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Got up at 5 o'clock to go to Cotopaxi national park. We got a taxi to the new town and met the tour guide..Fernando. There was another couple doing the tour with us from Israel. They had just finished their term with the army which everyone must do at the age of 18, the girl was an officer - the guy wasn´t that committed. Talking to them on the way up they were saying about the dodgy old town in Quito and the stares, and dodgy taxis. This was hilarious as they had served in the army for 5/6 years. We couldn´t really pronounce their names but called them Morram and Elli. It took us 3 hours to get to cotopaxi and half an hour for the tour guide to explain how to ride a bike...
By the time we started riding it had begun to snow. We say snow, really it was small sharp pieces of ice. We were up near the top of the volcano which stands at 5000ft in altitude so it was freezing with snow or ice everywhere. The ice got in your eyes and our hands wrecked from using the brakes so much in the cold. Lisa got faint and felt like she was going to vomit so had to go in the truck for 5 minutes to recover. The ride was, despite the bad conditions, amazing. The national park was beautiful. Moram rode in the truck the whole way which made us feel a bit hard - we did what was too much for an officer in the Israeli army, yeo!
Fernando kept offering us this horrible tea, obviously a family recipe. It was made of ginger, lemon and sugar which doesn't sound that bad but we were literally choking it back. We stopped on top of a mountain for lunch, pasta and spinach quiche, before cycling again. The cycle wasn´t bad at all, 33km, though we did a bit more at the end as the views were much better than when inside the truck. It was difficult when going up hill as because of the altitude the air was very thin, it was hard to get oxygen into your lungs.
We said goodbye to the Israelis who were heading to another part of Ecuador, they are doing the same route as us for the next month so we might see them again. Lisa slept a bit in the truck on the way back. It will be a novelty when we get home to be inside a normal car and not on the back of a pickup or in a van.
We got left off at the trole which is a trolley bus running between new and old town. It was very squished and some guy tried to pick Lisa´s pocket but Matthew caught him. There wasn´t anything in the pocket but still, its the principle.
We went back to the hotel where the a******* wasn´t working and went to the internet cafe and up on the hotel balcony which had amazing views of the whole city. Matthew didn't feel great walking up and down the tiny ladders.
We´ll try and find a computer capable of uploading a few photos.
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