We finished repacking our bags for the hike up to Cotopaxi's hut, and then killed time each in our own way. I was trying to read from a Paul Thoreaux book, but the particular strain of elevator music playing in the hacienda finally got to me. More than one repetition of the Andean flute rendition of Hollywood movie themes CD was more than I could take.

I took a walk outside and found Scott had fled the music as well. The friendly ranch dogs followed us a round and I found a few of the tiny blue, while and yellow ground flowers I remembered from the trek into Pisco's base camp in Peru.

After a light lunch we loaded the Land Cruiser once again but worried about a slow leak in the rear passenger side tire. Removing the spare became a major chore when we discovered that the strut the spare was bolted to had bent and the wrench wouldn't slide in to loosen the nut. Scott and Hugo finally used the jack to pressure the spare into alignment and 45 minutes later we were ready to load ourselves back into the vehicle.

The clouds had rolled in again, covering the upper slopes of Cotopaxi as we arrived at the part and began the winding route to the end of the road. From here we shouldered our packs and began the 30-minute walk up to the hut.

This hut wasn't quite as nice as the one on Cayambe, and was much more crowded. Cotopaxi is a much more popular climbing objective given its symmetrical cone shape. Numerous groups were here sharing kitchen space and all preparing to head up to the summit tonight.

Scott and I played hacky-sack out on the stone patio in the evening under the "zona de avalanchas" sign. Hugo joined in to help us break our hacky-sack altitude record.

Charles and Travis planned for a 10:30pm departure while the rest of us hoped to leave at 12:30am. Renato ended up with an upset stomach, so Bob, Scott, Steve and I became a rope team.