Tumult

The last week has been very chaotic, and I didn´t want to make a post until I had a story to tell. First, the bad, bad news. Last Thursday night I was sitting in an internet cafe much like the one I´m in right now. I looked down at my feet a couple of minutes into my internet session and noticed that my backpack was no longer leaning against my leg. I was robbed. I pushed my chair back, threw a fit, stalked the streets, and asked the guy who worked at the cafe to call the police. Their investigative work consisted of driving me around the block 2 times in their Honda CRV and dropping me off at the police station to create a ¨denuncia.¨ I walked away with a piece of paper confirming that someone had stolen my backpack (the guy who worked at the cafe said he thought it was a Peruvian woman with red hair who was in her 30s). It also listed the possessions that were missing, as typed up by the rudest secretary I have ever met (get ready to cringe):

VARIOS LIBROS EN ESPAÑOL
LIBROS DE TURISMO DE ECUADOR
MI PASAPORTE ORIGINAL DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS
DOS TARJETAS DE CREDITO UNA VISA Y UNA AMERICAN EXPRESS
DINERO EFECTIVO 250 DOLARES
VARIOS CUADERNOS CON APUNTOS PERSONALES
Y OTROS BIENES PERSONALES

A seriously bad night. I was left with 11 dollars to my name and zero personal identification (in my brilliance that day I kept my passport in the same place where I kept multiple laminated copies of my passport and credit cards....my backpack). The only shining light was that immediately beforehand I had taken my camera to a repair shop, so it survived the theft. I cancelled my credit cards, got intimate with the U.S. Embassy in Quito, had some ¨glamour head shots¨ taken at a photography place for my passport picture, and wrestled with the powers that be at Western Union to permit a transfer of cash from the U.S. with only a photocopy of an application for a new passport and the accompanying police report to call personal identification. My new passport should be here by next Monday.

The moral of the story is that I´m an idiot. Quito is pretty safe but petty theivery is rampant all over. I was lazy and careless, and absolutely should have at least had the strap of the backpack wrapped around my leg (the strap of the new $7 replacement bag I bought is wrapped around my leg right now. Two of its zippers already broke, so there´s no way I´m going to look like a rich tourist sporting it). Additionally, I had stuffed my money belt (which is supposed to go around your waist under your clothes) in my backpack, defeating the purpose of its design. I kind of deserved it.

So that would have been my weekend, and I would have wallowed around Quito thinking about the stuff I lost (which included the phone number of a Quiteña girl I´ve gotten to know down here - the only way I had to contact her). But no. Friday night I went out to a popular gringo bar called Bungalo 6, getting home around 3 AM. Saturday morning I woke up at 7:30 AM, totally disoriented until I remembered why I had set my alarm the night before. Friday afternoon I learned that Saturday night would bring a full moon to Ecuador. Prime time for a midnight stroll!

To backtrack a bit, last weekend I made an ill-fated voyage to Cotopaxi National Park to scale the South face of Cotopaxi, a snow-capped volcano (height: 5,897 meters aka. 19,342 feet). During my 3-day, 2-night stay the weather changed from bad to awful, and during the afternoon that we (me, an indigenous guide and a 40-something semi-professional swiss alpinist woman) hiked from our refuge (4200 meters) to a set of permanent tents (4900 meters) designed as a rest stop before the climb to the summit (5897 meters), the mountain gods were not having it. The wind and snow made visibility almost zero, and the soft snow on the ground made for waist-deep hiking and possible avalanches. We opted out. I was a little bitter.

So back to the full moon. Saturday morning I woke up a stupor and decided on the spot that if a travel agency would take me in my condition (and hadn´t left for the mountain yet), it was a sign that a repeat effort was meant to be, even if it blew a big portion of the precious cash that was Western Unioned from the States. I checked out of my hostal and galloped to the gringo district of Quito with all my personal belongings (sans passport). I spotted people putting snow gear into a truck in front of a travel agency, and sure enough they were heading for Cotopaxi with 2 Australian tourists. I talked the jefe (boss) down to a pretty deep discount on the normal excursion price, and before I knew it I was on my way back to Cotopaxi, this time to attempt the much more heavily travelled north face with the Aussies and a guide.

We got to the 4800 meter refuge at about 2 PM, had lunch, had dinner at 5:30 PM, and were ushered upstairs to the sleeping quarters shortly thereafter. The ¨sleeping quarters¨ was really an attic with about 35 iron cots stacked up 3 levels. I grabbed a cot at 6:30, jumped in my sleeping bag and fell right asleep (thank you earplugs) until midnight, when everyone got back up for breakfast. Yes, midnight.

At 1:00 I was fully outfitted in ice climbing gear (ice axe, rope and crampons) and we were off to climb Cotopaxi. That night, I am told some 40 people attempted the climb to the top. Me, the Aussies and our guide were among the 10 that made it to the top. It was not easy. The views during the night were incredible when the sky was clear, and the big full moon made it so we didn´t have to use flashlights for much of the time. We were well above the clouds when dawn broke, and at one point the sun was rising on one side of the mountain while the moon was illuminated on the other.
As this was my first climbing experience the only thing I can compare it to is looking out the window of an airplane. To complete the imagery, though, the airplane´s fuselage would be made of incredible ice formations and it would also be cruising with the windows rolled down -- it was that windy.




We reached the summit at 8 PM, a dangerously late time to be bojangling on the top of this volcano as that´s when the ice starts to melt and the ground becomes unstable. You can see the crater of the volcano from the top, although the weather got a little nasty and visibility was very limited. I managed to grab just a couple pictures (really hard to do on top of the mountain - they´re pretty bad, I know), although I should be getting a few more from the Aussies soon.

We got back to the refuge around 11:30 AM and headed back to Quito. In hindsight, the rash, last-minute decision to make a repeat visit to the mountain while I was hungover was an incredibly good one, making me question why I ever bother planning anything.

I´m back in Quito this week until my passport comes through, taking classes and suffering through a few more salsa lessons. Also, the Quiteña whose phone number I lost with my backpack emailed me yesterday (I scribbled my email address on a napkin that I gave her friend 2 weeks ago that somehow resurfaced). Score one for the good guys!