EXPEDITION AMAZON - Summer 2011 - DAY 1

On day 1 we raced up the Cotopaxi glacier reaching about seventeen thousand feet altitude, climbing its snow cap, where the oxygen content of the air is about half that at sea level and the head throb, still 2600 feet shy from its ridge. 5 steps - stop, 5 steps - stop...gasping for air. Is this the Amazon? We thought then, uneasily that we did not at all understand what we were getting into.