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| This is Ecuadors highest mountain, the Volcan Chimborazo, standing impressive 6268m above sealevel. After my unsucessful attempt to climb Cotopaxi I first needed a rest in Latacunga. After a couple of days my fever was gone and I was ready to make another attempt. I teamed up with Henning from Germany in Quito and soon it was clear that we both were commited to summit Chimborazo! |
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| Chimborazo again, viewed from our starting point Refugio Carrel (4850m). We climbed from the left side onto the ridge and then proceeded ascending the seemingly endless snowfield to the top. |
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| View from the Refugio Carrel, already pretty high... |
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| Nighthike! It took us 10h straight to get to the summit and we didn´t make a lot of breaks. We started at 10pm at night, flicked on our headlamps and went on a long journey! |
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| Hiking up that snowfield in the morning. It seems to be just another hundred meters more, but when you get there the view ist still exactely the same. No end in sight! Getting to 6000m the air is already pretty thin and breathing got harder and harder! |
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| Summit Ventemilla (6225m). Holding some sunscrene in my hand, which I couldn´t use because it was frozen solid! The temperature was around -15º to -20º C. Henning told me he still lacks feeling in some of his fingers today. Two pairs of gloves were essential! |
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| I can´t describe the feeling at the summit! I couldn´t eat anything during the ascent, my stomache just wouldn´t accept food in that hight! We were a bit too late to reach the main summit, only another 50-60m higher, but still an hour away! It was such an emotional experience being up there, having an airplane view from more than 6000 meters hight, hence the only thing I felt was joy! We were the only ones on that day to reach the summit, two other groups had to turn back. I learned some of things in the mountains of Ecuador. If I ever make an attempt to climb a mountain of that category again (which I most possibly will...), I´ll do it with a good friend. Knowing one another, being able to rely on each other make such undertakings safer and simple the fact of sharing such an experience with someone close can add so much. |
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| Voila! Back to the coast! After Chimborazo I felt saturated, there wasn´t any higher to go. So I went to Montañita to buy a board, got sucked into partybusiness and surfed a good righthander at La Puente. Montañita was probably the wildest place I visited so far, tons of Chilenas, Argentinians and probably half of Guayaquil (Ecuadors second largest City) go there to get naughty. The night I arrived I couldn´t even get a place to sleep! Quite a contrast after the isolation in the mountains for two weeks! I got to know the barkeepers of Hola Ola Bar that night and stayed at their place, for some reason things always work out. I managed to surf the point at first light 6am a couple of times when it was headhigh and almost no people in the water. Usually saying hello to all the people in front of the hostel who were still up and raging... I didn´t intend to stay for two weeks, but then you never leave a spot as long as the waves are good, the party is on and the girls are hot. Wait, why did I leave?!?! Oh yeah, the waves were getting bad and then there´s this great country called Perú that I couldn´t await to visit anymore... |
The reason for not posting more fotos from Montañita is not pure obscenity of content, but the fact that I lost my camera on a bumpy road in Perú! The lastes fotos are gone, the rest is secured on my USB-pen and my i-pod still makes nice little videos... I guess that´s life!
