Christmas reflections on Ecuador thus far

It’s a little hard being away from home on Christmas. I’m not religious, and don’t even have any annual traditions or rituals that I’m missing out on, but popular custom is to place a lot of emphasis on this day above others as a day to rest, relax, be with family, bathe in the familiarity of those you love. It’s an odd and somewhat alienating kind of pressure, this Christmas Pressure, but it’s palpable. Perhaps if I weren’t in a Catholic country where Christmas has an even stronger (and more deeply religious) meaning than at home, I might be able to lean back in a hammock sipping a cocktail and pretend it was just another normal day on the road. But alas, I’m in Ecuador.  If I can’t be with the ones I love observing traditions that mean little to me except in their absence, I might as well reflect a bit.

They use the US Dollar here, which is both extremely convenient for me and also somewhat confusing and disheartening for Ecuadorians, from what I gather. Because they cannot print their own money, whenever they run low, their government must put in a ginormous Amazon Prime order for mas dolares y centavos, and they get taxed like crazy on it. Therefore, it’s only natural that they quite enjoy the sight of Yankees walking off the plane into their country, pockets bulging with USD’s acquired elsewhere and ready to jump into circulation on these streets. It’s been nice to adjust to the first few weeks of travel without having to do any currency conversions in my head, I’ll give it that.

Our first stop after a red eye landing in the extremely hilly and foggy city of Quito was the mountains - not being the biggest of city people myself, I generally like to use it for what it’s worth (a primary transport hub, in this case) and get out of dodge as quickly as possible. More on Quito later...

Cotopaxi means “neck of the moon”: you can picture how, at just the right angle, it would look like a little playing piece from the game ‘Sorry’ when the moon is in the correct spot.

It’s the highest active volcano in Ecuador and, dare I say, the world (I’ll fact check that later). It’s also strikingly beautiful, especially when viewed first thing in the morning across green farmland and past the fuzzy, wobbly head of a 2 day old llama :) The colors at our home away from home near the base of Cotopaxi were so vivid and perfect: greens, purples, reds, whites - all acting as the extended hemline of that little ‘Sorry’ figurine.

It turns out a 14’er (a very American concept in the first place) is quite different near the Ecuador vs. in Coloraddo 40 degrees or so to the north. The shortness of breath and the occasional lunar-feeling need to walk only 10 steps before resting are the same, but everything else is quite different. Whereas home in Colorado we’d be gasping air into our frozen and rattling lungs, here we were drinking in the pleasantly humidified tropical air of the vegetation contributing to it just on the other side of the collapsed crater’s edge. Where at home trees would give way to a barren, rocky, lighting strike-conducting surface, here the jungle gave way to brushy sage-like bushes and views of greenery. The Pasochoa trek tugged at our lung muscles but was good prep for our 3 day hike starting just a few days later.

After recovering with excessive water, a hot tub session with a Cotopaxi view and unlimited free banana bread (backpackers hostels do serve a greater purpose), we lugged our shells onto our turtle backs and sadly waved goodbye to the hobbit home, our departure followed by the gaze of a mama llama whose brand new baby had just stumbled out of her womb that morning (yes, ANOTHER one).

Next stop: the Quilatoa loop, a 3 night (for us) hut to hut trek in the valleys of the Ecuadorian Andes. We started with a moderately harrowing 2 hour bus ride: such a large and inflexible box of metal just doesn’t look natural on such a small and bendy snake of road. I got viscerally excited the 2 times that I saw spindly, 20’ guardrails in evidence. Otherwise, I closed my eyes and tried to keep my banana bread down.

We were dumped off unceremoniously on the side of the road in the small town of Sigchos, and were left to our own devices. Luckily a few other groggy and confused backpacker types found themselves in our same predicament, hence how we came to spend the day hiking with Battiste. He was from the Toulouse area of France, so we spent our days chatting in Frespanglais in between huffs and puffs: day 1 was a good lesson for us. Each day, we’d go all the way down to go all the way up, and then some. There was no gradual daily incline to the summit at the end. This was valley crest to valley crest, and see who can touch the river the fastest in between.

Gloriously, we saw almost no one else on the trail. There was the odd farmer tending their crops or coaxing their livestock to their next grazing spot, but not much else. It was lovely.  Not so great for asking directions, but between our pre-downloaded maps of the area, a few wrong turns and some good old-fashioned intuition, we cobbled it together. Our only roadblocks that day were 2 cows tied to stakes right smack on the trail - those horns are small but they are mighty. Luckily Battiste had the magic whisper...must be all the gourmet cheese he’s eaten in his French life, perhaps the cows recognized him as one of their own.

The up was steep but short, and upon seeing Battiste’s upward pointing thumb (the apparently universal hiking symbol for ‘thank God that shit’s over, you can breath now’), we rejoiced at the top then spent the last 45 minutes walking along a country road into the town of Isinlivi, waylaid only by 2 kids asking for candy (again, thank you, Battiste, for pleasing the locals in ways we were not prepared to). Isinlivi was 100% charming in every way, from the adorable brick church and festive, season-appropriate nascimiento welcoming us to town to Baloo and Tito, the resident pets at our lodging for the night (a St. Bernard and black llama, respectively). If it weren’t for the telltale llama, I’d have thought I was on the Santiago de Compostela, terra cotta roofed country farmhouse and all. The free spa hour was a luxury we wouldn’t have missed for the world.

With our bellies full and our bags achingly on our backs again, complete with a packed lunch for a few dollars, we set off on day 2 in much the same way - starting down, down, down and wondering aloud about shortcuts. We paused to relieve our feet and shoulders in a tiny hamlet about 1/2 way through our 4 hour hike, and had only 2 hungry dogs for company. On the uphill section, we came across a small girl on her way to school (we assumed) lugging a heavy bucket and not complaining: it occurred to us that kids around here truly do walk 2 miles uphill both ways to school each day. What were we complaining about? Chugchilan made up in people-watching what it lacked in charm in comparison to Isinlivi. Our last 2km or so spent walking the highway (paved, not so scenic) was punctuated by giggling groups of children just released from school, all in uniforms. The most common uniform seems to be a heather grey sweatsuit, though some older kids had upgraded (or had they?) to pleated skirts and button up shirts with ties, knee socks and Mary Janes for the girls, and trousers for the boys. Not a single kid was lacking a candy in their mouth - the obvious choice for an after school snack.

Our lodging here was quite the opposite of the previous night: no other backpackers, no Baloo (though there was a rather ballsy boxer lording over the place), no spa hour (but a brackish, under-construction pool instead), no terra cotta roof. However, there was an extremely nice caballero-looking owner who chatted us up through dinner in too-fast Spanish, 2 warm beds, a hot shower and soup and potatoes, plus a location that put us ahead of the rest of the backpackers in terms of the next day’s starting point. What else could we need?

Day 3, as you might guess, started off the same as the others: down to go up. We passed through 2 cute small villages with lazy dogs and roadside guinea pig farms, and got to see a nice waterfall off in the distance. We knew the crater was near when the trail turned straight up the side of a mountain and the clouds started to move like they were being sucked up and over into a vacuum. We huffed and puffed and, like children, ignore the easier zig-zag switchback option, opting to beeline to the summit instead. To our surprise, we happened through several instances of full-on beach sand.

Was this place under water at one point? As we approached yet another beachy area we noticed an abrupt end, suddenly the Quilatoa crater & lake was before us, in all its jaw-dropping splendor. Near tears at the sight of it, we sat at its edge for a picturesque lunch before walking an hour along the rim to the small town of Quilatoa, where we watched the lake at the bottom of the crater disappear as the fog rolled in and light drizzle began. Our celebratory snack consisted of canelazo, an amazing hot beverage of passion fruit, naranjillo and cinnamon - sometimes w/ alcohol, but without in this case - and a huge slice of chocolate cake for $1.

In less than a week we had hiked 20+ hours, about 9000 feet in ascent and 5000 or so in descent, and this was meant to be “vacation”. We boarded our bus back to Quito feeling like we had basically crushed it.