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This was excellent timing as we had chosen that day for our first summit attempt in Ecuador. We found ourselves in the market town of Otavalo, a couple of hundred kilometres north of Quito, and together with Trudy from Australia and Denis, our guide, originally from Ohio, but now living in Otavalo, we attempted to climb Fuya-Fuya, a 4365 metre volcano just south of town, overlooking the impressive Laguna Mojando.

There is no public transport to the laguna, hence our need for a guide. He charged us a very reasonable 10 dollars each (other agencies in town charge at least 25), and picked us up from our hostel at 9am. While 4365 metres is a fairly high altitude (and in our top 10 highest summits), the walk up was mostly straightforward and we reached the first summit after 1.5 hours. From here there were good views of the laguna, of the other volcanoes nearby, and even of Quito, far away in the distance.

Getting to the second and higher summit was a little more tricky, involving some scrambling and rock climbing on exposed parts of the rock face. We had no ropes or anything so one slip could have been, well, fatal. Denis and I went on to this summit, but the views weren't so good here as the clouds had returned. In Quechua, Fuya-Fuya means, appropriately, Cloudy-Cloudy! All in all it was a good morning's hiking, with enough scary moments near the top to make it memorable.

Source: TravelBlog