As I hinted in yesterdays entry, today would prove to be another of those days that leaves one searching for words. Seems appropriate somehow that the start of our second 6 months on the road should be memorable - and it was.

We hung around Baños until nearly midday, just absorbing the sights, sounds and environment. Its a bit tacky like all tourists towns but has an interesting buzz. Back on the road we climbed out of that same valley, the hill was not throwing rocks today so we were lucky on that count.

We had to do a bit of careful navigation to get on the road from Ambato to Guaranda. The plan was to follow that road south until the turn off that would take us to Mount Chimborazo, Ecuador's tallest mountain at 6310m or 20,700ft.

We ran along over nice sealed roads, rough gravel and rock roads, and at one point came to a road crew applying tar sealing to one side of the road. We slowed and the crew waved us onto the remaining lane ..... only no one had stopped the traffic in the other direction so for the next few seconds we tried to squeeze into one lane with oncoming trucks and buses so as not to drive on the still wet tar.!!

Before long we were above the tree line, in grass land at 13,000 ft and the was a large mountain in the distance that we thought was/maybe Chimborazo. We drove with a view of this mountain for perhaps an hour before turning off the Guaranda road onto a secondary, but sealed road, that passes Chimborazo on the south. Along this road, now at 14,000 ft we saw our first herd of Vicuñas. We stopped many times to take pictures of these to us unusual animals and of the mountain that now loomed to our north.

Arriving at the turn off to the mountain we paid our $10 per personas, and started up the rough, dirt road that would take us to the lowest of two climbers refuges, at 4800 m, thats 15,900 ft to the non metric reader. To its credit the Tiger made this climb with no problemos, which is more than we could say for its occupants. Waking around the parking lot the altitude was immediately felt. Anything other that a gentle pace started our hearts pounding. However, there was a second climbers refuge 200 meters higher at 5000m. We of course could not resist that magic 5000m (thats 16,500 ft). So off we set and eventually after a long period of very slow uphill walking we arrived at that second refuge. Now, we sort of see this as a significant feat, but accompanying us on this high altitude climb were maybe 20 Ecuadorians in various family groups, some that looked 80, at least one that was pregnant, more than one father carrying a small child on his shoulders, and a number of tourists and guides on the first leg of a climb to the summit.

After returning to the Tiger we drove a little way away from the lower refuge parking lot and parked on a flat area of natural gravel for the night. Watching the sun go down and the stars emerge was a magical experience.

About midnight, by which time it was cold and windy, we saw the light from the head lamps of the climbers on the face of the mountain.