Amateur Encounters with Mountains

Just to be clear: I am referring to myself when I say "amateur." I grew up in Cleveland, where the biggest mountains were landfills and the most thrilling outdoor adventures to be had involved tunneling out of the house on winter mornings. My hiking partner last weekend, none other than Latacunga-based Fulbrighter Chandra, moved past "amateur" ranking long ago. She was patient with me. Here's a brief overview of our Mt. Iliniza hiking weekend:

Day 1, 2pm: After two bus rides and a thirty minute wait on the side of a highway, we arrive at a lovely hostel in El Chaupi, Ecuador. It is about 2 hours from my house in Ambato. Our goal for the weekend to get to the top of Iliniza North, a volcano we can see in the distance. In the hostel lobby, a large, rambunctious group of Eastern European climbers are sharing a bottle of whiskey. Eastern Europeans apparently don't like to wear pants very much.

2:30 pm: We drop our things in our room (warm clothes, large quantities of peanut butter, GRE study materials for Chandra) and look for the hostel owner, who has promised to drive us to the foot of the mountain so we can begin climbing. We would like to reach the refuge by nightfall, so that we can stay there overnight and do the final summit early the following morning.

3:30-6 pm: Vladimir informs us that the weather is terrible, and there has just been a tragedy on the mountain. Although the Ilinizas are usually NOT very dangerous mountains, we won't be able to do the final summit without equipment (ice picks and such) and a guide. We give up our dreams of reaching the peak, but decide to stay the night and hike to the refuge in the morning. We take a long walk around the countryside, and run into some unattended alpacas.

Day 2, 6:30 am: The weather has completely turned around. From just outside the hostel, we can see the sun rising over Volcano Cotopaxi.

7:30 am: The Iliniza Mountains (Iliniza North is on the right, Iliniza South on the left) on the morning of our hike.

8 am: We catch a ride to the foot of the Ilinizas with a Swiss man, who has driven this SUV from Alaska. Yes, Alaska. Like where Chandra is from. He is a pretty incredible man. Cotopaxi is mesmerizing and continues to dominate the countryside.

9:30 am: About 1/4 of the way to the mountain refuge. The first wave of altitude sickness hits me, hard. My vision blurs, I spend about 20 minutes sitting and trying not to barf while Chandra offers a pep talk. I never consider turning back, but I realize I'll need to do this at snails pace or risk passing out.

10:30 am: About 1/3 of the way up to the mountain refuge. Those are Chandra's ski poles, which significantly help the hiking endeavor.

11 am: We encounter packs of wild bulls at various points during the hike. This is by far the scariest part of the day, since these are notoriously dangerous animals. We reroute.

1 pm: We reach the Iliniza refuge, which was our goal.

The view from the refuge. That's the first snow I've touched since leaving Ohio. And those are clouds... below us.

1:30 pm: Inside the refuge, an Ecuadorian family and their mountain guide is cooking lunch and invites me to join. I wonder how the 10 year old made it up the mountain. I pass on their lunch for my mushy PB+J, mostly because Chandra and I want to get back down the mountain before the rain/snow/cold comes. I notice that the people who signed the refuge guestbook the previous day were from Canton, Ohio.

4pm: We get lost going down the mountain. We find ourselves again, nearly miss some wild bulls, and finally reach the bottom. There are no cars leaving the mountain, so we begin another 8ish kilometer walk to the hostel, completely exhausted and in the middle of nowhere. After 90 minutes, a car drives past and picks us up. It is an Ecuadorian couple. The woman asks us what we're doing in Ecuador, and we mention Fulbright in passing. She tells us in perfect English that she is a former Fulbrighter.... she got her MA in Environmental Planning from Yale. There are probably 200 current/former Fulbrighters (either Ecuadorian or American) in this entire country right now, so it was probably the strangest coincidence of all time.

7 pm: Back in Ambato in bed. My entire body hurts for the next 3 days, but it was completely worth it.