Cotopaxi, Ecuador 2009: My Hike and Mountain-Bike Day, Not a Summit

The jeep was dying before the day had even started. Thom and I had signed up for forty dollars each for a three-hour drive out of Quito to Cotopaxi national park, and our twenty-two-year-old guide was hurtling us down the motorway at a top speed of twenty kilometres an hour, the battery giving up underneath us. Disharmony, as I wrote at the time, spread amongst the camp: a Colombian-Taiwan couple, two backpacking graduate girls from Switzerland, the congenial Anita — a British Pole — and the gung-ho duo of Thom and me.

True to form, we lambasted the driver in ever-so-ethical fashion. "Give me back my dinero!" I demanded — at which point it quickly came to light that I hadn't actually paid for the tour yet. A chuckle rippled through the ranks. You can take the Indian out of India.

The longest kilometre of my life

The park itself deserved better transport. My diary announced that it contained "Ecquador´s highest mountain, snow capped of course" and its largest active volcano — the first of those was my younger self's error, and I've corrected it in the note at the end. The considered first reaction, under a photo of the thing, was: "Holy smokes.... it is a volcano... seriously..." Three hours from Quito, and suddenly there it was, posing what I called a dizzying array of challenges to both the backpacker and the intrepid climber. I was firmly in the first category, whatever I told myself.

Then came the walk. The diary calls it the longest kilometre I have ever known. I was dressed, as ever, appropriately for the occasion: long shorts, an old Nike hoodie, and a pair of Adidas plimsolls with woe-begotten holes near the toes. The unofficial tramp of our upward tramp was me going arse-up in gravel and running on lung-fumes at regular intervals. Feet sank into volcanic gravel at what my younger self dramatically recorded as sixty-degree angles. It was intense on mind and body, and it was only a kilometre.

True to form, I tried to lead the pack towards the glaciers and the views we were headed for. I was beaten effortlessly to the top — and unfortunately not to the floor — by the wiry Anita, the thirty-something British Pole who outstride my best efforts and celebrated at the top with a cigarette. She made me feel more man than ever.

Clouds, snow and the glacier area

And then the view undid all the comedy. Wind-washed clouds, snow-strewn mountains, staggering vistas, volcanic gravel underfoot — my diary says it was too much for words, and then spends several paragraphs failing to prove it. I wrote that it was the highest I had ever been, around 5,000 metres, and wondered whether this was what Shelley felt at Mont Blanc: some kind of ethereal forces playing with us frail human beings amongst the mountains.

One thing matters here, so I'll say it plainly: this was a hike on the volcano, not a summit of it. We reached the glacier area, gawped, and shot back down to the refuge for lunch. The 5,000-metre figure is my younger self's number from a diary, not a surveyed high point — but the memory of standing up there, completely spent by one kilometre, needs no verification.

Downhill, at speed, badly

We shot back down to the refuge camp for lunch. Then came the mountain bikes, and the diary's honest assessment of my ability on a bike at high speed: poor. Extremely poor. I went off-road in pursuit of the speeding Thom and the fleeting Santiago, taking a shortcut across volcanic turf. Having shot past Thom on Santiago's trail, I quickly realised Thom isn't slower than me. It is just that I am an idiot.

I came onto the road far too fast, near-missed a startled Santiago, and executed what I described as an incredibly well-performed stop — swinging the back wheel into the dirt, turning the bike, and using my left foot to end up facing the two of them. Having led the pack, I finished the field last. Behind all the girls.

Oh joy. What fun us backpackers have. And as I often said back then: what a penis I am. But needless to say — yet another amazing day in Ecuador.

Another Ecuador chapter

The wider trip also includes my Sierra Negra experience in the Galápagos, a separate volcanic outing with its own diary and photographs. The adventure travel collection continues through Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.

Source and archive note

Read my full original Cotopaxi diary, published 3 June 2009. This October 2026 retelling draws only on that contemporary account: the jeep, the refund demand before I'd paid, the plimsolls, Anita, the glaciers and the bike descent are all in it. The original text remains unchanged at its source. No summit is claimed, and the elevation figure is a diary recollection. One correction to the 2009 text: Cotopaxi is Ecuador's second-highest mountain at 5,897 metres, not its highest — that is Chimborazo. A 2009 day trip also says nothing about current conditions, routes or operators — anyone visiting now needs up-to-date official and local guidance.