, see below), then further along to the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre to compare our hand and footprints with some of the famous names of hollywood past and present.

After enjoying a relaxing strole we were given tickets to a free movie screening at the Mann Chinese 6 Theatre. Although we wasn’t told what it was, we began thinking that maybe we would be part of the audience to a unreleased film and we might influence what scenes are chopped in this good or bad film. We took a gamble and started to get in the queue about 2 hours before the film started to ensure we got a place. We were in luck, it was Ghost Town, Ricky Gervais’ first showing on the big screen. It didn’t disappoint with Gervais being his usual entertaining self and with a more serious tone halfway through. After we watched the film and got money off vouchers to a future film we established we were Guinea Pigs for the adverts before the films rather than the film itself, slightly disappointed with didn’t get to leave our creative flare on the flim but an expected outcome given the film was already available to watch in the cinema.

In the evening we arrived late to the open mic night held in the bar inside the hostel to enjoy some free entertainment and cheap beer, where all the up and coming stars perform.

The following day we decided to head out to Universal Studios where we enjoyed a day of fun after initially waiting in the ticket queue  for what seemed like forever. Though it was definitely worth the wait to get to go on the rides inside, a few we had a go on were:

- The Simpsons Ride, is a simulator that replaced the Back to the Future ride. Before we did it there were reservations it was going to be like the 3D simulator you might get at a fairground. Far from it! It was an  action packed 10-20 minutes that did an excellent job of giving the impression you were on a real rollercoaster with more, it wasn’t surprising this was the ride we had to wait the longest for.

- Waterworld, the most popular show at the park and after seeing it I can see why. From the moment we sat down the actors were there entertaining the audience and really making those people who had sat in the “wet” seats regret that decision. The show was pretty spectacular too with lots of fire effects and a surprising arrival halfway through (I won’t say what because it would spoil the surprise).

- The Universal Studio Tour, gave a nice exposure to some of the sets including Desperate Housewives and Jaws though a little too staged for my liking. The behind the scenes tour would have been more impression but that gives us something to come back for

- Revenge of the Mummy, this ride imursed you in total darkness and put you in a really fast rollercoaster that could go backwards and forwards allowing for some nasty surprises and an interesting ride picture, sorry that one’s not in the gallery!

After arriving back we arrived in time to endure enjoy the free comedy night by the hostel, it was a tough crowd for the comedians - there weren’t many laughs in the house but it was a nice end to the day and allowed to relax with one or two beers.

We couldn’t come to LA without experiencing ‘Muscle Beach’ first hand, so on Jingkei’s final day we headed off to the beach. The gym section wasn’t quite what we were expecting since it was all enclosed and a fair distance away from the sandy beach, plus we must have picked the wrong time of the day/week because it was empty. Further along there was a gymnastic area where there were a few people (including Kev and John who couldn’t resist having a go).

We spent the remainder of the morning sitting around on the beach followed by a walk from Venice Beach to Santa Monica beach in seach of a place to stop for lunch, after which we continued with the tanning process - which was still enough time for Jingkei to get burnt whilst trying and get rid of those T-Shirt tan lines before he headed home from his stint with the Goonies On Tour.

As it was Jingkei’s last day we splashed out on a nasty equivalent of KFC to wish Jingkei bon voyage and once we had waved him off we mourned the loss of our temporary goonie with lots of beer and free shots from the bar staff.

On our final day in LA with spent our time exploring more of the area, heading in the general direction of the RockWalk on the Sunset Strip where you can find more hand and foot prints only this time of famous Rock Stars and Guitar Heros as well as  a shop with some very expensive electric and acoustic guitars. Kev and John looked longingly at some of the ones on show, possibly wishing they could bring one along for the rest of the trip, personally I think I’d prefer my iPod. We ended our final day with a strole back along the Hollywood Boulevard though the very posh looking neighbourhoods all with private security protecting the houses, with streets lined with palm trees and the gardener trimming the hedges continuing onto where the Walk of Fame begins.

On to Miami the last leg of our North America trip.

What the Goonies Did
1.  Make car hire reservation on the day you require the car. $660
2.  Drive fast to save on travelling time. Free
3.  Get a speeding fine for doing 96mph on a 65mph speed limit road. $396
4.  Get photographs holding ridiculously expensive speeding ticket at Santa Maria Police Station. Priceless

The way the Goonies did the Pacific Coast Highway was foolish and expensive. We have estimated that we would have saved around $300-400 if we had stopped chasing our desire for a convertible and instead made a car hire reservation well in-advance. Also the fact we got caught speeding did not help meaning we spent approximately $800 extra than we had originally estimated to complete the Pacific Coast Highway road trip.

The Crime

Getting caught speeding in America is extremely stupid considering how strict they are about speeding. When being the lone driver and driving on sections that were straighter than Chuck Norris with no Pacific Coast in sight, boredom easily set in. The more bored I got the quicker we wanted to complete the section. Before the incident there were no other cars on the interstate, so I applied a little more juice to push through the section faster. Then out of no where there was the flashing lights of a police car behind us. It was too late we had already been clocked as I slammed on the brakes massively late. Being totally confused with silly images of the possible consequences, I ground to a halt in the middle of the interstate. After regaining focus we pulled over to the hard shoulder where the officer told us to stay in the car until further instructions. To my amazement the officer did not ask how fast I was going which I was expecting. But instead just came out saying I was way over the limit going 96mph in a 65mph. The officer then proceeded by saying there is no chance he could let us off as he had caught another Englishman speeding the previous day.

Expecting to pay a fine on the spot we were further shocked when the officer said he had to escort us back to the sheriff’s department to post bail. On the journey back to the sheriff’s department we had Spandau Ballet’s - Gold playing which will now always remind us of this incident.

At the sheriff’s department everything was relatively simple, we had to post my bail immediately and got our photograph’s around the station with no questions.  On a different agenda we all still had some of our ‘manwich’ left from the day before which would have gone down a treat if we heated it up, maybe they had a microwave in their office. Sadly, no one had the nerve to ask.

Starring:

The Arresting Officer: Officer MiClare

The Offender: Mike

The Accomplishes: From the left John, Chris, Jingkei (aka Sleep Too Much Clan)

And finally Kev and Shelia Number 2.