Ecuador Volcanoes, day three. This journey is only three days old but the number of firsts for me has surpassed the last three years. What I mean by firsts is simply having an experience down here I have not had in the 15 years I’ve been guiding these mountains. For example, I’ve never ventured off the equator tour to go find local home brewed corn beer. I’ve never been told by one of my climbers that they decided to venture out onto the fire escape, only to lock themselves out, with their roommate, and wind up on roof of the lobby looking down directly at the front desk waving to get let back in. I also have never broken two hours ascent time to the summit of Rucu Pinchincha, which we did yesterday without even trying. Yes, that’s fast....... To continue this trend, we blitzed our second acclimating hike today on a mountain called Fuya Fuya, reached the summit in record time, decided we should keep going and found ourselves on the second summit a kilometer away that I have never even considered going to. The views of Quito were amazing and the team was psyched to have two summits reached instead of one. Right when I thought the day should find its way back to normal, I was again surprised. When we descended and reached the parking lot a few of the guys asked if the lake we were parked next to was good for swimming. After a few typical guy jokes about fish that swim where fish don’t belong and shrunken heads, not attached to our necks, three crazy men stripped off their cloths, high fived and jumped into the lake. Of course at that point jokes about great white somethings happened but jokes aside, swimming in that lake has never happened! Kudos to my “brave” teammates who took the plunge. After those shenanigans, we all piled back into the bus to head into Otovalo to praise our adventurous spirits and eat some pizza. At this point I was just waiting for an earthquake or meteorite to hit the bus, just to keep the streak alive. It didn’t happen.....Gracias! Now we are resting nicely at our beautiful hacienda soaking up the warm sun and humid air. When the weather isn’t raining, it can be almost perfect. In a couple hours we will have another nice team dinner then prepare to head to Cayambe. Our fist “big” objective of the trip. Stay turned for tomorrow’s dispatch on high intensity market negotiating, crazy 4x4 truck rides and a new sleeping altitude for most. With this team I have no idea what might happen. RMI Guide Adam Knoff & Team