Volcan Tungurahua

I'll start the post by saying this, there was no lava because the volcano was not erupting at the time. It is an active volcano though, but it usually only erupts during the full moon. Today was spent hiking up a mountain in the Andes to the very top. It was hard, tiring and completely draining as all I brought was a bottle of water and Oreos. But the view was so worth it. Really spectacular. I don't think I can get tired of these mountains. If I do, I know it will be time to go home.

The trail started with an unbelievable number of stairs to get to a statue that overlooks the city. But before I got to the statue, I was greeted with a ginormous cemetery. It was huge, the picture below is just half of it because I couldn't get the whole thing in my shot.

The view from the statue of the city of Banos. It's set at the base of several mountains.

The trail I was following was marked "Mirador del Volcan". And the signs I came to always had a distance on it. But they didn't seem right. I would pass a sign saying the mirador was 350m away, walk for ten minutes, then pass another sign saying it was 300m away. Impossible.

The trail didn't even look like trail in some parts. I always thought of mountains as vast rocky wastelands, but I passed so much greenery and even a few farms on my way to the top of this mountain.

The "path"

Farms

When I finally made it to the top, the view was obstructed by clouds. All around me were clouds. It's a strange feeling being in the clouds. But I was. And I was hungry. I had been walking for about 4 hours at this point.

I stumbled upon this restaurant which had a picture of Banos and the mountain I climbed. Just to give a sense of the hike, Banos is that town at the bottom of the picture, and that box on the far right is where the restaurant was.

I took a cab back down the mountain because I was dead tired. The cabbie stopped to let me take some pictures of some waterfalls in the area. It was a good day. Tomorrow, I head to Cuenca.