A magnificent panorama of volcanoes

A rare sight of El Tungurahua - normally it's shrouded
in mist. Auray has found a flower. © Tom Rayner

The day was bright and clear – a great day for admiring the panorama of dramatic mountain scenery. Tom drove Aureliano and I to Parque de la Familia which offers great views, and also has a variety of animals in a sort of children’s farm.

The park is very well cared for with good paths and well-tended flower borders plus lots of interesting trees and plants. It’s on the edge of the steep valley which holds Ambato and, to get there from La Joya (where the hospital is) you have to go through La Miraflores and Ficoa, the posh parts of Ambato, and up a very steep road.

From Parque de la Familia, provided it’s clear like today, there are great views of Tungurahua and Chimborazo, which feel almost close enough to touch; also Cotopaxi, El Altar and Sangay. It was a volcano-spotters’ paradise and the higher peaks were all covered with fresh snow shining in the clear air.

I'm getting a little blase about El Chimborazo, but what
a sight it is on a clear day. © Tom Rayner

I’m getting a bit blasé about El Chimborazo. It’s an awesome sight, but isn’t it strange how awe fades into familiarity so quickly? I guess people who live here just look at it as I’d view a familiar landmark in the Cambridgeshire Fens (although a 20,000 ft volcano would take some getting used to).

El Tungurahua is less familiar. Although it’s relatively close to Ambato, it seems to be hidden in cloud more often than not, so when it does appear like a giant out of the mist, the effect is shocking. This morning it was there as clear as day, snow capped and with its top crater tilted ominously towards us.

We could also see some other clear peaks, which were confirmed by a park warden who passed by and was happy to stop for a chat. There was El Altar or Capac Urcu (possibly from the Kichwa “kapak” meaning great and “urku” mountain. It is an extinct volcano on the western side of Sangay National Park, with a highest point of 5,319 m (17,451 ft). Wikipedia says the Spanish colonists named it so because it resembled two nuns and four friars listening to a bishop around a church altar.

I always like to know how easy it is to get to the summit and Wikipedia says El Altar is the most technically demanding climb in Ecuador. Apparently, December to February are the best months to attempt an ascent. There’s also a more accessible hike to the lake within the caldera of the mountain. From Riobamba, travel to Candelaria and then check-in at the ranger station to enter the national park.

Wikipedia says a walk of 4–7 hours on an extremely muddy trail (knee-high rubber boots are recommended) leaves one at the refuge belonging to Hacienda Releche, which has many beds, and a kitchen. The hike to the lake is another two hours from the refuge across a valley and up a steep hill. If that’s “accessible” heaven knows what the peak ascent is like!

Capac Urcu (I’m still on Wikipedia) consists of a large stratovolcano of Pliocene-Pleistocene age (so between 2 and 5 million years old) with a caldera breached to the west. Inca legends report that the top of Altar collapsed after seven years of activity in about 1460, but the caldera is considered to be much older than this (you can’t trust those Incas – they’ll tell you anything). Nine major peaks over 5,000 metres (16,400 ft) form a horseshoe-shaped ridge about two miles across, surrounding a crater lake at about 4,200 m (13,800 ft), known as Laguna Collanes or Laguna Amarilla.

In the far distance, we could also see Sangay (5300m, 17,400ft). This is another classic stratovolcano (like Cotopaxi). I wish I had my binoculars because this volcano, although clearly visible, was too far away to pick out any detail, apart from its general shape.

Sangay - photo from Smithsonian Institution

It is the most active volcano in Ecuador, despite erupting only three times in recorded history, because the eruption that started in 1934 is still ongoing. Wikipedia says Sangay marks the southern boundary of the Northern Volcanic Zone, and its position straddling two major pieces of crust accounts for its high level of activity. Sangay's 500,000-year-old history is one of instability; two previous versions of the mountain were destroyed in massive flank collapses, evidence of which still litters its surroundings today.

Due to its remoteness, Sangay hosts a significant biological community with fauna such as the mountain tapir, giant otter, Andean cock-of-the-rock and king vulture. Since 1983, its ecological community has been protected as part of the Sangay National Park. Although climbing the mountain is hampered by its remoteness, poor weather conditions, river flooding, and the danger of falling ejecta, the volcano is regularly climbed, a feat first achieved by Robert T. Moore in 1929.

I was interested to read about the cock-of-the-rock. When I was a little boy, I had a book about the natural word, which I loved reading. There was a picture of an erupting African volcano with all the local animals running away, also pictures of the Amazon river and a picture of a cock-of-the-rock. When they asked in primary school what we wanted to do when we were older, I said I was going to go up the Amazon. Well, I did cross the Rio Napa in a canoe a few years back and that’s a tributary of the Amazon! I haven’t seen a cock-of-the-rock though (perhaps there’s still time).

It was a wonderful couple of hours and a lucky break in the weather. Thanks also to Aureliano for being so patient (all he wanted to do was to see the turkey in the farm park).

My first view of Chimborazo - wow!

I've been hoping to see Chimborazo, the largest volcano in Ecuador, for the past few days but it has been quite cloudy. Tom thought we'd probably see it on the drive to Simiatug and he was right. The higher we got, the clearer it became and finally the whole, massive mountain was on show.

At 6,268 metres (20,371ft), it is absolutely awe-inspiring. It hasn’t been active since 550CE but the results of its activity are all around. The surrounding high plateau is strewn with rocks and as you drive on roads where they have had to cut through or into the rock, you can clearly see strata of varying depths from eruption after eruption. It’s like the cross-section of a massive layer cake.

Chimborazo makes you stop in your tracks and, in a country where there are geological wonders everywhere, it has to be pretty amazing to stand out.

We started the drive from Ambato where we are at about 2,700m and crossed a high pass on a dirt road at around 4,200m before dropping down to Santa Domingo at 3,530m (11,500ft). You can see some video from the high part of the pass here. We met some gringos (Americans) on horses near the top.

The drive is a sensory overload from start to finish. From Ambato, you’re soon into countryside, quite lush with steep valleys and with lots of people selling produce at the side of the road. It’s an age-old opportunist sales technique and exactly how Stilton Cheese got started on the side of the A1. We stopped on one stretch where there were around eight sellers (all offering vegetables). We bought potatoes, beans, tomatoes and some fruit.

We also passed a community market set up on the bottom of a valley where there’s a tight bend and some parking. I guess people have to slow down for the bend and can park up if they see something interesting. This sells everything, including meat. Fresh mutton would be cut off a sheep (recently butchered) and hanging from a convenient road sign – did that say “bend ahead” or “dead sheep”?

There are lots of trucks on the road and they don’t seem to worry too much about where they overtake. Driving can sometimes feel a little dangerous: click here. 

In one valley, there’s the home of Mushuc Runa FC, the football team of the indigenous people. Mushuc Runa means “new man” in Quechua and they get big crowds. The stadium is reached down a steep dirt road (I don’t think you’d get the Arsenal team bus down there) and on match day everyone parks on the main road, which is also steep and narrow, but at least is tarmac. Apparently, the man who owns Mushuc Runa heads the local produce co-operative and has two wives (sisters) who live in houses next door to each other just down the road. They are very nice houses by the local standard and I thought the one higher up the road was a bit nicer (she must have been the top sister). This local gossip, by the way comes courtesy of Jorge, who knows what’s going on around here.

You can’t believe how big Chimborazo is, pictures don’t do it justice. No wonder people decided these volcanoes were gods or the homes of gods.

We turned off a good road onto a dirt track to cross a mountain pass. The road wasn’t too bad (no need to engage 4WD today), but it can get tricky in bad weather. I’m not comfortable giving the car such a hammering and would have slowed down a bit, but the Mitsubishi Montera (now 19 years old) seems well suited to such an environment. It’s a V6 2.7-litre petrol and isn’t very economical, although petrol is only $1.83 per gallon – less than 40p per litre. Lucy was getting a bit shaken in the back and gets painful contractions with the rough road.

We came off the dirt road onto a metalled surface and then turned off again onto a dirt track to Santa Domingo.

Santa Domingo is 3530m (11,500ft) and it’s hard to breathe once you start ding anything physical such as climbing the stairs. The centre of the community is a church and square, surrounded on three sides by school, church, cheese factory and the abandoned furniture factory where Tom and Lucy got accommodation. The central square has pigs running around, dogs and llamas. In the morning, people bring milk to the cheese factory from surrounding smallholdings, they arrive with two plastic cans strapped each side of a llama.

We walked down to the nursery (you get free nursery care in the high Andes) where children were playing out. Lots of them know Tom, Julia and Aureliano. The toys are worn out and play equipment is old tyres and logs. There’s a steel climbing frame and some plastic slides which all went flying when there was a blast of wind.

The rooms they have been using are above the old furniture factory. There’s a big room which they have used as a playroom. It was the old school and when they went in the last lesson was still chalked up on the blackboard (quite spooky). They also have a living room/kitchen warmed by a wood stove, where there’s a sink, fridge and gas hob; large table with benches and two settees. They have a bathroom and large bedroom which had two doubles and a single bed. It’s warm enough when the stove is lit, but very cold without it (and in the other rooms). Drinking water is from an office-style water cooler, milk is bought from the cheese factory each day and has to be boiled before use.

A local man had set up an interview for Lucy with his 90-plus mother, who had direct experience of the Simiatug uprising and the seizing of the land from the hacienda owners. She was able to give Lucy a first-hand account (she lives on her own over 3,500m in a hut with her animals) and in exchange for helping set up the interview, Lucy had promised her son a copy of the video, so we set off to take it to him in the nearby town of Salinas.

It’s a drive of about 45 minutes and Salinas is a pretty place with a central square and busy streets. It’s also quite industrious, making cheese and an orange liqueur among other things. We bought some cheese and chocolate. The man we were to deliver the video to lived further up the valley from Salinas, along quite a narrow rough road. He wasn’t there, but Lucy left the data stick with his wife. It seems odd to leave a piece of modern technology with a woman in a rural shack, but why not?

We were back before dark and enjoyed a nice meal of beef, potatoes and onions cooked on the wood burner. I wanted to go out to see the night sky, but there were three sodium lights in the main square, so light pollution was worse than Thorney. It was also very cold and blowing a gale, so I wasn’t tempted to venture away from the community.