Ecuador - Chimborazo - Cotopaxi - A dream come true

In only four more days I'll be in a plane going to Ecuador with my friend Kath to fulfill a dream: To climb some amazing mountains and cycle in one of the most beautiful areas of the country. Over the next three weeks Kath and I are hoping to climb four mountains: Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, Illiniza Norte  and Pasochoa  and cycle or hike in the Quilotoa loop - the loop is a remote mountainous road that links several high andean villages and gives you the opportunity to see some of the more remote people and culture of the central Andes of Ecuador. 

I'm hoping this blogg will meet several purposes:

• Help others planning a similar trip - this is why there are links and details of organisations, insurance, places to stay, etc.
• Keep friend up to date of our whereabouts
• Support our fundraising efforts - we are taking this opportunity to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support, the organisation I work for and I would like to encourage as many of the readers of this blogg to support us in this task but for now keep on reading...

Before I tell you more about the logistics of organising such trip let me tell you how and when it all started. My friends Kath and Ann invited me to go with them to Everest Base Camp in 2006. It all started there as on that trip we decided that we would go to Ecuador for our 50th birthday in 2008. If you want to know why we didn't make it, go to our Just Giving page! ...and so now you know how it all started and why the delay and will have had the opportunity to sponsor us!! By the way, you may want to find out more about Macmillan Cancer Support and what we do and may be be encouraged to support our work.

We have done every single bit of the organising ourselves, it has taken hours and hours and this makes it even more exciting and satisfying. Virtually exploring Ecuador (what did we do before the Web?!) and its mountains helped us find Javier Herrera and Andean Face, we just loved the work they are doing with Ecuatorian children and instantly decided we wanted to go with them to Cotopaxi and Chimborazo - we always knew that to attempt the biggest mountains we needed some expert help and guidance. Our first emails with Javier started in August and his helpfulness and warmth from the distance, confirmed the gut feeling we got from his website. On his advice we decided on the best dates to go. 


The next step was to buy the flights. As we are paying for everything ourselves we spent hours on the web looking for the best deals - I even tried calling the help of Mayte, a friend of mine in the Basque Country who has a travel agency, in the end Kath found the best priced tickets.


Then it was the insurance and my friend Babs told me about the Austrian Alpine Club, cheapest specialist insurance for this type of trip we have been able to find - thanks Babs!!


After lists and more lists and deciding whether each thing deserves a place in my luggage (with such diverse range of activities we need quite a lot of stuff but we need to be really mindful about weight, after all we will have to carry it either on our backs, or our bike panniers!!!) this is what my front room looks like:


Now all is left to do is to buy another pair of socks, decide what clothes to take to be a town girl, find out how to get to the airport at the crack of dawn, take my cat to the cattery, sort out my music and possibly hundreds of other things that I can't even think about.


Follow our trip through this blogg to find out how we are getting on - I'm not sure I'll manage to post everyday, but try I will.