Ecuador: characters and being on a mountain above a storm (26-28 May)

In April I travelled with Sarah P to Mudgee for Charlie and Damien´s wedding. Although I only knew a few people, it was a wonderful weekend. After a fabulous ceremony under the willows at a winery, we headed inside for the reception where I was put on the singles table (wasn´t aware these things existed!). After the speeches the night then revved up and we headed to the local pub and danced til the wee hours to awesome covers such as Rage Against the Machine, ACDC and many more. The best thing was hanging out with a random bunch of characters and just having a great time in a new place with the locals. Spening time with characters is probably the highlight of travelling for me and the Mudgee weekend experience steeled my conviction to do this trip. I tell this story so I can introduce some of the characters I have met along the way.

First that I met at the Secret Garden hostel was Kelly, a viviacious law student and ex-teacher from Alaska, USA. We spent the first couple of nights arguing about everything from the modern novel to the trappings of dating. She tried to convince me that the reason that Australia and Canada don´t have great novels (compared to the US and elsewhere) is that these countries haven´t been through comparative suffering. Yeah, whatever. Will try to get her into some Sally Morgan, Henry Reynolds, Patrick White, Peter Carey, Kate Grenville, David Malouf or Tim Winton. Kelly is interning with UNICEF in Macas, in central Ecuador. Kelly and I also met up again later in Banos but more of that later.

Then I met Sarah, a passionate engineer and experienced mountaineer from Victoria who wowed me with the intricacies of car production in Hungary and its resulting social impact. Sarah was also inspired to join me to climb Ruca Pichincha, a 4,860 metre mountain behind Quito. We set out early and caught a taxi to the TeleferiQo - the cable car that takes you from the edge of Quito up the slopes of the old volcano to 4,100 metres. We then set out to climb to the summit. It was a hard slog with the altitude and we got to the final section around 3-4 hours later. That´s when the hail and snow started.

A few people ahead of us turned back but we pushed on - we could see the top and didn´t come all this way to just turn around because of some rain! We added an English guy, Mark, to our group and faced the mountain. The final section was part scrambling through shifting dirt and then the final 30 mins was essentially rock climbing. Finally we made it to the summit! The weather then cleared a bit and we caught glimpses of the magnificent view over Quito and beyond. Well worth the minor suffering.

We then started the faster trip downhill and to give us energy Sarah and I decided to stop and have some cake. Mark decided to push on which turned out to be a very important decision. 10 mins later the weather closed in and a huge storm that had been lurking at one end of the Quito valley decided to spread its reach and rolled in angry dark clouds with forked and sheet lightning and great crashes of thunder. Sarah and I decided to wait it out in a cave as the watched the lightning striking not only the cable car car station below but the electricity towers and even the exposed path down the saddle of the volcano - where we were supposed to be...and where Mark was.

Sarah and I waited for a couple of hours and as the afternoon deepened we realised that we could be looking at a very cold night on the mountain. Resolving to avoid this if possible, we watched the fanastic pyrotechnic display below and the accompanying snow storm. Luckily the swirling mass of the storm moved off to one side of Quito and we took our chance. We dashed down the mountain and despite some more hail it was a relatively easy trip. The fading light meant that we used the snow to find the path and arrived back at the cable car station around 7pm. I found out a week later when I bumped into Mark in Quito that he had taken shelter somewhere on the way down and that the cable car had been closed by the lightning for several hours and he was expecting us to appear at any time.

Sarah and I had a tea and thirst quenchers at the cafe before heading back to the hostel and a warm shower and the pleasure of clean sheets and a mattress, not the cave we had been dreading. Great stuff.