By far the hardest thing I've ever done...

Having spent a couple of days exploring Quito we headed south of the city to the volcano region. Day 1 was spent trekking up Ilinizas (4900m) which was all going according to plan until we were about 100m from the summit when the weather rapidly changed bringing in a storm. At this point our guide Carlos instructed us to emergency abseil down the side of the volcano to avoid being struck by lightening!

Undeterred we set our sights on Cotopaxi - the world's largest active, snow-covered volcano at a whopping 5900m! So yesterday we arrived at the National Park and trekked up to the refuge hut with all our kit, we spent a couple of hours trialling the crampons, ice axes and harnesses before heading to bed at 6.30pm (bearing in mind we're in a wooden hut at 4800m, the height of Mont Blanc, with absolutely no heating and it was FREEZING). The climb started at midnight which we thought was purely for us to reach the summit at sunrise, however it transpired it was really so that the snow was at its most compact and therefore risk of falling into crevasses was reduced(!)

Anyway we set off not exactly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed but excited nonetheless. After about an hour's climbing (we had 6 more to go) the altitude began to affect me and as our Ecuadorian guide does this climb pretty much every day there was little sympathy. We climbed harnessed together with our crampons and ice axes throughout the night with only the moon lighting our path up the volcano which was a real experience. Towards 6am the sun began to rise bringing with it an incredible morning skyline and we realised just how high we actually were - probably 2km above the clouds - and how severe the drops and crevasses all around us were.

We finally reached the summit at around 7am which took A LOT of grit and determination from us both (I at this point was in floods of tears!) Tom says it was by far the hardest climb he's ever done and it was definitely the biggest challenge I've ever undertaken. The view from the top was incredible and something that we will both remember as a highlight of our trip, it literally looked like Heaven on Earth.

Pictures will follow...