I went up to Quito for five weeks because they had two officers out on paternity leave. One of the metrics used for non-immigrant visas is how long the locals have to wait to get an appointment. In order to keep the wait time low, Quito asked (ordered) for one of the Consular Officers from Guayaquil to come offer temporary support. As my housing items and vehicle hadn't yet arrived, and to give me some experience at another post, my bosses sent me up to Quito to help out. And I mean up, as Quito is at 9,350 feet of elevation.
(view of the mountains to the south, and a bit of Quito to the east)
I was obviously going to visit Quito at some time, and have done so since my stay, but nonetheless wanted to take full advantage of my stay. So, I harassed all my brand new coworkers there and was able to convince one, Lili, to hike up Rucu Pichincha. It wasn’t too hard, as Lili’s dad is big into mountain climbing-so she’s always game for some hiking and she hadn’t done this hike in a while.
(about halfway up, looking east at Quito)
Pichincha is the tallest of the peaks immediately surrounding Quito, and is an active stratovolcano, which last erupted in 2002, and had a big eruption in 1999. It’s often used as an acclimatization climb, as it’s not a difficult or technical climb, but does give the lungs a workout. It is right on the edge of the city, it’s base is covered by west central Quito. I met Lili at the cable car, which is an attraction in itself. You take that up to the base, where there are plenty of lookouts, a restaurant and some llamas and horses you can ride. From there we took some trails through a gorgeous valley, which apparently isn’t the main route, but it was nice and peaceful. We soon enough met up with the same route. We had beautiful weather for the first ¾ of the climb, clear skies and good warmth from the bright equatorial sun. The last third or so of the climb gets a bit more tough, with some rock jumping, muddy spots, sandy spots, and a few crevices and big steps as you move into the rockier ridge that the peak in on.
We were moving at about the same pace as two young German girls, and they befriended us, so we chatted with them and climbed the last portion with them. Germany has this program, that I don’t totally understand, but it more or less involves young people getting a stipend to volunteer abroad for a year after high school. I met some Germans doing the same program in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and that’s what these girls were doing. I think they were helping at a pre-school for poor kids, if my memory serves me right.
The last half an hour really starts to push on your lungs. Well, it certainly pushed on mine, although I think by my 6th day I should’ve been pretty acclimatized. We showed up for the cable car at about 9:15, which is early enough for me on a Saturday-but apparently you need to be first in line at 7:30 or 8:00 when it opens in order to make it to the top before the clouds come over. Needless to say, the view from the top, was, gray. And quite limited. But there were these hawk-like looking birds that landed up on top, which was pretty sweet, considering we were at 15,407 feet. At that point, it was the highest I’ve ever been. And, in case you’re wondering, is higher than any point in the contiguous United States.
(at the top)
Needless to say it was a wonderful start to my time in Quito, even if I got super sunburned. One thing you can kind of see in the view of Quito is that because Quito is built in the valley between two lines of mountains, it’s a super long and narrow city. From other viewpoints it seems that it just keeps going forever as you look north and south.
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