On the wings of Icarus - Cotopaxi!

Cotopaxi is a stratovolcano in the Andes Mountains, located about 75 kilometres (50 mi) south of Quito. (wikipedia.org)

It is the closest point on the planet to the Sun!

And our first real adventure!

Cotopaxi has the only equatorial glacier and that was our objective - if only we could see it! As you can see the conditions were hardly ideal!

The mountain is clearly visible on the skyline from Quito, provided you can see through the pollution or it isn´t obscured by cloud as it was the entire time we were there. Even standing at the base of the mountain we never got a glimpse of the snow capped peak!

We left Quito city where it was raining - not a good start. We arrived at the first refuge - which has a better kitchen than I do at home!

Cotopaxi is the second highest summit in Ecuador, reaching a height of 5,897 m. It has one of the few equatorial glaciers in the world, which starts at the height of 5,000 metres (16,400 ft)., and that was our objective.

Pedro, our guide of the day, led the way. The rain soon gave way to snow. The weather really started closing in, and despite a good progress we were forced to abandon our ascent at the second refuge, Santa Barbara, at about 4500 metres! I was devasted. So close. But the weather really was turning nasty and we were not equipped for the conditions that lay ahead.

We turned back to base camp. Abour 4 hours and nearly 2500 calories later we arrived back at the car and retunred to Quito.

The exhilarating conditions and the prospect of looking down into a volcano calder has really whet my appetite for climbing.

I´d love the opportunity to come back one day and try again!

For now our next adventure awaited - the Galapagos Islands.