After the Cotopaxi, the Cayambe
Did you actually know that there are so many Volcanos in Ecuador? Of course you did and as I’m a student of an Alexander-von-Humboldt School, I’ve to say, that this guy named the valley between the Cordillera Oriental and the Cordillera Real „Straße der Vulkane“ – the streets of volcanoes.
Out of the possibility to climb many volcanos we decided to try the Cayambe next. The Cayambe is less popular then the Cotopaxi, so we supposed that we won’t have any problems to enter there. And finally we were right. The volcano Cayambe is 5.796 m high and with its altitude the third highest mountain in Ecuador. The volcano is a complex volcano. This type of volcano occurs in location of principal vent area and asks the mountain climber for good mountain reading abilities.
The first man to climb actually this volcano was Edward Whymper from England. He actually also did the Chimborazo and nowadays the refugee at 5.000 m is named after him. But from the Chimborazo you soon will read more in my next articles.
Fair enough, now we were prepared to start our expedition to the volcano Cayambe. We left Quito in bus and got to the city Cayambe. From there we went up with the Jeep to the refugee “Ruales Oleas Bergé” which is located at 4.600 m.
We only left late the city Cayambe which, I think, was my fault because I was a bit sick – bad stomach and the flu. So I took my time in Quito and in Cayambe for the increase of altitude. We needed two hours to get near to the refugee. The Jeep had problems passing the road. It was really muddy with deep lanes.
Well there wasn’t any possibility to get straight to the refugee so we had the chance to walk the last bit, which was as well a good preparation for our peak climbing plans.
The walk was nice but there was a lot of cold wind and it was getting darker and darker. My friends already got to the refugee but I with my flu and bad stomach, I was slow and now as well really cold of the wind…got there of course as well but a bit later.
In the refugee we met two guys, one from Germany and one from Switzerland. They were really nice guys and they planned to do the peak this night. They wanted to leave in a few hours with a local guy. After a nice talk we went outside to find a place to camp. Wow this actually was really difficult and uncomfortable – it was black and dark, with a lot of snow wind. But finally we were inside the small tent and found our sleep in a really stormy and freezing night. I hold my thumbs for the other expedition, knowing that this climate won’t make the access of the peak easy.
The next morning the guys from the last night woke us up to tell their story of their climb…but this I will tell within a short time!
