OK, so this part is written in an internet cafe, and as such will not be as elegant nor informational as the start of the Cotopaxi story. So it goes, sayeth Vonnegut. The last third of the hike was way harder than the first two thirds, which made it pretty incredibly hard. The slopes got slopier, the cold got colder, the wind was windier. Andrea started bobbing and weaving like a losing boxer in the 12th round, but after a rest to eat some chocolate and in conjunction with sunrise she suddenly came alive and went from walking corpse to ball of energy. My left foot had troubles with being extremely cold and having a crampon-staying-on problem, so every third step I had to stop and shake it.
One of the final ascents involved our guide going up before us as it was so treacherous and steep, slamming his axe into the ground, putting a rope around it and belaying us upwards. At the top of this 30 foot climb we both lay on our backs panting, but the top was only 20 minutes away so we were up shortly and on our way. The sun rose quickly, and at one point we were on the shaded side of the mountain and off in the distance we could see the pyramid shaped shadow of Cotopaxi on the clouds in the distance.
I was dog tired when I reached the top, probably as physically tired as I've ever been in my life. I couldn't even raise my head for the first five minutes, but when I finally was able to I was rewarded with some of the most spectacular views I've ever seen. Everything was clear, and we were a good 2000 feet above the cloud line, looking out at the other volcanos in the Ecuadorian mountain range. Cotopaxi is the second-tallest active volcano in the world, and the huge crater visible from the top reminded us of that fact with its presence and sulfurous odor. We hung out for a bit, took a lot of pics and video, laughed and embraced and loved the hell out of it.
And then we ran down the mountain! Well, practically ran -- our guide hurried us the whole way as avelanche danger increases as the day moves past 8am. The last 45 minutes the glacier was so slushy that Andrea and I both fell over four times in a row, and our guide told us to take off our crampons and slide down on our butts, which we were happy to do.
We arrived back to the sleeping cabin exhausted and exhilarated, to meet with Jason who was neither of those things. Apparently Michaela, the Italian girl, had felt too crappy only TWO HOURS into the hike and they'd had to turn around. He was pretty bummed, and as much as we tried not to tell him how amazing it was, I think he gathered that it was monumental.
And then back to Quito! And then spent the night on a booze bus in Quito! And then a night bus to Tabuga! Then on to Canoa for a birthday party! Lets just say that Andrea and I don't know how to say 'no' to a party. Amazing time, with the only downside being that I still can't feel the toes on my left foot (they don't hurt, I just don't have a lot of feeling). We think that because I have a little bit of feeling, it'll come back eventually. Keep your fingers crossed! We've been mad busy since then, but that'll be another post...
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Cotopaxi to the Maxi
After an excruciatingly excellent few days catching up in Quito, Andrea and I met up with Jason (in from the Lala Loor Reserve / Tabuga) to journey out to Latacunga, the first step of the journey up Volcan Cotopaxi. Latacunga is only an hour and a half bus ride from Quito – which rings up at a buck-fifty fare – but the bus was leaving as we exited the taxi at the Quito bus terminal. No matter, to catch it as it left all we had to do was catch it, literally, running about half a mile slightly hunched with our heavy packs until the bus stopped at a nearby roundabout and we could jump on as it moved a bit slower. Technically illegal in Ecuador, which is why we had to jump on at the roundabout and not closer to the terminal where La Policia were stationed to prevent those types of shenanigans.
Shortly thereafter we arrived in Latacunga, where Andrea and Jason knew another PCV (Jason used to be a PCV in Andrea's omnibus but exited early over medical issues, and now runs the reserve that Andrea originally went to Tabuga to work on) that had a couple extra beds in his apartment, plus a hookup with the a local mountain-climbing-tour company. John was his name, he was a pretty funny one and it sounds like we'll be seeing him again shortly when we get back to Quito for the Ecuador v Argentina soccer game on June 10th. Anyway, as advertised, we got set up with a tight Cotopaxi climbing company and went out that night to meet those folks and a girl that wanted to make our hiking threesome into a foursome. She was Italian, seemed alright and was named Michaela which will be funny to some.
After agreeing to terms with the climbing company, we went shopping at local markets and returned back to John's apartment to fix up a pretty amazing spaghetti meal. Carbo loading folks, as this wasn't a little hill we had in our sights. Cotopaxi is just under 20,000 feet in elevation, the second tallest active volcano in the world, and the lodge where we'd be staying our first night rests at 15,000 feet and would come after a 2 hour hike the next day.
Woke up the next morning after my first very good night of sleep in Ecuador – weird that it was on a hard futon, but appreciated nonetheless – and had an excellent chorizo scramble prepared by all those crazy PCVs I now hang out with. At around 10am we headed to the climbing company, where we spent the next hour or so getting outfitted with the necessary equipment – three layers of pants, two layers of gloves, ice axe, headlamp, headwrap/hat, crampons and surely a couple other things I've forgotten. Like... a climbing harness, so that we could tie ourselves to our guide.
Then off to Cotopaxi! We loaded into a cool white-and-wood International Scout for the drive to the mountain – myself, Andrea, Jason, Michaela and the two guides, Diego and Joaquin. Decently beautiful drive to the mountain, although it was misty and cold most of the way, as Latacunga is at around 10,000 feet elevation – even at the equator, it gets pretty cold at that height. We were impressed and a bit taken aback when Cotopaxi's flank stuck out of a cloud bank, and hustled to take pictures as we'd heard that might be the only time that we'd get a decent view, due to heavy fog. Hopping out of the truck, we bundled ourselves into our coats and heavy packs laden with snacks, sleeping bags, ice axes and other assorted badass climbing accoutrements.
The first day's walk wasn't crazily hard or technical, just a two-hours walk up fairly soft volcanic gravel at around 15,000 feet elevation. As long as we took it slow it was pretty easy, although like laboring up a 60-degree angle of deep, beach-like sandy stuff. I found that I'd pretty much trained perfectly for this first stretch, what with living up in the Rockies in Alma, CO and taking two or three 6-mile runs per week. So I didn't have to take it slow, and instead just pushed ahead of the group to see how fast I could make it.
Got up to the lodge pretty quick and hung out waiting for the rest of the group to emerge from the mist, camera ready. They arrived 10-20 mins later, but everybody looked pretty damn fit and ready for the bigger climb. Jason, who's never lived above sea level in his 27 years, looked especially spry. Andrea was thanking the fact that she'd been up in the mountains of Cayambe for the past three months (training the new PCVs) for her good high-altitude condition.
Joaquin cooked up yet another pasta dinner as Diego showed us how to stop ourselves when sliding down the icy glacier. We all took turns falling onto a mattress and slamming our ice axes into the wooden floor of the lodge; Andrea and I both excelled at this acting process due to our extensive training in middle school theatre. Jason sucked, he was probably too much of a meathead in middle school.
After some card games we headed off to bed at 7pm or so; it was decided that because I was in such better altitude shape that the three others would take off on the hike at midnight (hopefully after some sleep) and I'd leave at 1pm with Diego, catching up to the rest a couple hours in. Andrea immediately fell asleep on the small bunk beds in the lodge, while Jason and I got an estimated 23 minutes of sleep combined. At eleven we were still wide awake, ready to go (even though I knew I'd have to wait a couple hours) but the guides came up and told us it was far too windy to leave right now, so everyone would wait until 1pm to take off. We rousted around midnight and had a nice little breakfast of yogurt and granola, toast, jam and cheese. Even without sleep, we couldn't feel tired. Cotopaxi awaited.
The energy was palpable as we tightened up our climbing belts and secured our ice axes. After a short bathroom break, we were on our way. The first half-hour or so was on crumbly volcanic rock, illuminated in the pitch blackness by our headlamps. The sky overhead was achingly clear as a result of the high winds, bright stars poking violently through the dark blanket of night. The lights of Quito looked surprisingly close, a long array of yellow pooling in the valley at our backs.
We were the last group to leave, but came upon the next group (out of around six groups or so) by the time we encountered the glacier. Here we sat to affix our crampons, and my crampons took about 20 minutes for the guides to latch on, because we hadn't prepared them correctly at the lodge and they were too small for my boots. This would have two unfortunate consequences: first, that my right crampon would be slipping off, no matter how tight and snug we got it, for the next eight hours of grueling hiking. Second, because it was taking so long, the guides decided to split the four of us up so that at least some folks could leave without waiting for me. Andrea and I were left with Diego, while Jason and the Italian bird went ahead with Joaquin. This proved to be disastrous for Jason.
After getting my crampons on – but not before one of the straps had snapped, never a good sign – we tied ourselves to Diego. Andrea was in the middle, and I took up the rear with the heavy backpack full of snacks, water, and the remainder of our climbing rope bundled around my shoulders. And then we began our ascent of the Cotopaxi glacier, where DEATH awaited!
Well, not really death per se, but I wanted to keep your interest piqued.
Anyhoo, Diego sized up his charges, declared us fit, and decided to push us to our limits. After a few large zig-zags across the glacier as the other groups were doing, he turned back and spoke over the wind to the effect that we'd pass all of the groups in front of us. With that he set a course sans zig-zags, straight up the face of the glacier, maybe a 45-degree angle at this point. Seemed hard at the time, but it wouldn't after we'd had all that the mountain had to give us further along the hike.
We buzzed past Jason's party like they were sitting still, and another one besides, before we had to stop for the first of many five-minutes sessions of me wacking my left crampon with my ice axe and cursing vehemently. The air was crisp but not bitingly cold yet, and the only complaint of chill was from Andrea's feet, and even then only when we had to stop and stand. An hour and a half of hard hiking in, we were feeling good. Where the moonlight and our headlamps reached, we could see massive snow formations all around us in undulating bursts and waves. At times we came across steep ascents that required us to turn sideways and take small sidesteps, pitching heavily onto our axes. The headlamps of other groups twinkled steadily on the trail ahead of us, but swung closer every time we paused to look.
Three hours in, we paused beneath a hulking hill of ice to take water. Andrea asked Diego how much more time we had in the hike, and he looked up the mountain and figured that it would be another five hours. This was around 4am, as we'd taken off at 1am, so another 5 hours would put us at 9am, cutting too close to the mandatory 9am time to leave the top of Cotopaxi due to avalanche danger on the descent. I checked and rechecked this on my watch, but decided not to tell Andrea that we might not make the top given that estimate. We put our heads down and soldiered on.
We passed another three groups or so over the course of the next two hours. By this time we were noticing far less of our surroundings, focusing instead on the footstep to come.
Shortly thereafter we arrived in Latacunga, where Andrea and Jason knew another PCV (Jason used to be a PCV in Andrea's omnibus but exited early over medical issues, and now runs the reserve that Andrea originally went to Tabuga to work on) that had a couple extra beds in his apartment, plus a hookup with the a local mountain-climbing-tour company. John was his name, he was a pretty funny one and it sounds like we'll be seeing him again shortly when we get back to Quito for the Ecuador v Argentina soccer game on June 10th. Anyway, as advertised, we got set up with a tight Cotopaxi climbing company and went out that night to meet those folks and a girl that wanted to make our hiking threesome into a foursome. She was Italian, seemed alright and was named Michaela which will be funny to some.
After agreeing to terms with the climbing company, we went shopping at local markets and returned back to John's apartment to fix up a pretty amazing spaghetti meal. Carbo loading folks, as this wasn't a little hill we had in our sights. Cotopaxi is just under 20,000 feet in elevation, the second tallest active volcano in the world, and the lodge where we'd be staying our first night rests at 15,000 feet and would come after a 2 hour hike the next day.
Woke up the next morning after my first very good night of sleep in Ecuador – weird that it was on a hard futon, but appreciated nonetheless – and had an excellent chorizo scramble prepared by all those crazy PCVs I now hang out with. At around 10am we headed to the climbing company, where we spent the next hour or so getting outfitted with the necessary equipment – three layers of pants, two layers of gloves, ice axe, headlamp, headwrap/hat, crampons and surely a couple other things I've forgotten. Like... a climbing harness, so that we could tie ourselves to our guide.
Then off to Cotopaxi! We loaded into a cool white-and-wood International Scout for the drive to the mountain – myself, Andrea, Jason, Michaela and the two guides, Diego and Joaquin. Decently beautiful drive to the mountain, although it was misty and cold most of the way, as Latacunga is at around 10,000 feet elevation – even at the equator, it gets pretty cold at that height. We were impressed and a bit taken aback when Cotopaxi's flank stuck out of a cloud bank, and hustled to take pictures as we'd heard that might be the only time that we'd get a decent view, due to heavy fog. Hopping out of the truck, we bundled ourselves into our coats and heavy packs laden with snacks, sleeping bags, ice axes and other assorted badass climbing accoutrements.
The first day's walk wasn't crazily hard or technical, just a two-hours walk up fairly soft volcanic gravel at around 15,000 feet elevation. As long as we took it slow it was pretty easy, although like laboring up a 60-degree angle of deep, beach-like sandy stuff. I found that I'd pretty much trained perfectly for this first stretch, what with living up in the Rockies in Alma, CO and taking two or three 6-mile runs per week. So I didn't have to take it slow, and instead just pushed ahead of the group to see how fast I could make it.
Got up to the lodge pretty quick and hung out waiting for the rest of the group to emerge from the mist, camera ready. They arrived 10-20 mins later, but everybody looked pretty damn fit and ready for the bigger climb. Jason, who's never lived above sea level in his 27 years, looked especially spry. Andrea was thanking the fact that she'd been up in the mountains of Cayambe for the past three months (training the new PCVs) for her good high-altitude condition.
Joaquin cooked up yet another pasta dinner as Diego showed us how to stop ourselves when sliding down the icy glacier. We all took turns falling onto a mattress and slamming our ice axes into the wooden floor of the lodge; Andrea and I both excelled at this acting process due to our extensive training in middle school theatre. Jason sucked, he was probably too much of a meathead in middle school.
After some card games we headed off to bed at 7pm or so; it was decided that because I was in such better altitude shape that the three others would take off on the hike at midnight (hopefully after some sleep) and I'd leave at 1pm with Diego, catching up to the rest a couple hours in. Andrea immediately fell asleep on the small bunk beds in the lodge, while Jason and I got an estimated 23 minutes of sleep combined. At eleven we were still wide awake, ready to go (even though I knew I'd have to wait a couple hours) but the guides came up and told us it was far too windy to leave right now, so everyone would wait until 1pm to take off. We rousted around midnight and had a nice little breakfast of yogurt and granola, toast, jam and cheese. Even without sleep, we couldn't feel tired. Cotopaxi awaited.
The energy was palpable as we tightened up our climbing belts and secured our ice axes. After a short bathroom break, we were on our way. The first half-hour or so was on crumbly volcanic rock, illuminated in the pitch blackness by our headlamps. The sky overhead was achingly clear as a result of the high winds, bright stars poking violently through the dark blanket of night. The lights of Quito looked surprisingly close, a long array of yellow pooling in the valley at our backs.
We were the last group to leave, but came upon the next group (out of around six groups or so) by the time we encountered the glacier. Here we sat to affix our crampons, and my crampons took about 20 minutes for the guides to latch on, because we hadn't prepared them correctly at the lodge and they were too small for my boots. This would have two unfortunate consequences: first, that my right crampon would be slipping off, no matter how tight and snug we got it, for the next eight hours of grueling hiking. Second, because it was taking so long, the guides decided to split the four of us up so that at least some folks could leave without waiting for me. Andrea and I were left with Diego, while Jason and the Italian bird went ahead with Joaquin. This proved to be disastrous for Jason.
After getting my crampons on – but not before one of the straps had snapped, never a good sign – we tied ourselves to Diego. Andrea was in the middle, and I took up the rear with the heavy backpack full of snacks, water, and the remainder of our climbing rope bundled around my shoulders. And then we began our ascent of the Cotopaxi glacier, where DEATH awaited!
Well, not really death per se, but I wanted to keep your interest piqued.
Anyhoo, Diego sized up his charges, declared us fit, and decided to push us to our limits. After a few large zig-zags across the glacier as the other groups were doing, he turned back and spoke over the wind to the effect that we'd pass all of the groups in front of us. With that he set a course sans zig-zags, straight up the face of the glacier, maybe a 45-degree angle at this point. Seemed hard at the time, but it wouldn't after we'd had all that the mountain had to give us further along the hike.
We buzzed past Jason's party like they were sitting still, and another one besides, before we had to stop for the first of many five-minutes sessions of me wacking my left crampon with my ice axe and cursing vehemently. The air was crisp but not bitingly cold yet, and the only complaint of chill was from Andrea's feet, and even then only when we had to stop and stand. An hour and a half of hard hiking in, we were feeling good. Where the moonlight and our headlamps reached, we could see massive snow formations all around us in undulating bursts and waves. At times we came across steep ascents that required us to turn sideways and take small sidesteps, pitching heavily onto our axes. The headlamps of other groups twinkled steadily on the trail ahead of us, but swung closer every time we paused to look.
Three hours in, we paused beneath a hulking hill of ice to take water. Andrea asked Diego how much more time we had in the hike, and he looked up the mountain and figured that it would be another five hours. This was around 4am, as we'd taken off at 1am, so another 5 hours would put us at 9am, cutting too close to the mandatory 9am time to leave the top of Cotopaxi due to avalanche danger on the descent. I checked and rechecked this on my watch, but decided not to tell Andrea that we might not make the top given that estimate. We put our heads down and soldiered on.
We passed another three groups or so over the course of the next two hours. By this time we were noticing far less of our surroundings, focusing instead on the footstep to come.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Made it down Cotopaxi!
Made it down the mountain, was amazing, long post and pics to follow but just wanted to let folks know I'm safe. Tight!
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
How to do a Layover
So... I scheduled a nine-hour layover in L.A. when flying down to Ecuador, for reasons that I no longer remember. I gave my friend-from-New-Zealand Andy a holler, who is a production assistant there in LaLa land, to see if he'd pick me up to grab dinner or something during the layover. I'd let him know I'd be through a long time back, so I gave him holler on Saturday night to see if we were still on for Sunday.
Andy's response on Saturday: OH, shit... you're in LA now? Tomorrow? Sorry man, I'm hammered. Oh.... this girl gave me tickets to the Shins concert at the Paladium tomorrow when you're here. Ummmm... you want to go to a Shins concert tomorrow?
So, long story short, my nine-hour layover was quite excellent, from a trip to Tito's Tacos, then beer with the always delightful and diminutive Carmen Bognanno, and then off to Hollywood for a Shins concert. Carmen tagged along, because she is awesome and I don't visit L.A. often and because she wanted to fill my ears with thoughts to bring down to her former roommate Andrea in Ecuador. So, hung out at the Paladium for my layover, dece good concert, and the layover comes in as my second best after the 12-day layover in Fiji many years ago.
And now I'm in Quito! Reunion with Andrea and her other Peace Corps friends has gone amazingly well, and we're currently on a short pitstop at the PC office before embarking to Latacunga, which is the base camp for our coming hike up Cotapaxi. Cotopaxi is the volcano pictured above -- and if the weather holds out fog-wise, I'll have some similar photos of my own to upload for you guys. Andrea and Jason (who took over for her at the Tabuga dry tropical forest reserve) are making sounds of terror as I uploaded that photo, but it looks a lot like Alma to me so I'm not too worried. Can't wait to tell you how it went down! Only 20,000ft elevation... not too bad. Looking forward to the crampon-and-ice-axe training. And I'm off!
Andy's response on Saturday: OH, shit... you're in LA now? Tomorrow? Sorry man, I'm hammered. Oh.... this girl gave me tickets to the Shins concert at the Paladium tomorrow when you're here. Ummmm... you want to go to a Shins concert tomorrow?
So, long story short, my nine-hour layover was quite excellent, from a trip to Tito's Tacos, then beer with the always delightful and diminutive Carmen Bognanno, and then off to Hollywood for a Shins concert. Carmen tagged along, because she is awesome and I don't visit L.A. often and because she wanted to fill my ears with thoughts to bring down to her former roommate Andrea in Ecuador. So, hung out at the Paladium for my layover, dece good concert, and the layover comes in as my second best after the 12-day layover in Fiji many years ago.
And now I'm in Quito! Reunion with Andrea and her other Peace Corps friends has gone amazingly well, and we're currently on a short pitstop at the PC office before embarking to Latacunga, which is the base camp for our coming hike up Cotapaxi. Cotopaxi is the volcano pictured above -- and if the weather holds out fog-wise, I'll have some similar photos of my own to upload for you guys. Andrea and Jason (who took over for her at the Tabuga dry tropical forest reserve) are making sounds of terror as I uploaded that photo, but it looks a lot like Alma to me so I'm not too worried. Can't wait to tell you how it went down! Only 20,000ft elevation... not too bad. Looking forward to the crampon-and-ice-axe training. And I'm off!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Ecuatravelling to Ecuador
OK, that hackneyed "ecua-" device won't populate all of the titles of every blog post from here on out, I promise. But possibly some or many. It's just too awesome.
I leave today, Mother's Day, for the great blue yonder yet again. For those who don't know, I'm moving down to Ecuador for a four-month-ish sojourn. I'll be staying a couple nights in Quito to start, then hiking Volcan Cotopaxi, then busing over to a little village of 400 people on the west coast of Ecuador named Tabuga. I'll be travelling with a very special lady named Andrea Crosby -- whose blog is at www.tabuga.blogspot.com -- and keeping myself busy in a variety of activities.
In Tabuga, I plan on doing: wildlife photography, continue writing my novel, plant a garden next to the house I'm living in, poss teach English, poss train some local Ecuadorians for jobs at the dry tropical forest, probably hack a lot of trails through the jungle, poss pick watermelons, poss fish for shrimp. Lots of other stuff as well... and I'll record as many thoughts and observations to pass on to you, dear reader!
Take care in the US, see you in August? September? We shall see, friends, we shall see.
Alex
I leave today, Mother's Day, for the great blue yonder yet again. For those who don't know, I'm moving down to Ecuador for a four-month-ish sojourn. I'll be staying a couple nights in Quito to start, then hiking Volcan Cotopaxi, then busing over to a little village of 400 people on the west coast of Ecuador named Tabuga. I'll be travelling with a very special lady named Andrea Crosby -- whose blog is at www.tabuga.blogspot.com -- and keeping myself busy in a variety of activities.
In Tabuga, I plan on doing: wildlife photography, continue writing my novel, plant a garden next to the house I'm living in, poss teach English, poss train some local Ecuadorians for jobs at the dry tropical forest, probably hack a lot of trails through the jungle, poss pick watermelons, poss fish for shrimp. Lots of other stuff as well... and I'll record as many thoughts and observations to pass on to you, dear reader!
Take care in the US, see you in August? September? We shall see, friends, we shall see.
Alex
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