December 23, 2011 to January 3, 2012
Guides: Pepe Landazuri and Freddy Tipan
Climbers: Mark, Wendy, Mackenzie, Chelsea, and Gavin Hermann and Dave Garrabrant
Sat, 24 Dec 2011 4:41:32pm – The Hermann’s arrived okay yesterday Friday the 23rd) and today we all visited Otavalo Market. We stopped on the equator on the way to Otavalo, and then spent a good amount of time walking through the market, looking at the amazing variety of things that are for sale at this regional market, and enjoying looking at the colorfully dressed people. The Otavalo Indians are quite traditional in the way they live and the way they dress, so it is good people watching at the market. We had some lunch and then visited Cuicocha Lake. The lake fills a crater of a volcano and has a couple of little islands. It is really pretty up there, and our walking around was good for our acclimatization.
Now we are back in the city of Quito. They’re all taking showers and then want to have a light dinner and head to bed early. It was a really good day together, and tomorrow we are looking forward to climbing Pasachoa. Getting up to 13,776 feet will push their acclimatization a little further. In Quito we are at about 9500 feet, so going up to a little over thirteen and a half and then coming back down here for the night is perfect.
That’s a short description of our day. I’ll call tomorrow night. Everything is OK here!