four hours in an internet cafe. enjoy.

The Disaster of Cotopaxi Part One

As Ariana wrote, I spent my first weekend away from the twins in who knows how long. I´ll admit, it wasn´t easy (for many reasons) but in case anyone is worrying, we have spent every single day together since Sunday and the 48 hour separation has not caused any damage, permanant or temporary to our friendship. Now, to last weekend and the disaster of Cotopaxi…

On Friday night, at the end of the afternoon work shift, Sam, Joe and I packed our bags and took a taxi down to Tambillo to catch a bus to Baños. It was a normal evening: dark, rainy and cold and there were NO buses. Eventually, after waiting 40 minutes we saw a bus to Puyo and just got on. We were supposed to be meeting our fellow climbers, former Santa Martha volunteers Helen and Irene and Helen´s friend James at a famous cafe, Casa Hood in Baños at 9 and the whole 2 1/2 hour bus ride all I did was dream of the vegetarian lasagne I would enjoy there. Unfortunately, due to the wait for the bus, we did not arrive in Baños until 10 and Casa Hood was closed. So no lasagne. I could tell things were not going to be good.

Fortunately, we later found Irene, James and Helen at the hostal and made breakfast plans before going straight to bed. Breakfast in Baños is almost as much a highlight as the view from the hostal´s roof terrace. I always order Desayuno 3, which is homemade bread and scones, jam, cheese, butter, scrambled eggs, juice and coffe all for $3. It´s amazing. Anyway, we were all in pretty good spirits and soon made our way to the office of the company we would be climbing with.

In the office the usual banter and trying on of equipment commenced. We were introduced to our guides Jaime and Fausto and shown everything the company was providing. I have to say, I began to be a little nervous when they began pulling out balaclavas, fleece and waterproof jackets, fleece and waterproof gloves AND fleece and waterproof trousers, but I figured, yeah it´ll probably be a little chilly up there.. The first problem was my boots. I knew all the clothes were going to be massive, but they didn´t seem to have a pair of boots that didn´t make me look like a clown. The only pair in my size was broken and although he was told repeatedly, one of the staff guys kept pulling them out and giving them to me despite my falting, estan rotos.. (??) Eventually, some money changed hands and a pair of insoles was bought and put in a pair of boots that was hastily shoved in the kit bag without my feet ever going near them. I decided just to trust.

Once all the kit was prepared, we got into the minibus and began the 3 hour drive to the Cotopaxi national park. After about 15 minutes we pulled over by a sign that read Vucanizador. Inside a room, on a dingy couch, a man reclined, playing with a mobile phone. As we sat outside in the car, he glanced up noncomitally and then went back to his phone. After a minute or so, he dragged himself off the sofa and came outside. He grunted at the driver, put some air in the tires, then slouched back to the house. It was really very funny and slightly bizarre.

After over 2 hours of peaceful driving we came to a man sitting on the side of a track eating a bag of chips, his car left idle on the dirt road. We soon found out that he was no longer driving because the road ahead had been washed away by floods. We would have to find another way.

Our guides assured us that this was no problem. There was another road through the park and that it would only be another 2 hours.

Two hours and directions from a sheep farmer later, we encountered two men on a motorbike. The man in front was dressed in leathers and still wore a helmet. The man behind was very small and dressed in a brown suit with brown shiny shoes. He shouted to us, No pasa! No pasa! The other road had been washed away too.

Two hours later we were in Machachi. Just so you know, Machachi is the nearest town to Tambillo, our home town. Baños is three hours from Tambillo. We had travelled all the way to Baños, to come almost all the way back home..very slowly.. Anyway! It only took another 3 hours of bumpy driving through the national park to reach the car park. As we drove, the air was became increasingly thinner and our nerves built exponentially.

Once at the car park, it was time to get suited up in our marshmallow costumes and start the hike. This is what I wore. A white tank top, a t-shirt, a longsleeved cotton v-neck, sophia´s grey varsity soccer shirt, my northface fleece, the company´s gigantic fleece jacket, a pair of soccer socks pulled up to my thighs, my new alpaca wool socks, the fleece trousers pulled up over all my shirts above my waist (the crotch was still half way down my thighs), my waterproof trousers, my scarf, my balaclava, fleece gloves, waterproof gloves and my extremely large waterproof jacket over everything. That´s why I called it a marshmallow suit. I was supposed to be carrying crampons, an ice pick, a sleeping bag and a harness, but Jaime had taken a shine to me, and carried my stuff.

The hike to the Refuge was not difficult. We went very slowly, adjusting to the reducing oxygen and being constantly blown away by the view as the sun set and darkness began to creep over the mountains. We made it to the Refuge without too much hassle. Everyone had started to get quite hot, as we were really wearing the clothes just to get them to the refuge, not because they were all neccesary, but Irene seemed to overheat quite seriously. Once at the lodge, we tried to find a free litter, which was difficult given that the refuge was full, but Sam Joe and I found a space on the second level of bunks. I then did something I would seriously regret. I took of almost all my clothes.

Well, compared to what I had been wearing before.. Basically I was down to warm trousers and a t-shirt. I then went out to the outside toilets and became entranced by the moonlight, which had eluminated the whole area and the shimmering lights of Quito in the distance. Soon Jaime told me I was being an idiot and I put on my northface and although I didn´t know it yet, the damage had been done.

Because of the travel difficulties, we had arrived a lot later than we should have, and so we ate and went to bed as fast as possible, only staying up to prepare our crampons. Unfortunately I was experiencing my normal indigestion and was unable to eat any dinner, but hoped I would feel better to eat ´breakfast´ in 3 hours. By 9pm we were in our beds. Joe and I tried (pretended) to sleep for 20 minutes before we became very hyper and silly and started whispering and giggling and generally annoying every single person in the refuge. We decided we didn´t want to get ice picked in the head by a pissed off climber in a few hours, so we gave up on sleep, got out of bed and quietly stomped and clomped downstairs. On the ground floor we found all the guides up, which made us feel better to know that they weren´t sleeping too, and engaged in a very unlikely activity. They were watching Sex and the City!

Suddenly it was 11pm and time to get up. I clomped back upstairs to get Helen, Irene, Sam and James and we spent the next hour getting dressed and inventing team names like, Team Pony, which was supposed to keep us happy when we started to crash in a predicted 45 minutes. There was breakfast, but I couldn´t eat. Once we had taken our final pees, had our harnesses tightened and our balaclavas adjusted, we stepped out into the cold and turned towards the mountain. It was midnight.

cell reception from cotopaxi´s summit?

For the first time in 6 weeks (or, let´s be honest, 3 months) I don´t know what Liz is up to. She went off this weekend with five other volunteers to climb Cotopaxi–an (active??) volcano that reaches 5897 meters. Sophia and I, call us less adventurous or perhaps more attached to our lives, decided to visit Quito this weekend with our German roommates. At around midnight Liz started the 6-hour ascent to the top of the volcano; we were dancing salsa. Since Liz hasn´t been able to call us yet (cingular isn´t that good) we have no idea if she made it to the top with all her limbs in tact. Hopefully she will soon let us all know how her adventure went…I know I´m curious.

no longer a fan of the amazonian parrot

this morning i was cleaning the small bird cage that houses two “sweet” amazonian parrots.  monday morning is mainly dedicated to cleaning animals enclosures because all the volunteers go away for the weekend and don´t get a chance to clean up saturday morning´s food for two days.  i decided i would volunteer for ¨small birds¨this morning–a task that involves cleaning the two “sweet” amazonian parrots, a small cage with five birds, another enclosure that holds a nice bird of prey we call duncan, and a another cage with four birds for which sophia and i have just recently built a new little house.  anyway, everything was going fine with the two amazonian parrots until one of them decided to peck at my left index finger.  i usually don´t like mondays very much because i´m still tired from the weekend and would rather be doing things other than cleaning animal cages.  this parrot really pushed me over the edge.  he climbed off my shoulder, down my arm, and started gnawing away at my one hand.  when i tried to brush him off, he just kept going on the other hand.  i think you´d all like to know that liz was bitten by a snapping turtle this morning as well.  i hope the afternoon is more pleasant.