In Ecuador we do more stuff before noon than most folks do all year!

The Virgin of Quito

Guayasamin Artwork

Old Quito

City View

City Carved Right into a Mountainside

Well .. arrived in Quito late Tuesday night .. on a cool and rainy night ... and eventually met up with the rest of the team, Mark, Vic, and out Ecuadorian guide Joshua. Wednesday featured a whirlwind city tour,with lots of churches, more churches, and a very interesting art museum featuring one of Fidel Castro's Buddies Oswaldo  Guayasamin. I posted a photo of some of his works to the blog page. Quito is an interesting place .. literally built right into a giant mountainside. Very cool and rainy  (heck its 9500 ft altitude) not tropical feeling at all. But veeery Latin American.

As low key as Wednesday was ... Today was the polar opposite .. the pan was to do an aclimitization climb to a local peak Guagua Pichincha .. which is a little short of 16,000 ft. But like all good plans the trip god sidetracked. The road up was washed out by a mudslide .. and when we tried to cross it our land rover got swept to the edge of the road .. with one wheel off and lurching over a 400 ft drop. Man you should have seen us scurry from the sides of the car. When I opened the side door I was looking straight down 20 feet .. I have to climb across and squeeze out an open window.

Anyway ... it was a loong day digging trench after trench .. and pulling with ropes .. but we finally managed to coax the truck away from the Abyss. Pix on the blog site.

Anyway we did an aborted hike to Cruz Loma pass ... and then went to the Quito Rock gym to practice ropes and Abseil techniques. Oh well .. live and learn ... hopefully this is our disaster for the trip.

Ohhhh Man!  That was scary!

Next stop .. Bottom of the canyon!

Whew  .. AT LEAST WE MADE THE PASS

Ropes Practice

What a View!

Vertical World!

Off to Otavalo and the Cayambe hut tomorrow. The three days of practice on the glacier before we make the summit attempt.