Author Archives: Teresa

Volcán Cotopaxi – eat your hearts out Seattleites

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After dragging ourselves away from Quito and new friends, we headed to Cotopaxi National Park. The highlight of the park is 5897 meter Volcán Cotopaxi.

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We set camp at Tambopoxi for the night and braved the strong winds and rain to prepare dinner. Some less battle-tested campers joined us for the evening. Now, I don’t think I’d be stretching the truth if I use the phrase ‘clown tent’ to describe their sleeping situation. George asked them how their sleep was in the morning, which they quickly claimed was great. I call bullshit because that’s a one-season tent at best. Getting off my veteran camper pedestal and on with the day’s business, we set our sights on Cotopaxi. First, we fortified ourselves with another meal of potatoes, which we still had an overabundance of (welcome to traveling with George).

We took the well-graded dirt road up the volcano to a parking lot a few hundred feet shy of Refugio José Ribas (Jose Ribas Refuge) at 4864 meters (15,953 feet). If you’re paying attention, that puts us and Vida over 4400 meters without breaking a sweat which means we drove higher than Mount Rainier at 4392 meters.  It is then a short but heart pounding climb to the refuge and about a half hour more to the glacier. Although the climb is a relatively short one, it was definitely not easy going because of the altitude and steep incline. The highest point we hit on the hike was just over 5000 meters with George in a full stretch. For the mountaineer set, the refuge is also a base for summiting Cotopaxi. We’re told the groups leave around midnight and take approximately 6 to 8 hours to reach the summit.

That evening, we rewarded ourselves with a movie in the tent with a diy movie screen. Not too shabby. That thing was secure. George wouldn’t risk his mac ‘baby’ without a safety self-tightening knot just in case.

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All told, we loved the park and the climb. I’ve been dreaming about the Andes for several months, and Cotopaxi was surely a great welcome.

 

Into Ecuador – marking milestones and a new mindset for a new hemisphere

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After one last hurrah in Colombia at Las Lajas Sanctuary near the border, we finally got our butts into Ecuador. We loved Colombia, but we were both ready to move on.

Our first stop was just outside of Otavalo at Rose Cottage. We were excited to visit the famous Otavalo market and stock up on some cozy alpaca things. At the end of our market visit and months of searching, we finally found a handheld orange juicer. The market had such good produce that we stocked up on some things including two bags of oranges and a bag of young potatoes. It would be OJ, coffee and potatoes each day for a week.

I’ve been following SeventeenBySix (two journalists and one euro van) for months because of their quality stories and documented camping spots. They’ve been in Ecuador for a while getting their van repaired, so we finally caught up with them. They were kind enough to let us stay in their apartment in Quito which is quickly becoming an overlander stopover. It wasn’t too long before Marcia and Doug (1/3 of Southern Tip Trip) rolled in to join us.

With a city base, we explored Quito and visited the long anticipated equator.

We don’t need someone to tell us we’ve come along way because our memories take care of that. It is sometimes nice to snap a pic that sums up in a shot just how far you’ve come though. We’ve hit the arctic circle, the arctric ocean, the 45th parallel, and finally yesterday the equator.

Moving into South America and the southern hemisphere has given us a chance to reset and reevaluate. What has really hit home the last couple of days is our constant rushing based on our preset end date. A year might seem like a long time, but tip to tip is a long way to go and all the good stuff is in the details. Yesterday, I started proclaiming ‘f$%k our end date, i’m sick of rushing’. Each proclamation got a little louder. Maybe I was trying to convince myself. We have a self imposed schedule primarily to ensure we don’t loose touch with our very fast moving industry. Now, what I hope and what I’m trying to believe is that I wasn’t employed because I was up to speed with all the new shinny things in the tech industry. I was employed because I got things done. So, maybe we’ll be back in the states by February and maybe we won’t, but this trip is not worth doing if you don’t get to stop and smell the coffee.

 

Cali: a lesson in negotiation

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We planned to stop through Cali for a couple of reasons. Our friend Joelle is a Cali native and there were spare parts for our tent waiting for us there. The World Games happened to be taking place while we were there, and George had his mind set on watching the speed climbing.  What is speed climbing you ask? Well, to sum it up, climbers race up  sport climbing routes. Imagine what it would look like if a big cat decided to go vertical up a wall and you’ve just about got it. In his former life, George competed in speed climbing in Bulgaria. The sport is not popular in North America, but certainly has a big following in Europe and Asia. We didn’t have tickets and had heard that the speed climbing was sold out. Luckily, Joelle is a skilled and persistent negotiator. Her cute smile didn’t hurt either. Fast forward an hour or so of haggling and we were in.

 

Colombia’s grueling roads, toyota tacoma brakes, and lots of toys

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Somewhere in Colombia’s coffee country, that familiar sound of worn out brakes started squealing away in the background as we drove. We decided to deal with the problem of finding new toyota tacoma brakes when we got back to Bogota for the third time to pick up my passport (no, we did not optimize our time in Colombia). George removed the pegs that make the noise as a temporary bandage to save our sanity.

As we drove over 4000 meter mountain peaks to Bogota, I tried to block out the state of our front brakes. We were unsuccessful buying brakes at any of the Toyota dealerships in the big B. They simply ‘do not have Tacoma specific parts in Colombia’. ‘We can have them for you in one month’, they said. Hard to believe because Toyota Tacoma parts are almost identical to 4Runner models. They have 4Runners in Colombia as well as the similar Toyota Hilux (what the Tacoma is called everywhere else).  It seemed like the guys behind the counter did not want to use their heads and work with us.

On the way out of town for the last time, we swung by the Pasion 4X4 Adventura store that George had seen one day driving along the highway.  We stopped in search of new back shocks. The parking area in front of Pasion 4X4 Adventura was full of big toys (off-roading vehicles), a good sign.

Pasion 4X4 Adventura

Pasion 4X4 Adventura

Pasion 4X4 Adventura didn’t have the shocks we were looking for, but they had  Samuel Olarte and Jose Luis, two of the friendliest guys we have met on our trip so far!  Both Jose and Samuel spoke great English and were both Toyota off-road junkies :).  Jose had a Toyota Land Cruiser 1998 (I might be 2 years off on the model) and Samuel had the Toy monster featured below :).

The toys in the parking lot

Samuel and his Toy…

The guys quickly offered to help (Jose, Samuel you are welcome to come visit in the states anytime you want!). Jose offered to take George over to the auto parts area of town. It would have been ill advised for us to go it alone because chances were good we would get ripped off. Samuel offered the use of the store’s facilities for free to lift the car and take the old brakes as a model to make sure we bought the right part.  And now a technical interlude from George since a little clarification is in order:

We had to take both front wheels off at the same time thanks to the hack (literally) the last mechanics in Nicaragua made.  If you remember from this post, those  ‘mechanics’ put both outside pads on one wheel and when they got to the other wheel they had to modify (cut) the one pad since one of them did not fit. We had to take one pad from both wheels to make a full set!  Thank you Leon – we will never forget you.

Miraculously, George returned with a set of good brakes and another set just in case. One set was dubbed ‘original Toyo’ parts and one set was a Chinese knockoff.  You could tell by the difference in price – $90 and $25. George had decided to buy a spare set just in case since the knockoffs were so cheap

New brake pads were great news because the next possible place to find brakes would have meant many more miles of mountain roads.  The pieces of s$%t the mechanics in Nicaragua installed were completely done.  Did I mention those brake pads lasted only 3000 miles.

At the end of the day, we had new brakes and a opportunity to speak with Samuel and Jose. Man, it’s nice when you desperately need something and in walks some off-roading guardian angels to assist.

Replacing our Toyota Tacoma 2003 brakes

Replacing our Toyota Tacoma brakes