We were on a mission in South America to scale as many mountains as possible! When we read about Rucu Pichincha, a 4680m high active volcano, and then realised how close it was to the city we were immediately heading that way.
We read posts about how this hike could be dangerous due to muggings and even rapes en route. However, these reports are now from long ago and when we were there we never felt in any danger. We went on a Sunday and there were many people around. If you are concerned, go in a group and go on a weekend.
The TeleferiQo cable car is part of Quito’s public transport system and takes you part way up (4100m). I’m never really sure about this approach with mountains. Isn’t it cheating if you get a lift half way up?! But there’s not really an option to walk from the town, so this is the way that it is done. (ADDITION; after more mountain climbs further in to our trip I now say it is definitely NOT cheating. Sometimes you need all the help and energy you can get; take it!).
The TeleferiQo stops at a look out point and I think some people just come up for the view. It has a lovely shop and cafe in there for pre/post coffee and beers! Although the directions I had read sound simple we actually got quite confused from here. You walk straight out of the TeleferiQo, past the buildings on the right. A few hundred metres down the road, just before the road bears left there is a gate. Go off of the path and up through the gate. A little further down there you will see a lookout on to the city and the horses for hire and this is the start of the trail. It’s straightforward from here. Don’t forget to look back for fantastic views over Quito!
For me this is a do-able but pretty challenging walk. My energy was sapped by the first few hours of long, straight, gradual climb. The last hour was rugged. There are stones to climb over and a little bit of rock scaling before, absolutely exhausted, I pulled myself up and on to the top. We celebrated with the chocolate that we had bought; well, it was Easter after all!
After four hours of tough walking and actually at times not knowing if I was going to make it up there (I found out that cake is great for these moments of doubt. A little bit of cake and I can get a whole lot further!) we summited to a fantastic view of …. absolutely nothing. As is the luck of the draw with mountain climbs, the nice day that we were having suddenly turned. Clouds were below us and that’s all we could see!
After only five minutes on top a local advised us to go down to beat the storm. The steep part which we had just climbed was much more fun going the other way. Once you get past the top section the rest is tiny, quarry style stones which you can pretty much slide down. We got just back here before the heavens opened. IT. RAINED. SO. MUCH. Next came the golf ball sized hail stones, which were painful! Lucky for us we had our waterproofs but there were locals out there with nothing; some of them in dress shoes! Not quite sure why this is such a thing in South America but whatever the guys are doing, they do it in nice shoes.
We fast-walked/ran/slipped our way down and were completely soaked when we got there; despite said waterproofs. The look-out point cafe was heaving, as was the queue for the TeleferiQo. We waited well over an hour in the queue which was a bit of a pain. A fellow backpacker told us later that with our ‘foreigner’ tickets you get priority boarding and should have headed to the front of the queue. Despite paying more I am not sure how I would have felt about pushing past all the shivering locals in their t-shirts to get on first!
A wet end to our hike but a very decent climb right in the city. If we had had more time in Quito I would have tried to go back and beat our time!
GO | Take the Trolebus or taxi to the Teleferiqo (although, we used Trolebus and still had to take a taxi up to the Teleferiqo station). TeleferiQo is $8.50 per foreigner. Entry to the hike is free. Start in the morning as Quito has frequent rain in the afternoon.
