The last day at Pachijal began a little more easily than the previous 2 - without the need for an early start we finally managed to get more than a cold drip out of the shower and had a warm drip instead!

The morning after breakfast was spent on the rooftop of the lodge looking at insects, birds and generally fooling around waiting for our trip back to Santa Barbara in Quito, which by now felt like home! Siena's hand was still swollen but not getting any worse so everything felt better. And no bugs.We found a carnivore's paradise just up the road where Finn finally managed to eat a decent meal ! and what better thing to do after that but to have a haircut! Finn's idea, passing a traditional barbers on the way back from lunch. So he and Alan had a no. 3, and the 2 girls had a wash and trim! All for 28 dollars too J

We visited an English bookshop where they were really friendly and tried to foist all manner of strange text on us. We managed to find a few good books, including Watership Down which Siena, naturally, dived into with glee!

We also visited a street trader and almost cleared them out of chocolate - well apparently it's good for altitude, and we knew we were heading up high the next day. It all seems so normal now, quite different from how the first day felt, and we're quite comfortable in the heart of QuitoBut the moment of the day was reserved for the end of it when Finn and Alan headed off to Dominos for a takeaway pizza which we ate sat on the floor in our room on our bags.....

June 3

....and then the kids finished it off cold for breakfast!

An 8.30 start and a friend of Angel's, Louis, picked us up from the hostal for our drive to Cotapaxi. We drove south on the Avenue of Volcanoes for one and a half hours past the most amazing scenery until we arrived at Hotel Le Cienega (something to do with floods!?) a beautiful 400 year old colonial house set at the end of an avenue of eucalyptus trees, where we exchanged the minibus for a Camel trophy Defender and acquired a second driver.

So that meant 7 of us in a 20 year old Land Rover with zero suspension and a dodgy gear box, on dirt track roads that had us bouncing off our seats. The Toyota pickups and buses dealt with the roads much better and probably did the journey in half the time it took us - well they were going quite fast as they overtook us on what to the untrained eye (ie. Non-Ecuadorian) were single track roads.

We climbed...and climbed...passing different kinds of vegetation, past the tree line, the vegetation line, up into the snow, and ultimately to a lava slope at 4500m where the land rover eventually made it to the car park!We piled out of the back in our coats, gloves, hats and fully fleeced up - it was freezing, the wind was blowing at 50mph plus, and if you moved too fast you plain got out of breath - that was the impact of the altitude. Weirdest feeling, you take a breath and it just isn't enough, but you can't take a deeper breath! Moving really slowly and steadily is the only option. We climbed about 10 meters, on our way up to the refuge where people stay before attempting their 6 hour climb (actually just a steep walk) to the crater at the top of Cotapaxi. The refuge was 40 minutes from the car park but it was just too much for the kids, I guess we hadn't prepared fully for it and it came as a bit of a shock. Shame, it seemed a bizarre thing to do to to go to a car park up a volcano for 10 minutes then go back down again. But the steepness of the drive, having driven up from the scrubland to the snowline was still something. Highest we'd ever been !

The return trip to the Hotel was uneventful, we grabbed lunch at the delightful colonial building, thenLuis returned us safely to Santa Barbara - up the windiest (as in v. Winding )road where hairpins mean hairpins at rush hour and barely wide enough for 2! Evening meal was at Santa Barbara just 3 hours after our full lunch but it was good Italian food so we all munched up !