{Cotopaxi}

Ahhh today was AMAZING! Being at the hospital is AMAZING too, but in two different ways. I got up this morning at 5:30 and headed to Quito for my Cotopaxi tour! It was incredible. Sam is gone, and I am here by myself, I was a little scared to go alone, not because I was afraid of anything bad happening, just didn´t know if I would enjoy myself as much. I got there and spotted some girls that looked about my age just decided to make some new friends! They were adorable and turns out they were here on a medical project as well and we working in some of the other hospitals here in Quito. One was from Switzerland, one minnesota, one cali, and one London. We had so much fun. We headed up and our first stop was Popagyo, a little hostel out in the woods, very cute. Then we headed up to Cotopaxi, we stopped at the gate to pay obviously and then the guide warned us that it was very cold on Cotopaxi and we were really going to want gloves, expecially while mtn. biking, so we ran over to a little Indigenous Mercado and bought some awesome gloves :) Next stop was the Museo de Cotopaxi, it was really fun to learn about the history of the volcano. It has a history of erupting every 100 years, and it has been jsut over 100 years since it last erupted..so we´re due. Pretty scary! There are 1 million people that live in the Red Zone of that Volcano, within 5 min of erupting it would completely destroy everything to north Quito (about 2 hours away...) INSANE! It was really interesting, the President of Quito was also up there today. But then we headed to the volcano to begin our climb, we stopped at a few places to take some quick pictures. About 45 min after the museum we got to Cotopaxi! yay! We started our climb, it is about a 45-60 min hike to the refuge, at about 4800 m elevation...the guides make you hike very slow because it is such a high elevation and people get so dizzy and faint...not good. It took Rochelle and I were the first ones up and it took about 40 min. I felt like we were walking really slow but everyone said we were ´pratically running up the hill´ I think they were just slow...haha just kidding. We stopped here and let everyone catch up and then we hiked up to the glaciers. It is about a 200 m hike, so not bad at all, it is just really steep! It was aboslutely gorgeous up there! The glacier is incredible! So gorgeous, I have so many pictures I can´t wait to show them to you! After being up there for a while we hiked back down to the refuge. Rochelle and I were talking about how scary it can be to be an American tourist in Ecuador right now (I don´t know if you have been watching the news lately, but the media here in Ecuador is making all the Ecuadorians think that the US is trying to start a war with them...) So currently they hate us right now. Well right while we are talking about this these three ecudorian guys come up to us and circled us, I freaked I grabbed Rochelle and was freaking out. Come to find out they just wanted a picture with ´hott american women´ haha I am such a dork, So we took pictures with them, they were so happy haha. We continued hiking down and they were in front of us, and every couple min they would turn around and take another picture of us...haha. Once we got back to the refuge we had an AMAZING lunch, well probably just because we were all starving, but it really was good. It was included with the price of the tour. We had sandwiches, soup, chips, cookies, hot chocolate, everything, so good. After lunch we hiked another 300 m and got on the bikes! yay! The biking was about 14km. We biked down the rest of Cotopaxi and then to a litlle Lake, it waas so beautiful. We got MORE than our money´s worth, the tour was only $35. After the biking we got back on the bus, it was about 4:30 then went back to Papogyo and they gave us more hot chocolate and chocolate cake! (don´t be fooled the chocolate here is nasty...especially the cake...) the hot chocolate can be good sometimes, today it was. Then we loaded back up, drove back to Quito and got here about 7! I took a taxi home, he was a creepo though..he kept asking me to come sit in the front seat with him...umm no thanks...then he asked me if we could stop for dinner on the way home...umm no thanks again...But I made it home safe and sound around 8! Ah.... absolutely exhausted, but an incredible day :) I love Ecuador it is so gorgeous here! I wish I had more time to go see Mindo, and the Baños, and the other volcanoes, I am definately coming back. Tomorrow is church! yay! Pray for Robinson...I am still stressing he won´t be able to find the church tomorrow! haha! I really hope he does!