So the morning I leave for Cotopaxi, I have to be at the tour shop for 8.30am so I decide to get up at 6am to give me time to have a shower, put my backpack and my belongings in the hostel storage and get some breakfast by the time I had done all that it was 7am so I still had an hour and a half to waste so I decided to go to the internet café for a bit. Once the time got closer I headed to the tour place were I had to wait for my guide to arrive, while I was waiting there was a guy from Canada who was also waiting for his guide, after a while the guy I paid my money to came over to me and gave me $30 back and said that the other guy in the shop would be joining me on the climb, so I saved so over all I managed to save $70 and get a climbing partner, which I was pleased with because I thought that it would be better to climb with someone that way you would be more determined to get to the top and not be the one who caused everyone to have to go back!. Once we were in the 4x4 heading to the first campsite we got a full shot view of the mountain, which from the distance we were at it was huge, and we were driving closer so it was getting bigger all the time, at this point I started to get butterfly's in my stomach and was wondering what the hell I was doing, I must be mad I have never climbed a big hill in my life never mind one or the worlds highest active volcano's, im never gonna reach the summit!!, for christs sake it takes 5 to 8 hours from the refuge which was already at 4800mts and the summit was 5800mts, then there was other moments were I was really positive and determined that I would get to the top if it killed me, I wanted to experience the sight of the sunrise that you see from the summit. We arrived at the first campsite where we were told to put our bags in the rooms and get ready to go climbing we got our stuff together got chanced and headed off straight away towards a mountain called Rumanauoi which was 4690mtrs above sea level and our guide explained to us that we would be climbing this mountain to got used to the altitude and that we would take it quite slow, on the way up there were some amazing views back down the mountain large plains so open and green with lots of thin streams cutting through them, I think we were about half way up when I realised that I was finding it much harder to breath and I was breathing a lot heavier and I asked Ryan if he was finding the same problem, which he was, our guide said that it was because the oxygen is much thinner at this hight and it was normal and there was nothing to worry about, we carried on until we got to an area that was about a 50 degree slope that was completely constructed of a sandy texture soil and was very tiring to get beyond, but if we were going to reach the summit we needed to reach the top of this section. Once beyond it the terrine change completely to rocky so we had to start using out hands to climb up the rock, all was good until you look back and see the sandy 50 degree slope that you would slide down if you lost your footing or grip, the last few mtrs were the hardest coz of the actual climbing involved but we managed to get to the summit which was nothing more than literally a peak that you had to straddle to actually be on the “summit” buy this time we were so high that the clouds were all around and you couldn't see anything over about 3mtrs away, it was while we were straddling the summit that the guide informed us not to fall down the right side as it was a 600mtr sheer drop till you would hit any land, at which point to the left but only for about 30 seconds the clouds vanished and reviled the most spectacular view of the plains with the sum shining down over them making them look so lush and having the most rich green colour, while on the summit had said that we had done really well to reach the top in the time we had done it in (1h 45m), most people take about 3 to 4 hours, which was a gr8 confidence booster and made me feel that it just might be possible for me to reach the top of Cotopaxi!. I think the decent only took us about 45mins maximum because of the section that was 50 degrees you had to do a mix of a run and a skip otherwise you would just slide down on your ass. Once we got back to the bottom we headed beck to the campsite had dinner and sat around the fire chatting to another guy who was there with his guide and was going to climb the same night as us, about 11pm headed of to bed to as we had an early start to get to the refuge at Cotopaxi.