Mountain madness?!

Hi!

2 weeks has gone and I have really got the traveller rythm back. Now there´s no problem getting on a bus ride for 5 hours just after 7 hours on a train.

My Spanish didn´t exist until two weeks ago. But I have learned some words here and there. Actually I took some classes 4 plus 2 hours, so now I am fully Spanish speaking! Not really, but it´s enough for travelling the continent…

First week in Ecuador I stayed with Luiza and her mother. She is a friend of Gabriel who I climb with at CRUX. She took care of me here in Quito, telling all the do´s and dont´s. Where to go and where to stay away from.

A week ago I left Quito for travelling around. I didn´t had any ideas where to go, just that I wanted to be in the mountains. I took a train from Riobamba to Alusi, on the roof. Beautiful! It was a touristy train where I hooked up with a Candadian girl called Amber.We decided to try to summit Cotopaxi together. This is a volcano at 5897 meter, second highest in Ecuador. So the last week we have tried to do a lot of acclimatization.

Together we went to Banos where we did mountainbiking. It was 65 km´s, mostly downhill (but it was really though, tons of lactic acid in me legs afterwards)!!

I also climbed on the volcano Tungurahua to gain altitude. The volcano is over 5000 meter, but we could only climb to the refugio (refugee) at 3800 meter cause it is actually erupting now. Well it´s not to bad, it has been on red alert more or less for the last 5 years. So the possibility for a major erupt is low. But it was awesome, I could hear the volcano crackling!!

After some days in Quilatoa I am back in Quito. We won the soccer game, yeah Sweden did, but most important here was that Ecuador are directly qualified after just two matches. Everybody was celebrating here in Quito drinking beers and singing ecuadorian songs.

Tomorrow I am going to Cotopaxi with Moggely tours. It is a Swedish run agency owned by a funny man called Morgan from Tyringe (in the middle of Scania). He´s a big fan of sports, of cours la copa del mundo, but primarly icehockey. So there has been a lot of chating about icehockey the last days, because Amber is fram Canada and the finals of NHL is on (Edmonton vs. Carolina).

In Quito I climbed Pinchincha 4700 meter in a full day trekk. Amber and I got lost on the mountain and had to walk for hours in the dark without any food or water. We had to stay at a farmer´s house in the mountain during the night. In the morning we got a lift by the milkyman back to Quito.

The day before yesterday I did some rock climbing at an artificial wall here in Quito. It was fun, a bit hard due to the altitude of Quito (2800 meters). It is not like home!!

Today I´m going to a hostal, Valhalla, stay one night and tomorrow go the the refugee of Cotopaxi and try to climb it on the night after. There´s is a 60 percent chance of actually summiting. Not to good, but that´s the conditions…

After Cotopaxi I´ll see where I´m going. Maybe the beaches or the Amazon, but definitelly Peru.

Now Cotopaxi!