Day 7 Cotopaxi - Last Ride

Our third day at Cotopaxi was by far the clearest.

Can you tell that I am a sucker for llama pictures. 

They are just so hard to resist. 

 Jose and Patricio posed for a picture in front of the volcano for me.  

And the sky was so clear that we were able to see another snow capped volcano way in the distance.  

Me and Apache and Joe with the bay mare. 

I didn't mention Lassie before, but she would join us every day at the park entrance and stay with us for the entire ride.   

I think I took over 300 pictures a day.  It has been very difficult to select just a few to share.  

As I said before, every minute showed us something new, whether it was the view, the plants or the clouds.  I would put my camera in my pocket and tell myself that I had enough pictures.  Then 2 seconds later I was pulling it out again to take more pictures.  I said camera but this is my iphone.  I have no doubt that I would have been sorely disappointed if I was using my point and shoot. 

This water was near the source for the river, it was crystal clear. 

This was an eroded gully that we rode up through.  At times our knees almost hit the sides.  But the horses were good and didn't try to scrape us off. 

This was the area that we rode up through the first day.  We went through the pine trees and up to the top of the hill in front of the volcano. 

                                        

Lunch time was the same, tie the horse to a shrub, take your poncho and get comfortable.  

                                                 

Todays lunch was chicken, potato salad, cheese, palmetto, passion fruit, hot tea and various candies, chocolates and cookies.  Not your typical trail food.  I normally pack an apple and peanut butter crackers and Joe takes a can of sardines.  This was definitely a step up. 

                                                     

We even saw some wild horses.  

                                                   

                                                  And just like that, our third day of riding 6 hours and around 13 miles was over and it was time to load up and leave.  

                                               

You just never know what you might run into on these cobblestone roads.  I think these cows had just finished milking and were heading back out to pasture.  

                                                 
 We went back to Quito to a hotel near the airport.  I picked one that had free taxi service to the airport.  We would be leaving early the next morning for the last leg of our journey.  We ate at a little restaurant next to the hotel.  We both ordered the same thing by pointing to the menu.  Apparently, Joe didn't point to the right spot because he did not get a hamburger.  But it was the same price, $4.99 and he said it tasted good.  

The room and taxi were only $30.  It was to include breakfast but we missed that because we had to leave too early.  The red sheets were a little disturbing but everything was comfortable.  Next, we had to condense our luggage back to 4 backs from its expanded 5 bag version so I wouldn't have to pay more to check a bag.  Emily said it was impressive that I was able to get all of my purchases from Otavalo into our original bags.