Leaving Cotopaxi

After a night in Cotopaxi Reserve we hiked out half of the way and then when we had had enough, we tried to hitchhike the rest of the way back to the Panamerican Highway.

My feet were pretty damn sore, this being the first time I had really put on my boots and did some long distance walking the whole trip. All the time at the coast I’ve been wearing sandals. We caught a ride with a nice family from Quito, driving a nice big comfy van. The whole family including mom, dad, 5 kids and grandma and grandpa had come to the Reserve for the afternoon to check out the views. On the way out, the van was confronted multiple times with little indigenous children holding hand woven grass ropes across the road to stop vehicles to ask for money. It was quite amazing to see the real difference here between the ecuadorian haves and have-nots. The father was driving and he gave the kids some money and they dropped us of at the panamerican. We caught a bus south for Baños.