Our view.
Cotopaxi, at 19,350 feet (5900 Canadian feet) is the second highest volcano in Ecuador where Chimborazo is the tallest but that one is further away.
This Sunday Cotopaxi has been free of clouds all morning clearly visible from our campground at 10,000 feet, high above Quito, Ecuador’s capital city of two million people.
In fact we could drive to Cotopaxi in less than two hours if we had a mind to and didn’t have a dog. National Parks in South America are not pet friendly.
Luckily I’m not snow friendly so viewing the peak from a distance suits me just fine. We’ll get a view of Chimborazo in the center of the country as we drive south toward Cuenca later this week.
There’s stuff to see along the way but I doubt we will deviate much from the PanAmerican Highway through the middle of the country. The coast is reportedly sketchy and the port of Guayaquil, the largest city in the country is not safe at all which makes getting into and out of the small safe tourist area a bit awkward. We plan to get some beach time in Peru.
Like an idiot I got some sunburn sitting out reading Kim MacQuarrie’s excellent biography of the end of the Inca Empire…
…while Layne added to our artwork and cleaned mushroom caps for lunch.
A balsa wood toucan above and a butterfly magnet below from Mindo…
And a colored bead strip, a gift from a Brazilian overlander, she used to cover the cut we had to make in our Berkey water filter holder which was also made in Mindo for us.
Rusty takes his campground relaxation sometimes in the sun and sometimes in the shade. He’s not fond of the other four dogs in the campground but he tolerates them and mostly stays in his end of the campground.
Sunday is also chore day all around us. A Belgian overlander whose Sprinter is in the shop is living in a tent as he waits for his van to be returned soon.
For someone like this at 10,000 feet the great drawback to Andy’s place is the lack of a communal sitting area as this campground is still a work in progress. Kasper the solo Dutch overlander in his elderly expedition truck has a terrace above his cab, suitable for lunch.
He and Jonas the Belgian are working to replace brake parts on the giant truck.
Brakes and transmissions suffer on the PanAmerican and we all talk about how wild the road is through the mountains. Meanwhile Raphael and Delfina from Germany in an older Fiat Ducato diesel van have been off climbing Cotapaxi so I’m looking forward to their return to hear how it was.
Andy, from Canada, has been in Ecuador for a number of years settling here after riding the continent on a motorcycle, working as a tour guide for motorcyclists and settling on this piece of land which he is turning into an oasis for overlanders. No mean task.
We said goodbye to our Belgian friends Jan and Caroline and their kids. They are such upbeat people full of humor and their two children are having a great time with them. Their van is the diesel European version of ours so where they go we shall follow. I hope we see them again before Argentina.
I keep noticing the absence of Americans and Jonas jokes so much the better but I wonder why. I do notice our access to public lands and forests is an object of some envy by Europeans who have experienced wild camping in the US and I’m looking forward to more of that when we get home.
Talking of going home the young English couple we’ve met are going to be in Chile in a couple of months selling their Chevy N300 to a foreigner who wants to take a tour. It seems odd probably but there is a market in Chile for travelers to buy and sell campers of all sorts, as Chile allows foreigners to buy sell and export Chilean registered cars. People do it all the time to take a trip for months or years and then sell it on. They’re asking $5,000 US for a complete small camper if you’d like to see Patagonia or Bolivia or go further afield in your own car, it fits anywhere and they travel incognito as these vans are everywhere and that I do envy from time to time even if it is a bit small and simple for a long term home.
Not Florida anymore.
Morning fog:
Mushroom cap Sunday lunch cooked in the air fryer.
A lazy Sunday at Andy’s. Considering I’m posting this Sunday afternoon I hope you’ll forgive me. Quito we shall explore Tuesday morning I hope.
