Cotopaxi and Beyond

I will preface this entry by saying that it is very long, and possibly full of errors since I am currently on a word processor that lacks correctional functions in English, so my apologies in advance. However, the bulk of it is about climbing Cotopaxi, a popular Ecuadorian volcano, so I thought that was worth the space. Happy Reading!

Since leaving Cuenca, we have had quite the adventure: Cotopaxi! To start with, we took a beautiful trip up to Las Cajas, a national park outside of Cuenca. The point of this was to acclimatize our bodies to higher altitude as much as we could. After climbing a peak in Las Cajas, we had to come to Quito in order to arrange a guide for our trip up the mountain, so we took the eight-hour trip from Cuenca to Quito, and once everything was all booked, we climbed Pichincha, a mountain just outside of Quito. (You have to take a cable car from the city in order to start the hike.) Not having any food, however, we decided to turn back just a little before we reached 4,700 meters. Through this process, we didn’t feel light-headed or dizzy, signs of altitude sickness, so we figured we were generally ready for Cotopaxi.

Next we left Quito. We could have stayed in the city and gotten a free ride (saving us two dollars) to Cotopaxi National Park, but we wanted to try to acclimatize ourselves further. So we hopped on a bus and found the cheaper of two hotels near Cotopaxi, which was just off of the highway. Not being at a high altitude, however, we wanted to go to a nearby lake to hike around a bit in order to be sure we were acclimatized. Just after checking in to “Hotel El Turista,” we hired a driver to take us up to the lake. However, this 25-minute drive cost us about 30 dollars! Plus, the lake was actually much lower than any of the mountains we had previously climbed, and to make matters worse, we were only there for about 45 minutes before we walked the entirety of the lake. We wanted to stay a little longer, but I was getting pretty tired, and it was just starting to rain. Feeling a bit frustrated at the high cost of the driver, the low-ish altitude, and the short amount of time we were there, we begrudgingly told our driver that we would like to head back.

For the remainder of the day, we read, wrote in journals, and listened to podcasts, and had a chance to talk with our hostess for a while. At first we really liked her. She seemed to relate with us about how other businesses tend to rip foreigners off during their travels in Ecuador, and we were glad that we didn’t stay at the other hotel that was twice the price. Before long, we realized that we wouldn’t have enough food for breakfast in the morning, so we let her know that we would like her to cook some for us. Having talked with her a bit, we trusted that the price wouldn’t be too extravagant. (She mentioned that the price for a meal should be no more than three dollars per person in a previous conversation.) Little did we know that this breakfast would cost us 5 dollars each.

All this aside, we were still excited to get up the mountain. Our guides picked us up at the hotel and drove us up to the Cotopaxi restaurant where we would put on all of our cold-weather gear and eat some lunch (cookies, chips, and soup). At this point, getting to know our group was really fun. There was Michael, a Korean-American working as a lawyer in Korea; Greg, a well-traveled consultant of multiple talents working for the pharmeceutical industry; and a Swiss guy (whose name I obviously forgot) working in Quito with a Swiss engineering firm. After we get geared up, we drive to the parking lot at the bottom of the mountain and start to make our ascent up to the refuge (just over 4800m). The weather up the mountain wasn´t great. In fact, it was snowing fairly hard on us. Our guide, wanting to get us out of the weather as soon as possible, kept us at a steady pace up the mountain. By the time we got to the top, we were sufficiently out of breath and ready to set down our heavy packs.

Once at the refuge – a building large enough to house maybe 70 people or so – we claimed our beds and sat down for hot tea and dinner. We got to know our group even better, and it was here that an adjascent group of two Americans started talking to Kait; they let her know that they were working at a school in Quito that had just lost a literature teacher and were looking for another. After some discussion, Kait and I decided that I should pursue this opportunity, but more on that later.

At about 6:30 or 7pm, we crawled into bed (after I snuck out to take some night shots of the refuge and of nearby city lights). I, well aware that 7pm was REALLY early to try to get some sleep, just lay there sleepless for a very long time. Before long, I noticed that my left nostril had decided to close, exactly the opposite of what anyone would want in a high-altitude, air-thin environment like that. Naturally, I developed a small headache that grew into a very large headache which further prevented me from sleeping. For hours and hours, it went like this. After a while, people started stirring, and I asked Greg what time it was. He told me that it was almost midnight, the time we were supposed to get up to start getting ready for the ascent to the summit. I decided that there was no point in trying to lay there the extra 10 minutes, so I started to get up.

Almost immediately, I felt abnormally hot and a bit dizzy. It was here that I was almost certain that I had altitude sickness. Fighting this feeling, I made my way downstairs, first to the doorway where I could get some fresh air, and then eventually to the table where I could feebly attempt to eat something in order to have some energy. One of the symptoms of altitude sickness – if not the tell-tale symptom – is a lack of appetite, and despite my best efforts, I could hardly eat anything. Once Kait joined me downstairs after a long absence from the table, she alerted me that she didn´t feel too well either. At this point, I was still feeling dizzy and my head was pounding, but I knew I had to put on my gear. Against my body´s will, I managed to rig myself up, and before long – and after some help from the guide with our clampons (spikey clamps that fit to the bottom of the boots) – we were outside and ready to go.

Being a bit behind the other groups out of the door, we told our guide that we would be happy to take it nice and slow. Greg, an experienced climber (who, anecdotally, had just come from the Galapagos, a very low elevation) told me that he had overcome these symptoms before just be being in the fresh air. Heartened, I hoped this would be true. I let Kait be ahead of me and behind the guide on the way up because she had been having problems breathing the night before, and this was instantly what she started feeling as she started up.Also, I was suffering from a bad stomach ache as well as unusual overheating, the kind associated generally with nausea, so it was clear to me that my body wanted to throw up, but I just couldn´t get it to. Other groups passed us until I was sure that we were the last of the people who had decided to leave the refuge. Our guide, the most kind, encouraging human being alive, was saddened by our agreement that after only 30 minutes, we were ready to throw in the towel. The decisión was originally Kait´s, but I knew that I wouldn´t likely make it much further – or that at least I wouldn´t feel very good at all if I did. Kait suggested maybe that I tag along with another group, which I could have done, but I knew I would have slowed them down and that I essentially wouldn´t be able to turn back if I needed to without making the whole group turn back. So we headed back to the refuge.

Once there, I started to strip my shell clothes, and get ready for the sweet embrace of sleep, but before I could so much as hit my head to the non-existant pillow, I felt the urge to do what my body had been waiting for. So I urged Kait to hand me my boots, and I headed downstairs and out the door. I remembered thinking how amazing it was that the human body seems to somehow know when it is okay to throw up and when not to because it took maybe two full minutes to get my boots on and out the door. Then it wasn´t even five seconds later that I was re-tasting the cookies and soup that I had had for lunch. After doing this three times, I left the freezing (literally) cold air and crawled into bed. After ensuring we would be warm enough, Kait and I fell asleep for a few hours. We were later awakened at what must have been four or five in the morning by people returning from the trip; these were the ones who did not get sick.
I knew that they had returned way too early, and I began to wonder why. After a few minutes of much motion, shedding of gear, and settling into beds, I overheard a non-sick climber tell a sick one near us that since so much fresh snow had fallen on the mountain, the guides decided that nobody should traverse the more dangerous parts that started about 800 meters from the summit. Although I felt bad that no one could make it, I somehow felt a little better that since I and Kait couldn´t make it, there was some kind of universal justice in the fact that no one else could either.

Kait and I soon woke up, and I went outside to take some pictures of the rising sun over the landscape. (I guess the same view I was photographing had been shown in the film Baraka). A little later, the sun was well up, and it was a beautifully clear day, a large change from the previous day, so we were glad that at least we were able to get some clear shots of the surrounding landscape before we left.

Before long, we were down the mountain, and then in Quito…again. We actually wanted to go to Latacunga for the night, but we decided that it would be better to try to apply at the school with a missing teacher. So I emailed the school promptly upon arrival on Sunday, and I got an interview at the school even though the position had already been filled. (I was applying for 2011-2012. The interview went very well, and I have high hopes for working in the school. With an International Baccalaureate program, it would be excellent learning experience for me. So far nothing is for sure, but the interviewer seemed very positive, so we´ll see.

Now, Kait and I are back in Cuenca. Since I had to call schools (that I have recently applied to), we decided to stay in a place that could at least guarantee decent internet access. We actually wanted to be in Vilcabamba by now, but it does not have decent internet (it is very rural), so we will make it there tomorrow. After that, we will be able to start traveling to Iquitos, Peru, the largest city in the world that is inaccessible by road. We will travel a few days into Peru, and then we will take a boat up the Amazon river for about 3-6 days (but hopefully only 3!)