Cotopaxi in winters conditions, Casa de Vaca and Jardín Botánico de Quito.

We left the house at 7:30 am and headed to Cotopaxi. It was a long drive and we had to stop at a booth so you could register to enter the park but the guard wasn't there. It was realy foggy and chilly. When the guard finaly came, we registered and headed on in. The mountan had some snow on it but it wasn't on the road. On the way up, we stopped to see some flowers. It was realy windy and is was sprinkling sideways. When we got the to parking lot, we were met with fast, cold wind and frozen rain form an angle. We quickly took some pictures and got back into the car and headed down the mountan. We decided to go to a lgoon to see some birds. When we got there. It was also realy windy and sprinkling. We then went to a gift shop where there was a hike to a small forest. At first, it was sunny and there was no wind. But then, the rain and wind came so we gave up and set out of the park. On the way back to town, we stopped at a restaurant called Casa de Vaca where I got a hamburger with a small salad and fries and a chocolate milk shake. The shake was realy good. After we were done, we headed to the Jardín Botánico. There were a lot of plants but the biggest thing was the orchids. There were so many orchids that were local to ecuador. If you ever come to Quito, you should go to the garden. It's pretty cool. - MH

So we wake up at 6:00 in the morning so we can leave. By 7:00 we were out of the door. Where were we going you might wonder?  We were going to Cotopaxi! One of the large active volcanos around. We drove and arrived at the guard house but we couldn't get by. The reason was because the guard house was supposed to open at 8:00 we were there at 8:30 and the guard still hadn't shown up. We waited for around 15 minuets and then the guard showed up. We were already at a high enough altitude to where you very desperately want a coat. After we got past to guard station we drove up part of the mountain, which was a long drive on a very bumpy (and in my opinion very sketchy) road for around an 45 min. The higher we got on the mountain the colder it got by the time we reached to end of the road there was snow all around. For the record there isn't normally snow but lo and behold there was. The wind was so bad that we couldn't open two opposing doors on the car otherwise things whould just blow out the door. I put on a rain coat and was the first to get out needless to say I regretted it. I was almost instantly soaked from ice cold rain i hurriedly took at many pictures as I could then I ran quickly back to the car and Yanked on the door only to discover it was locked (nooooo!!) to I ran around to the other side and hid in the wind/rain shadow of the car and waited for Angie to come back to unlock the car and jumped in. We were all soaked. We weren't allowed to hike up to the rim of the volcano because it was too active. So we dropped back to the second plan to hike around a lagoon. We arrive at the lagoon and we climb out of the car and it was raining we decided not to hike the trail and dropped back to plan C. Plan C was to hike another trail by a gift shop we got out of the car and went into the gift shop. Then we tryed to hike the trail only to have it start rain as soon as we start hiking. We decided to just give up and started to drive back to Quito we stopped at Casa de la Vaca for lunch. I got a hamburger and a milk shake. The hamburger was huge and delicious the milk shake was milk with chocolate sauce and a large dollop of ice cream on top. After we devoured out lunches we figured we should stop by the botanical garden which had a huge orchid collection and I saw a awesome and rareish humming bird the black-tailed trainbearer in the flowers and it flew away in the exact time it took to turn on my camera(dar'vet!!!!). then after all that we headed home and called it a day..

Zoe,
Out!