Mojanda from Cerro Negro

Change of plans

I rode in a bus from Quito to the town of Otavalo. My plan was to climb Imbabura, a volcano I had climbed before. Got in the bus which had only 5 passengers in it, including me.

Before the bus left the capital city a big group of students from the main University jumped in the bus. Their plan was to camp at Lagunas de Mojanda. I had heard about the insecurity of this area, specially if you are camping there alone, so I changed my plans and joined them in their trip.

Camping

The bus dropped us off in the town of Tabacundo. They continued up by a dirt road and I followed them all the way up. Once we got to the crater rim of Mojanda, I decided to stay up there in order to do some climbing. They continued hiking down the crater and camped at the lake's shores.

As soon as the night arrived I got in my tent and started to get ready to sleep. It was a quiet night, I spent most of the night looking at the shooting stars that crossed the ecuadorian sky from side to side.

The Climb

Early in the morning I got off from the tent and climbed up the steep slopes of Cerro Negro. It was a pretty easy 2nd Class climb, on wet rock and grass. I had climbed for about 1 hour when I got to the summit (4,260 m / 13,976 ft). The visibility near the top wasn't good and I didn't realized that 3 andean wolves were hanging out at the top. They scared the hell out of me!, and much more when they barked at me. I just hoped they will be the ones who runaway down the summit. Luckily that happened, and I stood on it.

I got to see the whole Mojanda volcano from up there as well as the huge lagoon of the same name down below the crater. Waited at the top for a couple of minutes and went down to retrieve my tent.

The weather got better once at the base of the mountain. Antisana and surroundings looked just great from up there.

Images

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