We got to have a slow start this day. The grounds at the Hacienda were beautiful s and the building so old so we took a little tour after breakfast.
I loved all the food in Ecuador, but especially breakfast. So much fresh fruit! My favorite.
They had a bunch of bunnies that lived in the garden. We fed the some carrots.
They had so many beautiful succulents. A lot of time and effort went into keeping it looking so nice.
After our morning tour we hopped in the car and headed to Chiborazo National Park to chase another volcano.
Paul promised us we would see wild Llamas and alpacas. He did not lie! The wild llamas definitely have their own look. Thee were lots of different herds as we made our way towards the park.
We also passed by an Alpaca farm and stopped to take some pictures.
We continued to drive to above 15,000 ft before we even started hiking. That is very high!
Chimborazo is the highest volcano in Ecuador. It sits at 20, 702 ft above sea level. It was very cloudy while we were in the park so we didn't get great views while hiking. Our timing was a little off on this trip.
Pretty early on the hike they had a memorial section for the hikers that have died on the mountain.
The mountain was trying to poke through the clouds. It kind of felt like being on another planet. Lots of reddish dirt, you felt very isolated because of the clouds. It was pretty chilly because we were so high up. It was also slow going because of the altitude.
Baby steps got us to base camp which was at 16, 404ft.
We stopped and took some pictures.
The nice thing about just having Amber and myself on the tour was we could continue hiking. We were both doing ok with the altitude so we went up even higher. Not for much a view, more clouds really. But it felt good to be hiking.
Paul hopped in a picture too.
Then we went even a little higher.
Still no view of the volcano!
It was a fun afternoon. We made it up to 16,702 ft elevation.
One last picture by the official sign before leaving!
Paul assured us at the car that there was one side of the volcano that usually cleared up in the afternoon. He was wondering if we wanted to drive and try to catch a glimpse of the peak. We didn't have anything else to do so we decided to give it a try.
In the end it was a good choice.
We found a spot that had the peak in it. It did not last long!
I was pretty excited to see the top!
After our pictures we headed towards our lunch stop. On the way down I captured some of my favorite pictures from Ecuador. Wild llamas in front of a volcano. I had to get out of the car and do a little llama chasing, but it was so worth it!
A group of llamas
the lone llama
Seeing the top of the volcano made my day!
After lunch we had a long drive to Banos, our last destination in Ecuador.
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