Climbing to Rucu Pichincha, Ecuador

To arrive at the peak of this mountain was one of the most incredible moments of my trip. The fact that I climbed up to 4696 metres is unbelievable. It’s almost as high as Mount Blanc. And if I add to the story, that I had no Idea in the morning that I’ll be on that mountain a few hours later is even more incredible. I planned only one thing for this day, which was a morning run. Quito lies at the level of 2800 metre and I really wanted to try how I am able to run at this level. Can I breathe? Well I could. I enjoyed it a lot so when I arrived back at the hostel I started to play with the idea of hiking up to this mountain. I checked a few blogs about it and it looked like it was still possible to make it that day so I packed my stuff, checked which bus was going there and left the hostel. I was in a hurry and like it would be a rule of the universe: When you are in a hurry you’ll make stupid mistakes which will cost you a lot of time. Well I forgot that I have no money. And the Transferiqu which takes me up to the beginning of the trail costs 8 dollars. I had to go back to the city. Take out some money, take the bus again and go up by transferico. I lost a lot of time. So I wasn’t sure that I should still start the hike. So I was just walking in my jeans thinking. Should I do it? Can I do it? I was walking up 30 minutes when I finally decided: Ok, I’ll do it! I changed my clothes, and started to go as fast as I could. Which was pretty slow since there is not too much oxygen but I kept overtaking people which gave me confidence. I started asking people, who were coming back, if they made it to the end. But nobody did. All of them said that they turned back at some point before the peak.

Flowers

The path

On the top

When I started to get closer to the peak the trail started to get steeper and the air thinner. I had to stop for every 50 metres. I felt that there was no oxygen in my brain and that sometimes I was afraid that I might just faint. And on this point the trail ended, I had to climb. I was seriously considering turning back, but first I sat down, and after a few minutes I decided to continue. The part where I had to climb was short, but after that the trail was even steeper. It was like a fight. But I was fighting pretty good because I was still overtaking some people on the trail. When I arrived at the end of the trail again I thought it was the end. I kind of did it. I wasn’t sure that it was possible to climb up to the peak which was 50 metres from there, but then a couple arrived and started to climb up so I did it as well. And it was much easier than I thought. I finally arrived at the top. I did it! :)