Banos y Cotopaxi

I went to two volcanos two weekends ago. The bus ride wasn't too bad, but we stayed in it for too long during the days, stopping only for 30 minutes, if that, at a time to see different places around them and such. First we arrived in a town outside of Banos and got to see Volcano Tingurahua and the beautiful landscape, but also where the past 6 or 7 erruptions has effected. Tingurahua has erupted those 6 or 7 times since I've been here! Kinda crazy and it's all over the news. So we walked up Tingurahua a little bit and saw a bunch of different kinds of rocks (I was with a class of some friends so they were kind of learning). The little town of Banos was really cute and we stayed in a hostal there (Those are the cheapest always and pretty sweet to stay in). We were going to go to see Tingurahua at night because it was clear, but there was no action. boo! We even went dancing in the small town which was fun because it was like the whole town was in there!

Sunday we went to Cotopaxi which is the 5th most dangerous active volcano in Ecuador! We took a bus pretty far up the mountain and got out at one of the refugee places. It was beautiful and there were no people (inhabitants), no animals, and absolutely no vegetation!.. Just a beautifully snow-capped mountain/volcano! We walked down one part of it which was a slope like this -> \ so we practically slid down since it was really loose rock/soil/mountain/whatever it was. It snowed really hard while we were at the bottom in the crevice between two parts of the volcano. I haven't seen know in like 2 years! Not like this anyway. It was so cool. Then I had to pee really bad and decided that I would take the opportunity to say I've peed on the 5th most dangerous volcano in Ecuador.. so i did! haha It was rather cold. Then we all had to go back up that dang slope -> \ and it was probably one of the hardest things I've done in my life. We were 18,500 feet above sea level (= no oxygen) and about every 4 or 5 "steps" up, I had to stop and take a break. It took about 10 minutes to get back up.. some people took longer. So hard! Still really worth it. Everyone was coughing on the way back to Quito and I kind of lost my voice (I think because of that and the quick change in weather.. maybe.)

Overall the bus trip sucked since we were in it so long and I don't ever feel very good on buses I've learned; the snow was amazing; i peed on a volcano; and got to see a volcano that has been erupting actively! Pretty sweet! Oh yeah.. while we were on the way there and back we saw a few movies and I'd recommend The Bucket List! We also saw 10.5 which had really bad acting and Feast of Love which was kind of strange, but sweet by the end :)