Cotopaxi

'Fresh' from the snow cap behind us
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Having found our land-legs after the fantastic Galapagos trip, we were adjusting back to city life in Quito.  We decided it would be a good idea to do some high altitude training in preparation for Machu Picchu. "Let's go hurl ourselves off a volcano"  was the expression.   We set off at 7am with our guide Mo and 2 other willing participants and drove two hours to the Cotopaxi National Park, home to one of Ecuador's largest volcanoes, at 5875m above sea level.   The van took us up as far as the snowcap, 4800m, and it wasn't until we got out we realised that the idea of mountain biking down this beast was probably not the most sensible one we'd had in a while.  The wind was biting, blowing ice into our faces and the air was so thin that even just padding up was exhausting.  We started the downhill.  The wind torn track, hairpin corners and sheer drops were not easy to navigate given that we had lost all feeling in our fingers so pulling the brake was a struggle.  Russ came off in the first 5 mins and then managed to continue for another 10 before he realised he had a flat front tyre - blame it on a mild case of altitude sickness.   It wasn't until we had descended a good 1,000m before we could feel our extremities again and the welcome sun on our backs.  The downhill was awesome - not for the fainthearted.  The uphill bits had Suse sounding like a beached sealion trying to gasp for breath.  All in all, 50km of biking through amazing scenery left us exhilarated and exhausted and perhaps slightly better prepared for Peru.