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Its been close to two weeks since we checked into Secret garden Cotopaxi as volunteers and has been nothing short of amazing. Secret Garden Cotopaxi is a smaller version of its sister hostel Secret Garden Quito.  We checked out and began our  two hour journey via a small pickup truck with the hostel’s perosnal driver Arturo. Despite having ridiculous hangovers from our going away party in Quito the night before we laughed, shared music, and practised our spanish with this incredibly kind man. We arrived after an hour of highway, an hour of a cobblestone road and a seemingly impassible three kilometer driveway. After stepping out of Arturo’s camioneta we both took a minute or two to take in the scenery. Secret Garden Cotopaxi lies 3500 hundred meters above sea level in a strange but lush landscape made up of volcanic mountains and craters. The hostel  directly faces the almost perfectly cylindrical and world’s highest active volcano, Cotopaxi which stands at 5897 meters and is capped by a massive glacier.

Cotopaxi is not the only masssive mountain in the area created by Volcanic activity. Plenty of others dot the landscape including Rumiñahui, Sincholagua, Antisana, Pasachoa, and many others. Needless to say it gets us everytime we walk out of our rooms in the morning, which is usually when the weather is the best.

We then proceeded to meet the owners of both Secret Garden Hostels. There is Tarquin, a tall lanky and incredibly entertaining Australian and his Ecuadorian Wife Katherine who does a fabulous job as the hostel’s gourmet chef. They live in a house attached to the lounge of the hostel with their two rambunctious boys Tomas(6) and Martin(3) who seem to have a thing for cameras. We picked them up on our way in and they somehow managed to take 49 pictures of interesting things like their knees, backpacks, and much more on a 5 minute ride. They are both completely bilingual and very cute kids. The Cotopaxi hostel has been open for three years and Tarquin and Katherine decided to move their after four years of opening their hostel in Quito to raise their boys in a location slightly more slow paced than Quito. The hostel itself is quite small and consists of a dormitory which sleeps eight, two tent cabañas as well as three private suites.

While we are working for our room and board & food and booze, we are certainly not being strained too much. Our work requirements at Cotopaxi are actually quite entertaining. They consist of:

• Six hour horsebacks treks to the summit of the Rumiñahui, which you can see in the second picture.
• Two hour daily treks up a stream to a series of beautiful waterfalls.
• Starting the fireplace which proves to be a difficult feat at 3500 meters due to the lack of oxygen.
• Serving gourmet meals and local specialties to the guests. A lot of the food we eat is either grown or raised right on the 5 acres owned by Tarquin and his wife.
• Various little projects including building a Jacuzzi which overlooks seven impressive volcanic peaks. This is no ordinary Jacuzzi either. Eventually it is going to be completely heated by the fireplace in the lounge on the theory that hot water rises and cold water sinks. The hot tub lies about thirty meters away and about 5 meters higher in elevation. I’m still somewhat skeptical if it is going to work but the bossman seems to think it will and I suppose that’s the important part.

It has been amazing to watch Dylan’s progress in Spanish. At the beginning of the trip he knew little more than a few words and he is now fully conversing with the Ecuadorian employees and with good pronunciation I might add. He had an interesting little experience while horse riding the other day. The care of horses seems to be somewhat different than in North America and his horse that had no shoes extremely disliked walking on the cobblestone roads. He took a spill in full gallop and apart from having a tender shoulder is doing great.

As for myself, Cotopaxi has not been eventless either. We were doing a 6 hour trek up a mountain behind the hostel called Pasachoa and we had an American girl from New York with us who failed to mention that she had asthma. A half hour from the summit she was unable to breath due to altitude sickness. We tried waiting for her to aclimitize but it quickly became evident that she needed to go back down. The were a bunch of other guests who wanted to reach the top so I offered to take her down. Unfortunately in Ecuador the jungle can be thick and the trailheads difficult to spot. We ended up hopelessly lost the jungle hacking our way up and down hills thick with brush, but thanks to my expert navigational skills managed to find our way home after a few hours.

Doing four to five treks a week and eating three square meals a day has been getting both Dylan and myself into shape and has been just the rest and recuperation we both needed. This is not to say we have not been having a good time and enjoying a few cocktails by the fire every night. We’ve met a load of great people including one of our co-workers Remi who is an Australian Dutch forty year old who has been gallivanting around the world since he was 18. Our first day off in two weeks has been relaxing and we are back in Quito where it is pissing rain but still fairly warm. We have somewhat of an interesting plan for the next little while which we will report on shortly. Until then we wish everyone back home all the best and hope you have been enjoying our blog.

Hasta Luego,

Connor or as the call me in Spanish Cornellio