A Weekend of Mountaineering

This weekend Thad and I had our trip to Cotopaxi and it was an amazing experience. We decided to climb this mountain for a number of reasons. It’s the second tallest mountain in Ecuador at 19,348 feet, but it’s not as technical as other huge mountains. (You don’t have to know a whole lot about mountaineering, you just have to be in really good shape.) It’s one of the highest active volcanoes in the world, and because of the equitorial bulge, it’s also one of the farthest points from the center of the earth. Also, it’s an Ecuadorian icon and the most climbed mountain in the Andes because of this and it’s easy accesibility.


Volcán Cotopaxi: (Not my picture, it was too cloudy.)

Saturday morning we met up with our guide in Quito and headed down to the national park. Segundo was cool but he didn’t really remind us of a mountain guide. He spoke barely any English (except for swear words and glacier commands) and talked more about hot girls than anything else. But he was hilarious and fun to be around.

First on the itenerary was to climb Volcán Rumiñahui, a fifteener inside the park for more acclimation. We drove up to a lake at about 12,600’ and started trekking uphill toward the mountain. It was cloudy and we could barely see the peak but the surrounding area was still really pretty. We hiked through a lot of páramo grass and wound our way up part of the crater rim, but unfortunately we had to turn back at the rocky part of the mountain (just over 13,800’). It was raining pretty hard and there were some thunderstorms, which are dangerous in climbing that kind of rock. Originally we were going to rope up and scramble to the top, so that was disappointing.


Left: Nearby Rumiñahui. Right: Hiking.
---More pictures can be found here.

During the hike Segundo kept asking us if we needed any breaks, but we felt fine with the altitude. He told us we were in a lot better shape than most people, and our first forty minutes of hiking can take others up to two hours with the elevation. Meanwhile our clothes were getting soaked and I realized the jacket they gave me was really cheap because it was soaking wet on the inside. The last part of the decent turned into a slippery swamp and it was hard getting back to the car.

Afterward we headed for a lodge in the park that was just over 12,200’. We had our own cabin, but there was no heat or electricity and it got pretty cold. We tried to dry our clothes with a fire in the fireplace but this didn’t work out too well. Finally we resorted to sleeping with our wet clothes because we didn’t bring very much. That wasn’t too fun, but at least they were somewhat dry in the morning. The lodge had good food and we were served coca tea along with our meals. (It’s popular in mountanous countries and apparently it can help altitude sickness.)

After breakfast we took off for the José Rivas Refuge, on the side of Cotopaxi. It’s really popular among park visitors but it’s mainly for climbers staying the night. We parked the car in a parking area at about 14,700’ and then we made the hike up to the refuge, which was over a thousand feet higher. This took about forty minutes, and we had to carry full backpacks with gear and full summit packs. This was a lot of weight and it felt good to get to the top. There were a lot of interesting people there from all over the world who were really into mountaineering. We were supposed to hike up to the glacier and learn some techniques for crampons (spikes for ice and snow) and ice axe, but there was a rainstorm and we weren’t able to. We didn’t want to be stuck with a bunch of wet clothes again. Segundo told us it was easy enough to figure out, so we felt alright about it. At least we'd have a guide with us on the mountain.


Left: Finally Made It! Right: Refuge Trail.
---More pictures can be found here.

It was cool staying at the refuge but insanely hard to sleep. On top of trying to sleep in really high altitude, there were probably 40 people staying in the same room and there wasn’t a whole lot of personal space. Plus we had to go to bed super early so we could wake up around midnight, which is the best time for climbing before the snow starts to melt in the sun. By the time the first alarm clock went off around 11 pm, I barely got over an hour of sleep and I couldn’t get much more with all of the noise of people getting ready. We stayed in our sleeping bags until Segundo woke us up around midnight, and after breakfast we found out we would be the last group to leave the refuge.

We started the climb at about 1:15 am and trudged uphill in the snow with our headlamps. It felt good to get going, but it was hard on such little sleep. We had a pretty good pace though and even passed a couple groups in the beginning. After about an hour, we arrived at a glacier where we had to put on our crampons and a lot of other people were there too. We roped up quickly and passed them while they were still starting on the ice. It wasn’t too hard walking in the crampons, but it got more and more challenging as the mountain got steeper. It got really steep, but we didn’t need a whole lot of rest and kept passing groups. The glaciers and crevices weren't too hard to navigate, but I lost my balance a couple times trying to toe in with the crampons. Finally we passed the last group and were leading the way. I was sucking air big time at the top, but kept plugging away. It’s crazy how hard altitude gets as you keep getting higher and higher.

We finally got to the summit at 5:45 am, just as the sun was rising. It was cloudy though and we couldn’t see much. (I made a snow angel at the top too.) Our ascent only took four and a half hours, which was crazy fast. (My guidebook says that route takes 5-7.) I still couldn’t believe that we passed everyone because some groups left almost an hour earlier than us. This felt really surreal and we had no idea we would do so well. Other people were impressed and congratulated us as we were coming down, and that felt really good. A couple of guides were even surprised too. There were people with a lot more mountaineering experience than we had, but we were in better altitude shape. It helps living at over 9,000 for three months and running and hiking a lot.


Left: At the Top! Right: Snow Angel at 19,348 feet.
---More pictures can be found here.

The descent wasn’t so fun though. I got altitude sick on the way down and had a horrible naseua headache. (I figured this was a combination of the fast ascent and little sleep.) Because of this I had to take a lot more breaks going down. It was cool to see everything in the daylight though and there were a lot of ice crevices that we couldn’t see at night. I wanted to take a lot of pictures, but my hand went numb everytime I took my glove off. Finally we got to the bottom of the last glacier and decided to slide down to the reguge. We did this sitting down with our ice axes as brakes and we were able to go pretty fast. Afterward we hiked back to the car and drove back to Quito. We got back at noon and still had the whole day!

It’s crazy how fast the semester has gone. Tomorrow (Tuesday) is our last day of class and we have our final presentations on Wednesday. After that we have a field trip on Thursday and two weeks of travel after that. The first week will be to Riobamba and the oriente (Amazon), and the last week will be in Guayaquil and the Galapagos. This will be a lot of fun and it’s hard to fathom that I’m flying home in 18 days. Anyway, hasta luego.

Nocturnal Quito and Nike We Run

This weekend I was sick and didn’t do a whole lot, but there were still a couple significant events that happened: Friday night we had another field trip into Colonial Quito and Saturday we had our Nike 10k race.

It was cool to visit the historic part of Quito again and it was a different experience at night. The old city has a lot of charm and the buildings date back to the 1600s. We started off with carriage rides through the plazas and historic streets. I sat up front next to the driver who had trouble getting the skiddish horse under control. He was interesting to talk to and kept swearing at the horse. There were a lot of people taking pictures when we rode by and I couldn’t figure out whether they were photographing the horses or the gringos. There aren’t many carriage rides here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were taking pictures of us.

For dinner we went to Café Mirador, a really nice restaurant in the heart of town. Before eating we climbed up to the roof to Vista Hermosa and saw a beautiful panorama of the city. I’m really starting to like Quito and it’s cool to live in a historical city like this. In the restaurant everything looked good on the menu, but I ordered a type of spicy steak. It’s good to have meat when I get the chance because Ecuadorian cuisine tends to be carb loaded. (Seriously, we’ve been served rice, noodles, and potatoes before.) When I asked for the steak to be medium I was warned by the NILI staff that meat is cooked really rare down here. I decided to go for three-quarters, but the steak still came back pink and bloody on the inside. This was suprising at first, but I didn’t really mind. I know throughly cooked meat is empasized in the US, but I think there might be more risk back home with our mass produced feedlot cattle. If the organs and scraps are safe to eat here, the cows are probably safer too. At least, I hope so. The steak was delicious though, and the texture reminded me a lot of sashimi (raw fish sushi).

Afterward we drove up to El Panecillo, a hill in South Quito with the famous virgin statue that overlooks the city. We hiked around the park and admired the 150-ft structure (same height as the copper part of the Statue of Liberty). Later I learned that it was based off of a smaller statue and made from 7,000 pieces of aluminum. It’s possible to go inside the statue, but it was closed by the time we got there. The Madonna is really iconic in Quito and it was cool to see it up close.

Saturday we had our 10k race and I still wasn’t feeling well so I rested all morning. I hadn’t really run in two weeks and I was a nervous with being sick, but it turned out to be an awesome experience. The race was part of the Nike We Run series, which took place in 16 cities around the world with about 142,000 runners. A few of us decided to run it last month after seeing ads and promotions all over the city. Since we signed up early, the cost was only $15 and we got a Nike Dri-Fit running shirt that was flourescent yellow.


Above: Before and after the race! (Photos from Jen's camera)

We knew we arrived in the right part of town when all we could see were people in these bright yellow shirts. There were runners all over the place, warming up and stretching so we joined them until everybody lined up at the start. Quito was set to have 6,000 runners and the area was packed. It’s funny because there were no public bathrooms by the starting line and in countries like Ecuador public urination isn’t looked down upon. (There were a ton of people using the walls and sides of vehicles in the dimly lit streets.) But other than the lack of bathrooms, the race was really well put together with a good route and hydration stations. Thad and I ran together and we didn’t see any other gringos. There were hundreds of people watching and cheering from the sidelines and we even got some cheers in English like “almost done” and “good job”.

Running is interesting at high altitude and I’ve grown to really like it. At higher elevation there is less atmospheric pressure and therefore less oxygen to breathe (up here it’s about 2/3 of sea level). The body has to increase a bunch of functions for the brain and muscles to get enough oxygen, and this makes endurance activities difficult. But ironically since the air is less dense, it is easier to run short distances. With sprints I feel really explosive, but long runs can be really draining, and this contradiction is still mindblowing for me. The race site was 9100-9200’ elevation, but by now we are pretty well acclimated. Our running pace tends to be slower this high, but we still broke an hour (59:13) which I was proud of for how I was feeling.

(Here's a historical note for people who like trivia: The idea of altitude preformance was discovered after the 1968 Mexico City Olympics (held at 7300’ elevation) when the endurance times were below average and all the short distance and jumping records were shattered).

Well that’s about it for the weekend. Sunday I went to church with a group and relaxed for the remainder of the day. I’m still feeling sick today, but I’m trying to rest up. I want to be healthy for this coming weekend, which is a five-day break. (Next Tuesday and Wednesday are national holidays, and Correa decided to designated this Monday off as well.) Thad and I want to do more hiking and we’re planning to head back to into the Andes. But this week is the last week of our third block, so I have to focus on school before I get my head in the mountains. Hasta luego!

Hiking in the Andes

Left: On the rim of Pasochoa's crater. Right: The descent.

We’ve been in the city a lot and Thad (another NILI) and I have yearned to see more of the outdoors. This was our first free weekend so yesterday we decided to start by hiking Volcán Pasochoa (13,778 ft). We didn’t realize how long it would actually take to get to get there, and we left later in the morning after his roommate, Victor decided to come. Even though the mountain is only 20 miles south of Quito, it still took us three buses and a 4x4, about three hours each way. This is because we live in the north part of the oblong city. The park entrance fee was $2 for locals and $10 for foreigners, and this seemed ridiculous! Thad and I pulled out our censos (Ecuadorian ID Cards) and told the lady that we were living in Quito, and luckily she only charged us the local price. Score!

Summit Post (the mountaineering website) lists Pasochoa as a five-hour hike with 2,700’ elevation gain, but the bus dropped us off near the lower park entrance and we ended up on the eight-hour trail that was 4,800’ to the top. We didn’t have time to summit before dark, but we still had an awesome five-hour hike and made it to 12,400’ (about 3,500' up), and we hiked along the crater rim and final stretch of the mountain. The Andes are really beautiful and there is a lot of vegetation on the volcanoes. We want to do a lot more hiking here, but now know that we have to leave a lot earlier in the day. It would be a lot easier to have a car, but we both agreed that it would be too scary to drive here. The trip home was interesting though. We had hired a pickup truck to drive us four miles down a dirt/stone road to the park entrance but there were no vehicles waiting for us when we got back. We hiked about two miles (partly uphill) before we saw a passing truck and hitchhiked. We were so glad to get a ride because it got dark as soon as we made it back to the main road.

The first bus from Amaguaña to La Marín (South Quito terminal) was very strange. I was joined by a drunk guy who repeatedly introduced himself (five or six times) and asked me my name and a lot of other questions. Whenever there was a break in the conversation he held out his hand asking if we were friends and I would say yes just to humor him. In a drunken moment he thought Thad was my girlfriend and tried to climb across me (awkwardly grabbing my leg) to kiss him on the cheek, a traditional Ecuadorian greeting. After being rejected, he asked if Thad was Chinese and introduced himself again. A woman with a baby got on the bus and he got up to give her his seat, but that wasn’t much better. With the baby partly on my lap she began to breastfeed and I had no choice but to stare ahead at my drunk friend who was dancing to the salsa music.

When she left, he reclaimed his seat and began the whole process again. I decided to become more of a clueless gringo and “couldn’t” understand a lot of what he said. He got frustrated a few times and rattled on about how he wished he could speak to me in English. The only word he could say was “goodbye,” which was sweet to hear after we arrived in his neighborhood. Afterward a few kids sat next to me and started asking each other how to say things to me in English, and they quizzed each other on what the US was like. When I couldn’t keep a straight face any longer I told them they could just ask me, and I was flooded with questions. We finally arrived at the transfer station and boarded a trolley bus that was a lot more normal. The third bus, however, included a pissed off old man who started yelling at the driver after he stalled the bus on a hill. Soon he was yelling again and the driver stopped the bus to storm back and get in his face. Other passengers were yelling at the old guy but I couldn’t understand what they were all saying. Reluctantly, he sat down and we continued on as if nothing happened. Finally, a fourth bus home was our lucky number seven for the day. It was so good to finally get back to the campus!

Here are a couple other things that happened this week:

On Wednesday we had a field trip to the Ballet Jacchigua, a cultural interpretive dance. Before entering we had to have a Latino buy all of our tickets so we wouldn’t be charged a lot as foreigners. (They can really make money off us…) It was a big production, with live Andean folk music, 90 dancers, and over 6,000 lbs of costumes and props, but it was a small atmosphere of less than a hundred people. Beforehand I thought it would be boring, but it was really an interesting expression of their society. It’s funny because a lot of them were foreigners and after spending a month with only Latinos, I get culture shock from seeing other white people. When I told my teacher this she mentioned that I haven't visited Gringolandia, the local name for La Mariscal, Quito's tourist-filled district.

On Tuesday we began our weekly service project, working with children at the local dump. Many families lived there before the government deemed it unsafe, and now there is a daycare for children of employees that is run by volunteers. The kids (aged 4-10) were definitely a challenge, and you can tell they have harder lives at home. The boys didn’t talk at all, even when we asked them questions like their names. For the most part I played Lincoln Logs with a group of them, and a kid fully dressed as Spiderman kept jacking my house segments and adding them onto his. Another kid whacked me on the head with a giant log and I did my best to scold him, but that was difficult in Spanish. We played with them for a couple hours and learned that it will be an interesting work experience. It will definitely be good to put on my teaching resume though.

Well, that's all for this week. Hasta Luego!