Fargo Brook Times, Andean Edition

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Epilogue

Cape Coral, FL

May 2015

In a couple of months we will have been back from Ecuador for two years, yet I doubt a day goes by that I don’t think of Otavalo and Papi Imbabura and the great friends we left there. By the time we got back to Otavalo from the beach, however, I was bugging out and couldn’t wait to leave. I wanted my land, my tools, my shop, my chainsaw!

Of all of the things I felt in Ecuador I had this growing sense of uselessness. Call it my Protestant work ethic or my intense dislike of laziness and sloth, but I had a hard time not working hard around so many hard-working people. We define ourselves in the US -- maybe too often -- by work. And by work, I mean all kinds: professions and avocations alike. In Ecuador, as you may have gleaned, you define yourself by your family.

After we got back, I went so crazy working, gardening, painting (I paint houses in summers) that I got a repetitive stress injury in my right wrist and forearm. After a year off real physical labor, the hours of weed-whacking, hoeing, whipping paint on clapboard, and bucking up firewood had done me in. Fortunately we’d go back to school at the end of August.

Fortunately, the district took our verbal consent in lieu of the signatures, and Kerry and I came back to the same teaching jobs we’d left. Minus the fact that my son and I had grown our hair out, we were the same people on the outside. We went back to our jobs, the kids resumed school, and life returned to normal -- at least it seemed that way.

But the year back was funky and rife with issues -- few of which were a direct result of coming back to life in the USA. But it seemed that, in some way, we had to reassemble every aspect of our lives, which frankly ain’t easy. Everything had a strange tinge or flavor, a trail from South America.

First and foremost: I’d dismissed completely -- either that or willfully ignored -- the whole idea of culture shock. I’d assumed it only went one way, but coming home was infinitely harder than the going away. In short, I was off kilter for a whole year -- and I know that Kerry was, too. I’m not sure the moment the shock washed off completely, but it was gradual as … a glacier.

It started with Kerry and I sitting on a bench in the lobby of the US Customs office on the border between VT and Quebec. Glancing around the room, I noticed cynically that -- aside from the customs agents -- we were the only light-skinned people in the joint. I whispered to Kerry, “should we tell them about the 75 pirated DVDs in our bags?”

We’d declared the guitars, the leather jacket, sweaters, the beads, and a few other small things, ignoring the illegal. I never figured my goodie-two-shoes wife for an international smuggler. My mother-in-law waited in the parking lot with the sleeping kids, over 16 hours of travel under their belts, and a couple more to go.

“I’ve got a good feeling about you two,” the customs agent said. “I’m not going to go through your bags. Welcome home.” Ah white privilege -- good to be back in ‘Merica! We tried not to skip or run to the car.

It was July 3rd, and it had been raining non-stop in VT for weeks. After taxis, planes, and cars -- our lives packed into bags -- we’d finally made it back to Richmond, VT, almost home. But when we got to Dugway road, there was an emergency vehicle blocking traffic and a man in an orange vest waved us to a stop.

Culture shock stop number one: in a year of speaking Spanish publicly, I’d developed the habit of going over initial conversations in my head, almost obsessively -- so that outside of my family, any public foray required this inner stream-of-Spanish-conscious. So as I rolled down my window I’d automatically been formulating what I was going to say in Spanish.

“Huntington Center is flooded. Ya have to go around another way,” the man said with his VT accent. Duh. It took us another hour or more to drive what normally takes ten minutes. It was a long hour.

I also remember walking into the Richmond Market for the first time. There are plenty of big, modern supermarkets in Otavalo; it wasn’t that. But it was one of the trippiest, most surreal things I’ve ever experienced, hallucinogens included! The colors, the sounds, the AC -- I don’t know why other than that it felt like I’d just stepped out of a sensory deprivation tank and into a world of full-blown sound, smell, and color explosion.

The harshest realization I made in the first couple of weeks is that nobody cares that you were gone for a year. After all, a year isn’t that long. But the thing is, it felt like we’d stepped off the moving sidewalk, let it run for a year, and then stepped back on. Everyone we knew had gone ahead a year, and we’d missed it.

It’s not that nobody cares, of course -- your friends and family do. It’s just that they have their own lives and concerns. I’ve confirmed this with other people who’ve lived away for extended periods of time. You get a few minutes to catch up, maybe show some pictures, and after that, you watch them tune out. Your time is up. They don’t quite get it.

I’m normally a pretty laconic fellow, orally at least. I remember stopping by my friend Adam’s house and talking his ear of manically for an hour. Apparently he’d warned other friends to watch out for me. Mania was symptom one, but it faded quickly enough.

The rest of the year back for me was marked by a vague and dull sadness, a malaise. I’ve always had a little bit of Seasonal Affective Disorder -- a lite, non-debilitating variety -- which is why I ski obsessively whenever I can to counteract it with endorphins and adrenaline. But that first year back I might have been depressed, maybe the clinical variety.

I’m sure Kerry’s near-death emergency hysterectomy and Sylvia’s major digestive, learning, and social issues added to the situation. (Spanish seemed to mess up her English, at least spelling.) Oakes is the only one who seemed normal. I spent the year gunshy of what my brain was doing to me. Mostly, if I could, I just went skiing. It wasn’t until summer break that I realized it had finally worn off. In all, it wasn’t the best of years.

And yet, there were many blessings to count: for one, Kerry came through OK. Two Sylvia made big gains with health and education. Three: Oakes, just Oakes as usual. Four: friends. Five: Vermont seasons. Oh, how we missed the changing seasons on the equator! The list goes on.

I’ve tried to write this essay a dozen times, and until now, every time had been a premature misfire. I feel like I finally have enough distance on the experience to be able to do it. Still, other than the tired and trite summaries: journey changes you, experiencing other cultures is good, stepping out of your comfort zone helps you grow -- I do not have any grand conclusions. Truth be told we spent somewhere between 10 and 15 thousand dollars for that year -- a year of the kids’ college fund. It’s amazing what we did for that money. We lived in another culture, and we travelled -- not widely, but frequently.

Our children may not be fluent in Spanish, though I believe that Sylvia was just about the time we left -- and I know it wouldn’t take long for them to get it back. They may still want too many “things” for my taste, but they know how to put their lives in a bag and ramble. They know what it feels like to be the only white person in the room. They have incredible ears for sounds. They have developed empathy.

We’ll be paying off that year for several years to come, but it was one worth paying for in money, yes. But in time, and frustration, occasional misunderstanding, and occasional disappointment. From that we’ve gained so much as a family, as small price to pay to test the old cliche: the best things aren’t things. Of course they’re not. The best things are experiences shared with the people you love the most. Had it been my choice, I’d have stayed in Vermont -- I’m a home-boy -- and so I thank Kerry, and Sylvia, and Oakes for getting me out there. I think we’ll have to do it again in a few years if we can.

Prologue

April 2015

I lay on my back, and let Dr. Hannah dig into my foot. No anesthetic, but the callus was deep. So was the spine from a shell I’d stepped on two months earlier.

After a few minutes of goofing around on the surface with tweezers, she she held up a tiny spear and said, “I’m just going to get right in there.” I gnashed my jaw and winced, but it only took a few seconds before I heard the clink of piece of shell dropped onto stainless steel. Relief was immense, immediately.

After trying a dozen times to dig it out myself, and then weeks of ignoring it, I’d finally had to see the doctor about my foot. This because standing on the rungs of a ladder (to paint) just wasn’t happening. Otherwise, I’d been able to modify my gait, to hike and run even, in order to avoid the pain. Ultimately, my sister who’s a bodyworker and osteopath-in-training, said that my right leg was “shorter” than my left -- presumably from compensating.

“Well, that’s the last little bit of Ecuador in you,” she said. What a line, I thought -- yes, that’s certainly true, physically anyway. It’s not the best metaphor, and it’s not the worst -- like these essays -- but some things stick with you longer than you think they will at first.

On July 4, 2012 my wife Kerry and our children (Sylvia and Oakes, ages 7 and 4 at the time) embarked on a year abroad, mostly taking up residence in Otavalo, Ecuador -- a smallish city a few miles north of the equator and two hours’ travel-time north of Quito, the capital. What follows are a series of regular check-ins from South America that kept me off the streets, kept my mind occupied, and kept me out of trouble.

While we share many opinions and experiences, if Kerry wrote these, I’m sure they’d have a different angle and flavor. These are my takes, my opinions, probably some of my errors in fact and judgment -- so take them with a grain of salt, preferably rimmed around a full margarita glass. There are at least as many holes in the narratives as there is substance. There’s no way to capture everything in words. (But the pictures sure help!)

This is definitely not meant to be a guide, and definitely not a how-to manual. Rather, I see these pieces as a blend, first and foremost, of narrative. After all, life is stories, and stories are life. There is also a fair amount of cultural analysis, if you can call it that, and a wee dose of research where I might have had to fill in the gaps.

As far as information goes -- not to mention just plain living day-to-day -- we couldn’t have done it without our good friend and soul brother, Mr. Pete Shear, Don Peter. If you can get past the cynicism, there’s a lot to learn from this man!

Ultimately it was Pete who got us to Ecuador and even Otavalo. He’d been married for a time to an Ecuadorian woman, and they have a beautiful and sharp girl named Nina. Pete’s adopted teenage daughter Camila is also fabulous -- and it was great to get to know and learn from her.

Pete maintains a farm and sustainable learning site in a throwback of a place, a region called Intag, high in the cloud forest of the pacific slope of Ecuador. We first attempted to live in Pucará, but for a variety of reasons, that just didn’t work out. We were too isolated there, and wouldn’t have enough freedom. Still, what an incredible place to visit a few times.

Pete also maintains an apartment in Otavalo, which is ultimately where we settled. There we found an apartment, enrolled Sylvia in school and Oakes in a “pre-kinder” program, and set up a life. I taught English at a university for a semester while Kerry began to work as a massage therapist with our yogi/Satnam Nasaya guru landlord, William, at his alternative health-care business. In short, we made friends; we traveled; we lived. And we worked a little.

But first we had to get there.

The first problem was money. We’d been saving -- or more accurately, Kerry had been socking away money -- for nearly five years -- specifically for the purpose of living abroad with family. We’d moved to Central America (I joke) on our third date (though it’s true, we did that year only after having known each other for a few months). By the time we left, what money we’d saved wasn’t quite enough. We got a little help here and there for sure (thank you mom, thank you Cassie, thank you Jim!), and still we’ll be paying off that credit card for another couple of years.

The three biggest logistical issues, besides funding, were where we would end up, how we’d rent our house (a make-or-break scenario), and what we’d do with our jobs. We knew it had to be Latin American since K and I have a foundation in Spanish. After ruling out Costa Rica (for expense), we went with our friend Pete, whom we have known for more than 20 years. As for visas, well, we decided that we’d cross that bridge and pay that toll when we came to it. I wouldn’t necessarily call that a mistake, but we’d certainly arrive with a few more documents if we did it again!

So Ecuador it was. Still, that was all we knew when we took off. We were going to live, one way or another, for a year on the equator.

As for renting the house, thank goodness we found Wes and family from Maine. The first few “groups” who responded to our rental ad looked like they were trying to find a place for their meth-lab. “Do we have to mow the lawn?” is not the kind of question you want to hear. But being able to leave our house -- and everything in it -- in good hands meant that we could worry about other things. The only things we didn’t leave for Wes, Abby, and their three children, were my family’s table and our wedding pottery.

Jobs proved to be the easiest thing, mainly because we teach high school in a great district. We were allowed to take one-year leaves-of-absence. This meant that when our contracts came around to sign -- as they do each year in the spring -- we would have the opportunity to re-enlist. It turned out that K was also able to do a “work-study” a sort of sabbatical-light, which paid for our health care only on either end of the journey. (Defined by our district anyway, a leave is unpaid, while a sabbatical comes with full salary -- and a lot more strings attached.) Health care in Ecuador, which we accessed plenty (!), was pay-per-visit. This was more of an insurance policy, more peace-of-mind that allowed us to concentrate on the journey. Still, it was quite a leap to sign those leave papers. After years of thinking about it, everything started to jump forward quickly in the spring of 2013.

The rest was packing. Putting one’s life in a bag or two is easy for some -- especially when you’re 23 and your only dependent is a lab. When you travel as a family unit, you have to make some careful choices, some of which, like a supply of Annie’s Mac and Cheese were good calls, and others, like heavy hiking boots (which I sent home with my mom after a visit) were unnecessary.

In some ways, the kids made the biggest sacrifices, not least of which were friends and their “space.” But they have a of of things. And while part of the point of the year was to get away from excessive things for a year, they were only 4 and 7. We tried to help them make some good choices. Playmobil toys, for example, were going; American Girl dolls were going to sit out the year. Big decisions!

As for my toys: as a devout cyclist and bird-nerd, a decent bike and binoculars were essential . A good rain shell. A comfortable pair of shoes to wear everyday for a year. The rest was decoration, but the bike was essential. It performed several integral functions for me: one, I can’t sit still, and if I didn’t have that bike, I surely would have gone insane. Two, I got to know the surrounding area intimately by touring on bike. I am infinitely grateful for that. And three: I did most of our grocery shopping by bike, which must’ve saved us the $100 it cost to bring it. The cost of the oversized box came with no weight limit, so I was able to bring all the tools and spare parts I thought I’d need for the year.

This digression is for my fellow bike geeks: the “whip” I built up myself. I went with a hard-tail, 26” wheeled mountain bike for a couple of reasons: primarily cost, ease of finding parts, and its universality. The frame is great, a cheap, aluminum $100 “Leader 516h” if you want the specifics -- I’m not sure you can find a better frame for the money. I put a nice Fox coil fork on it (not air… I wanted to have the coil just in case of air failure -- though I did have to go to Quito to get the seals redone once). The components were all Shimano LX and XT junk, but serviceable. Cable disc brakes were a must, since repair is easy. Because there was no weight limit for the box, I stuffed it with parts: brake and shifter cables, housing, one tire, couple spokes, a fresh chain, even a new cassette, and a shitload of tubes. Tubes! I went through a dozen in the first couple of months. I also trashed a rear rim trying to bunny hop a drainage chasm that came up out of nowhere and “casing” the landing. My mother brought a replacement that I’d ordered online and had to her house when she came to visit in early 2014.

The bike was often a source of conversation with Ecuadorians. There are cyclists there, both road and off-road -- but BMX and downhill are very popular, not so much the type of touring I was doing. I might take a 29’er given another chance, but the Leader was ideal for me, for the time. I sold the bike to Pete when I left for $400, and I think we both got a good deal.

So that’s it for me -- this is the last thing I wrote, and so the beginning is the end -- or better yet, the end is the beginning. If these anecdotes are half as fun to read as they were to write, well, then I’m happy. Have a nice trip!

Pedido de Mano, Narrative Version

Februaray 2013

“Your problem,” Segundo was telling me in emphatic Spanish punctuated with hand gestures, “is that you can’t speak Spanish.”

He was weaving his fresh Toyota Tacoma around people and dogs through the maze-like back alleys of Peguche, an almost entirely indigenous down adjacent Otavalo. I decided not to try to explain the irony of the fact that I understood what he was saying.

I nodded and said, “claro,” the typical affirmative.

According to statoids.com, the “county” of Otavalo is nearly 58% indigenous, which frankly seems low to me -- the city’s mestizo population must skew that number lower. From what I’ve seen the hills surrounding the city are populated almost entirely people of Incan descent, many of them subsistence farmers, if not small market farmers. And markets in Otavalo are where it’s at.

Opposite the phenomenon in the US -- where the wealthier you are, the better your view -- in Otavalo, generally speaking, the more money you have, the closer you live to the center of the city. I often looked at the little huts and farms around Otavalo and thought that in the U.S. these properties would have all of the fancy houses with the fancy vistas. Instead, you can look up into the hills and see that the city is rimmed with little farms everywhere, punctuated by stands of imported eucalyptus trees.

Anyhow, we were on our way to see the mayor about our visa troubles. I didn’t actually think this was going to do anything -- I wanted to meet the mayor of Otavalo. Yes, the mayor of Otavalo lives in Peguche, which I take to be the traditional, spiritual hub of the region, in large part because the Cascada de Peguche is something of a holy site for Otavaleño -- even though most of them are Catholic now.

When I told him of our visa woes Segundo offered assistance straight away. "Don't worry about it... you worry too much." A spry man with a quick laugh and an infectious smile, it's almost impossible not to like him immediately. This was our second trip to see the mayor. His Honor’s house sat at the end of a dead-end lined with very modest dwellings, though his was a sprawling compound outlined by a massive, flowering vine covered wall. Segundo pulled up to the front gate and stopped abruptly. The front was decorated with intricate iron filigree, and the gardens were well-kept. He was obviously a very wealthy, very important man. And he was “family.” I was never sure if Segundo meant that literally.

Segundo told me to wait in the car while he buzzed the intercom. No answer. He pecked out some numbers on this cell phone. It seems the mayor was unavailable.

“Choo-tah!” he muttered. This was our second attempt at an audience. I don’t think Mr. Mayor really could have done anything anyway, but I was impressed that Segundo was so willing to help.

I’d gotten to know Segundo and his sons, Orlando and Andreas (both in their early twenties), by patronizing their little teinda or store, “Su Tienda” over the first months we lived in the neighborhood. In our excursions around the neighborhood, we’d occasionally run into Orlando and his novia, Cintico canoodling. Since families are ever-present in homes, it seems that young folks take any opportunity outside the home as opportunities for romance: parks, streets, vacant lots, etc.

Whether out and about with Cintico or in the store, whenever I’d come across them, Orlando would say, “holaaa Joosteen!” Though very traditional and very devout, Orlando and I are Facebook “friends” as well. After six months (by our calendar, not Orlando’s) it was time for him to pop the question. And this required the centuries-old tradition of the pedido de mano.

Literally meaning “asking for the hand,” the pedido is the formal marriage proposal. A few weeks after we abandoned our attempts to meet the mayor, I was down in Su Tienda, and Segundo invited me -- “and your family” -- to the ceremony. Of course, we accepted. The rest of the arrangements were made via Facebook messages.

The pedido de mano is quite a tradition, one which you can see depicted in detailed dioramas at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Otavalo, if you want to see what it looked like in antiquity -- or way out in the country beyond the wealthy sphere of Otavalo.

Basically, when you (boy) are ready to ask a girl to marry you, you and your entire village proceed to the neighboring village where your prospective fiancee and her family live -- and that’s where you ask the girl’s father for permission to marry his daughter. Add to this that no one in your pueblo goes empty-handed: people come with all kinds of gifts, mainly food. And when they walk to the next town, they play music the whole way.

I’d seen a pedido procession out Pete’s third-story apartment window, without really understanding what was going on. The procession was huge. A hundred people (I’d guess) carrying baskets of food in cloth sacks on their backs, crates of beer. They stopped at every intersection, and the band struck up the music while cars stopped and waited nonplussed for the party to pass.

Musicians play guitars, flutes, pan-pipes, bass drums -- maybe even fiddles and accordion. They dance a shuffle to the rhythm in a tight circle that forms the nucleus. Around the musicians, the rest of the company paces in a meandering spiral, sometimes nodding or throwing a little elbow flair in. They all carry something: baskets of fruit, crates of beer and soda, boxes of breads, sacks of potatoes and usually a couple poles laden with a dozen (more or less) chickens and cuy (or edible Andean guinea pig).

The chicken-pole is just that: a pole strung between the shoulders of two men, with chickens, maybe 10-15, tied to it and dangling by their feet. This is also done with the more expensive and very special “cuy” or guinea pig, a must-have for any indigenous wedding. (Cuy aren’t bad, greasy maybe, but the most common method of preparation is to leave the head on, which made them slightly less palatable to Kerry and me.) The reason, I gather, that the animals are strung out live is that the wedding follows within a week. If you’re going to bring the gift of protein-rich sustenance, it’s live food, best to keep it alive for freshness’ sake.

Orlando’s pedido began at their house, block from our apartment where friends and family gathered. A couple of big cargo trucks parked out front and the “garage” was loaded with sacks of potatoes and other root veggies. The musicians sat on the sacks, wearing either their traditional white culottes or just plain jeans. They all sported leather jackets, braids, and fedoras -- which is to say they looked like all of the men of a certain age in Otavalo.

Inside, basket upon basket of fruit occupied every spare surface. Chairs lined the walls for everyone, and soon they were full. Women began to bring out some chicken soup in bowls. Segundo welcomed us to his home warmly, and we all had some soup.

Soon the crowd moved outside because apparently the chicken and cuy had showed up. It was time to string them up! Women worked little knots for the feet of both animals, while men poured beer and chatted.

A word on Ecuadorian style drinking and partying: it’s not the healthiest way to consume alcohol. Whether liquor (which President Correa mad really, really expensive with tariffs, and therefore oftentimes inaccessible) or state-made beer, the usual method is for one guy to be a pourer. There’s always one little 4 oz cup, the Pilsen (brand) beer is poured into it, and passed to a person, who knocks it back in one gulp. He then shakes out the cup and hands it back to the pourer, who repeats the process until the liquid is drained. Then there’s a little rest before the process is repeated. The wedding, by the way, typically goes for several days straight -- and so does the drinking.

“You’re lucky,” said a pouring guy to Kerry as he offered her a cup at the wedding, “we used to do this with hard alcohol.” Like with several things (cuy included) we were able to feign ignorance and beg off.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. One of the cuy got loose in the yard, and that was pretty exciting for some of the kids who were charged with rounding up the rodent. It didn’t take long before they had him back on the pole. There was to be one chicken-pole and one cuy-pole, and I was asked if I’d like the honor of being one of the chicken-bearers.

“Claro que si!” Of course I would.

The kids, my kids that is, were mostly speechless, especially when faced with a dozen wiggling, dangling cuy on a pole. I suppose some would call it cruel -- but I look at it as both practical and ceremonial. Aside from the freshness, there’s the fact that cuy are a highly sustainable source of protein -- all you need is a little backyard hutch and some regular bundles of alfalfa. At one time a common staple, cuy is now only brought out at fancy ceremonies.

So it was time to load everything up, and drive into the hills. Since it would have taken everyone from this “village” hours to walk to the prospective fiancee’s house, they put a modern spin on it: everyone loaded into trucks, pickups and huge haulers, and we drove up into the campo in a giant caravan.

About a mile or so from Cintico’s house, we all unloaded. Here the musicians struck up, everyone carried a basket, or a bag or a crate The chicken and cuy-bearers took positions on their poles, and we walked. At each intersection, we stopped and danced.

The few cars trying to pass (it must have been around 9:00 in the evening) had to wait it out. At one point a curious thing happened. Segundo was trying to move the crowd to allow a car’s passage, the driver being a bit more aggressive in trying to circumvent the fiesta, but one of the older men pulled him aside and (I’m presuming here based on body-language) reminded him that the pedido was first, that that car was part of the community, and the ceremony was of primary importance. The driver would simply have to wait it out. Which he did. Segundo seemed to remember this as well; he nodded profusely and went back to the dance.

Eventually, we ended up at Cintico’s house where the company was well received. There were more chairs lined around a courtyard, more drinking, and more chicken soup. The party was doubled in size.

Finally, it was time for the actual asking. Orlando presented Cintico with a white bunny decorated with a blue ribbon, which I took for a symbol of fertility, but may have just been for cuteness. And then he asked Cintico’s father for her hand in marriage.

Of course the guy said yes -- this was all planned out in advance. But I wonder if it was back in the day, if the village just showed up at another village, and said, “surprise!” Everyone stop working your asses off and party and dance and eat for a week! Who’d say no to that?

The party wore on and our kids went down, one at a time. I danced holding Oakes so long that I lost feeling in my arm. We were finally able to catch a ride down the mountain and back to Otavalo from someone who wasn’t too drunk. We were in the wee hours of morning, and neither K nor I are great after 10!

But it was memorable for sure. The extravagance in particular. Segundo and his family are quite wealthy, and I’ve made the case before -- citing Pete -- that Otavaleños are some of the richest, if not the richest indigenous people on the planet -- primarily through negocios, business. The famous Otavalo market brings in something like 9 million dollars a year. Often one family controls several stalls. Having watched the market pack up on numerous occasions, you can see someone drive a new $30,000 - $40,000 Chevy pickup in to pick up all of the goods.

Segundo has lots of little negocios, including property. He also goes to Colombia often to buy things -- bags, shirts that say “Ecuador” -- I’m only guessing, but I’m fairly sure it’s goods that end up in the market, goods that are cheaper to buy from your neighbors to the north. Otavaleños are also sometimes well-traveled, judging from some of Oralando’s friends on Facebook, sending back pictures from Europe or the Caribbean. Segundo himself worked for a couple of years in Costa Rica.

And in Otavalo, indigenes run the local government. Every public function -- like the lighting of the Christmas Tree in the town square -- is done in both Spanish and Kichwa.

Our landlords -- a Swiss woman and an Ecuadorian man, maybe atypical but not unusual in Otavalo -- were surprised. “I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve never been to a pedido,” William said. Simply mestizos don’t mix with indigenous, at least not in Otavalo, not outside of public space. William plays “volley” every week, has been playing with indigenous people for 20 years -- and still, he’s never been invited to their homes.

So why were we invited? “You’re status,” William said matter-of-factly. There’s something about associated with gringos that supposed to be about success. Orlando has since tried to entice me into negocios, selling hats in this case, and I had to tell him that I am the worst business man/salesman on the planet. If I had to guess, I’d say that Segundo and his sons do well because they hustle, as in they work hard. And they are smart.

The fertility bunny must have worked as well since Cintico and Orlando have one healthy little gordito, David. We still check in once in awhile via social media, and it seems that they are all doing well, the pedido de mano a success.

Field Trip: Cotopaxi, Narrative Version

June 2013

“No,” Pete said to our guide. “I’ve known this man for eighteen years. He’s a tough fucker. It’s not fitness; it’s the altitude.”

I was on my knees, leaning on my ice-ax. Sleet, wind, and freezing rain pounded down on us. I could make out the shadows of the two men in my headlamp. It must have been about 4 AM or so, the light just coming on, but I couldn’t summon the energy to pull off my gloves to look at my watch for hours.

We were 300m from the top, Segundo said. Segundo was our guide, and one tough fucker himself. On the list of bad-asses I’ve met in life, and I’ve met quite a few, Segundo makes the top five. I know I’m mixing my meters and feet; Segundo spoke in meters, but I still have to conceptualize elevation in feet (and temperature in Fahrenheit for that matter). What I now know is is that we were standing (or kneeling in my case) on a glacier, on the side of Ecuador’s second highest peak, Cotopaxi, at over 18,000 feet. Since I don’t really have any mountaineering ambitions, it is likely the highest I will ever go.

I also now know that I was experiencing altitude sickness, or Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS), and possibly even hypoxia. Whatever it’s called my body was not cooperating with my brain. While from the outside the symptoms look like intoxication -- and actually felt like it in my body -- my brain was hyper-aware. I remember the dialogue between Segundo and Pete and the decision to turn back perfectly, though I was babbling incoherently at the time. Pete and I laughed later about the “eighteen years” because it was so random and specific at the same time -- and short a couple years.

My most vivid memory on the glacier was setting tiny goals: ten steps, just ten steps, then rest. Then I’d count out five or six before I’d drop to my knees again on my ice-axe. I have tested myself in all kinds of endurance events, and this one blew them all away. I think I’d rather run another marathon than take ten steps at 18,000’ again.

I might have even enjoyed the sensation, had it not been for Thor’s Hammer knocking incessantly on the inside of my skull, a feeling I think was probably my pulse. This was my biggest crime (and I should have known better): dehydration. I simply could not get enough water into my system. I should have had Advil and coca leaves -- the latter of which is renowned among climbers and indigenous people of the Andes for its ability to counteract the symptoms of AMS. By the time we reached the high camp where I’d attempt to sleep, my head was pounding 100 times worse than the worst hangover I’d ever experienced (and, well, I’ve had a couple of spectacular brain-busters in my day).

I do remember well the combined feeling of relief and disappointment. The weather was nasty, as it can be at 18,000’. Later, when we stepped off the glacier, we’d be coated in a layer of ice so that, if you bent your arm, all these little pieces of ice would shatter off. There was little to no chance we’d have a clear summit on Cotopaxi’s famous cone summit.

Cotopaxi is the iconic symbol of the glaciated Andean volcano: it rises to 19,347' a mind-bogglingly massive and perfectly symmetrical cone. Cotopaxi’s sprawling flanks and surrounding páramo form the Cotopaxi National Refuge, and that covers more than 33 thousand hectares -- or upwards of 90,000 acres!

High elevation climbing is all about acclimatization. Ideally, you spend a couple of days hiking between the refugios -- or base camps -- and the high camps. Cotopaxi is usually attempted from the north side, but my friend Pete had connections with the owner of the less popular Cara Sur Refugio, Don Eduardo, whose land abuts the National Park. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of time for hiking around. Don Eduardo, driving his LP gas modified Land Cruiser, had picked us up in Quito in the early morning, stopped once for groceries, and driven us up to the Refugio. There we’d eaten a great lunch, gotten outfitted with our climbing gear, and were hiking the páramo up to the moonscape of high camp by the same afternoon.

Before we left the high camp at around midnight or 1AM, Segundo had asked if we had any extra batteries. Neither Pete nor I had any extras… just one little headlamp apiece. Oh well, he’d said, like it was nothing. Segundo had something like 35 summits under his belt on the south face; he knew it like his own backyard. Well, it was his own back yard. So he’d led us, all roped together, winding through crevasses 100s of feet deep in some cases, literally in the dark.

And that’s the reason for the midnight start for the summit: the ice is more stable. When the day warms, the ice becomes more dangerous. The typical game plan then is to summit around day-break, take a couple pictures, high-fives all around, and descend before the warm-up.

As we descended, I noticed the mine-field we’d navigated. “Holy shit,” I said aloud to myself several times. There was one thin spot, especially, where Segundo had us anchor him with ropes and ice-axes as he crossed a narrow ice bridge. They put me in the middle, by the way, because was the heaviest by far, and if I went down a crevasse -- the thinking goes -- there’s an anchor on either side of me. If I were first or last and went down, conversely, there was the fear that I’d drag my two fellow mountaineers down with me.

Just two weeks earlier, I’d been training by surfing and running on the beach in Canoa. After nine months living and cycling and hiking from 8,400’ and higher, we’d moved to the coast, to sea-level -- and thus, I’d forfeit all of the elevation conditioning I’d had in the previous months! In terms of elevation acclimatization, it only takes a week to lose what it takes months to gain.

This would prove to be a big part of my elevation problem, or at least that’s my theory. It’s said that some people, regardless of fitness, just can’t do high elevations. It’s possible that I’m in that boat as well. By the time we got back to Otavalo, I’d only have two weeks to re-acclimatize and do a few high elevation hikes -- none of which was in excess of 15’000’ which was lower than the Refugio!

A big part of the timing for our hike was the fact that June is one of, if not the best times of the year to attempt the summit. The weather is comparatively peaceful, and the ice is the most stable. While we were down on the beach, however, just a few weeks before our anticipated climb, a Canadian woman was killed by a massive falling chunk of ice while climbing the north face. She was in her early 20s and fit, proving that the mountain doesn’t care who you are -- a reminder of the consequences.

By the time I was back in Otavalo, we had lived in Ecuador for ten months, and despite having to start all over elevation-wise, I was feeling pretty comfortable getting around. Fuya Fuya was my Camel’s Hump, my main go-to hike, and it was becoming familiar. After looking at it for so long and living just under it -- and even circumnavigating it -- I’d finally hiked Imbabura with Pete at just over 15,000’. Still, I wonder how I would have done without a month at sea-level.

Pete shook me awake, and the hammers started in my head again.

“We have to get down. Now. The longer you stay up here, the worse it gets.” He was right. I’d lost two night of sleep, one due to trip anxiety and 0-dark-thirty travel, and one at the high camp where we were to “nap” from dusk to midnight. The combination of cold (I had a short, badly insulated sleeping bag) and wind whipping the tarps of the camp, as well as chronic dehydration, I didn’t sleep a wink. I’d just drifted off for the first time in 48 hours and the delicious sensation was seductive.

I crankily roused myself, stuffed my feet into cold-hard mountaineering boots, slid on my outer layers, gathered my gear, and followed Pete down the volcanic moonscape trail back towards the páramo and the Refugio. With each step we descended, I felt the pressure on my temples let up, and when we got back to Eduardo’s place, I happily gobbled Ibuprofin like skittles and drank a couple pints of water. On the walk down, I began to re-occupy my own head. Squat purple and yellow wildflowers dotted the trail, and couple of rainbows even bloomed over the quebradas below us. What an unearthly and utterly beautiful place.

By the time the owner was driving us back down toward Quito, I was back to normal and grateful, first for being alive and second for the chance to walk on a glacier.

Cotopaxi and its sister volcanoes Illiniza and Antisana supply Quito’s 1.6 million people with potable water. But the glaciers are melting. Quickly. Pete’s lived in Ecuador for 10 years, and he’s seen the white line receding up the mountain. Some scientists give the dozen or so glaciated Andean volcanoes another 10 years before the ice runs out completely.

Not the happiest note to end on, of course. It’s a sad state, and one that Americans are responsible for at least as much as Ecuadorians, whose carbon footprints are generally a lot smaller. Yet it’s Ecuador and the people of the capital who will have to struggle with some sort of replacement long-term -- and neither gringos nor South Americans, at least in my personal experience, are good at planning for the long term. Maybe if Ecuador figures it out, they can give California some pointers.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Field Trip: Beach Life in Canoa

After Grandma Cassie and Jordan's visit, we'd pulled Sylvia out of school (with 1/4 to go) in order to further our travel education. But following a trip to the Amazon, we found ourselves restless and purposeless in Otavalo very quickly. So we decided to head to the beach for a month. Why not?

In the province of Manabí, in the town of Canoa, we found an apartment in the back of a hotel named País Libre. And we found warm and friendly hosts, met new friends both local and traveling extranjeros, some of whom were volunteering and working in a local school. In fact, we met a family of Andersons whose situation was similar to ours (teachers on a leave-of-absence with two kids), and we quickly hit it off. It took us a few days to slow down to the rhythms of life on the coast, but we managed.

Here's a little photo-journal of our time there. By little, I mean 100 photos or so. As always, they look better as a slide show, haz click para empezarlo y disfrutala!

Pacific lobstah washed up on the beach

Oakes' sand angels

Makena ripping a wave

Oakes is fascinated by all creatures

Charlie and a friend

Our trip to Edgar and Rachel's farm to "help" with some tree planting

Edgar getting water for the trees

Banana cycles

Using a post-hole digger to prepare places for trees

Rachel and Sylvia planting a tree among the banana trees. Eventually, the new trees will take over for the bananas providing fruit, shade, and soil stability

Fancy bathroom

Sylvia's first tries on a board were successful!

A walk to the end of the beach...

...and looking back toward town

These little buggers hurt when you step on them.

Living on a river, the mosqueras were necessary.

Sylvia and I went to surf school with professor Manuel. He was awesome.

Proud teacher in the background, proud parents on the beach

The Andersons minus one

Aguas malas, or baby jellyfish. The sting is immensely painful, but that didn't stop Oakes and Sylvia from collecting them on the beach one day after rough seas washed them ashore.