Noah's Travel Journal - South America, Fifth Entry

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Live-a-betes

The Ecuadorian morning always finds me too quickly no matter how many thin blankets and lumpy hostel pillows I hide under. I rolled over and curled up in protest until I remembered the mission ahead of me and my brother/partner-in-crime/logical-counter-weight, Zan. We hit the streets of Riobamba with arsenic-flavored, instant coffee on the breath and provisions on the brain.

We raided a bulk food store, super market, local market, hardware store, and lastly a kitchen supply store. Armed to the teeth, we were ready to attempt the quest that nearly claimed my brother’s life three months earlier. Had he researched the piss-poor weather and heeded locals’ warnings of death, the expedition might not have been so perilous. Then again, the really good stories aren’t crafted out of sunny skies, tailwinds and clear sailing. Tales of mutiny, swashbuckling, cabin fever and pillaging of plunder is the stuff you blood-thirsty pirates crave.

We took our customary perch atop the bus bound for the indigenous village of Alao. Upon arrival we sloshed through mud past the oinks of future feasts to the ranger cabin for Sangay National Park. We watched the day culminate in brilliant swaths of orange and purple clouds while we shoveled pasta and ketchup down our gullets to accumulate energy stores for the following day. We chattered with excitement like giddy school boys until it was time for my evening insulin fix.

We woke at first light and set out from the bustling agrarian community. Due to my faulty dose of insulin the night before, my blood sugar was soaring at a level where exercise is usually discouraged. I didn’t see any disapproving diabetic educators lurking along the eucalyptus-lined road, so I decided not to waste the morning and to use hiking to aid in the absorption of sugar into my cells. By the time we had charged up our first nine miles through a valley, my blood apologized for losing control and begged for Oreos to compensate for the exercise.

Around this time, the altitude reminded my lungs that I had been living on the beach for two weeks. Making the jump from body surfing at sea-level to trekking with a full backpack at 4,000 meters made my lungs strike for humane working conditions. Seeing the success of its fellow organs my stomach strengthened the union by threatening auto-cannibalism if fewer working hours and more break time weren’t awarded on the following 3.5 mile ascent up the steep valley wall to the pass. Like any good cut-throat capitalist I sent in droves of Pinkerton, strike-breaking snacks to quell the stomach, and the mind-over-matter endorphin scabs that put in twice the lungs’ effort with no regard for their own expiration.

The sun and good weather disappeared somewhere around mile 11, along with solid ground. The rest of the ascent was spent squelching deep into mud lying at the bottom of the flowing stream which became the only path upwards. The blinding fog had our coordinates and called for reinforcements from the Department of Wind, Misery and Numbness. My primal yell of despair came just before the last piece of interminable incline. We had reached the spot where my brother became aware of the possibility of a frigid demise.

“It’s all downhill from here,” announced the eternal optimist, “just six miles of swinging one foot in front of the other.” As is to solidify the easy-going switchback path, the sun burned through the cloud blanket and blazed down upon the remote, sprawling cloud forest valley. My cramped muscles and mental funk forgotten, I powered down the stream which had somehow followed us over the pass. As we passed the shelter that helped nurse Zan back to health, we picked up some of his previously abandoned supplies. Brandishing his neglected, rusty machete we ran down into the ever-thickening undergrowth, trying to remember if we had gotten our tetanus booster shots.

Three miles later we were sure we were through butchering the overgrown pseudo-trail so we clocked ourselves in. ‘3:45 p.m.’ stared out at us from the face of my glucometer. Perfect blood sugar and a better pace; the race against darkness was on. We scoffed at the lavish figure of two-and-a-half hours afforded to us to cover the remaining three miles without having to use artificial light.

100 yards later we were calf-deep in mud and bent double trying to fit through hobbit holes in the jungle growth. We came to the end of our ridge, gentle slope and trail all at the same time as cloud forest canopy blotted out the sky and created a surreal sort of twilight. Light didn’t really matter though. It wasn’t like there were any campsites or flat ground to see for the next 2.5 miles anyway.

To its credit, the ravine wall we were descending did start out with a discernable trail of sloped mud bog shelves formed by snaking tree roots. After the first couple of switchbacks, the bogs diverged with varying degrees of near vertical drops and we were left following the deep, puddle foot prints of a phantom mercenary from better times gone. Soon the tracks vanished entirely as did the occasional dead plant frond marking a machete’s brief triumph. No signs of a struggle or backtracking; the apparition had been swallowed whole and absorbed into the jungle. For the next hour I pondered how we could stand a chance against The Predator without Schwartzenegger’s unparalleled combat cunning. All we had going for us was the thick body-suit of mud.

“Hiking” or “trekking” no longer described our actions; “jungle taming” was infinitely more appropriate. In retrospect, we weren’t really “taming” anything, but rather being violated seven ways from Sunday every time we turned our backs to our foe. One of the more unpleasant plants were the thick, serrated, 12 foot fronds that over-drank the night before and were too hung-over to hold themselves upright. Still belligerent, they took my helping hand and cut it to ribbons, cursing us under their breath that still reeked of last night’s rain water. Our machete couldn’t have helped their headaches as we tunneled our way through the flourishing thickets that adorned my knuckles with the bloodiest paper-cuts I’ve ever seen. At last it let up and let the bamboo have a go at us.

I slugged down Advil to shut up my squeaking left knee-joint as the daylight abandoned us for more interesting adventures on the other side of the planet. I could ignore the insect mandibles and empty water bottles but not the agony of taking every other step down sizeable drops. The pain overpowered the numbness in my appendages as an extreme emotional release threatened. Then, abruptly as the ravine had plunged, it flattened out. The head-high grass and bamboo gave way to a clearing and a shack with smoke billowing out of one window.

The stove in one area of the shack was tended by a fellow cloud forest survivor from a village North of Alao. We greeted him with Spanish accented grunts before fumbling semi-successfully with our hammocks and dry thermal underwear in our last throes of survival instinct. Looking like the living-dead did however scare our five cabin mates into sharing their dinner, possibly hoping the fried fish, rice and beans would be enough to quell the well-known zombie hunger for human brains. The palm-sized, endangered trout could have been under the 20 cm. minimum size for catching in the nearby stream, but it was a welcome alternative to raw cerebellum.

Before losing consciousness in our hammocks we were informed of the secret trails the locals used to bypass many switchbacks and cut travel time dramatically. They also told us that nobody ever takes the trail we came down, but this was old news. The harmonious toots of our bean-gobbling hosts’ flatulence proclaimed our arrival to the citizens of Dreamland.

We awoke to find our friends gone, along with all the dry wood. Two hours of unsuccessful ignition attempts left us with a hearty breakfast of Tang (mixed the previous night with unfiltered river water) mixed with a powdered tapioca health-shake mix (chalk tasting, but with fewer nutritional advantages) and a side of cold rice with hot sauce and ketchup. Pumping our arms and pep-talking ourselves we donned our freezing mud-suits and plunged into the 20 minute maze of paths to the legendary fountain of youth.

Slippery fallen-log catwalks bridged the gullies on the way to a large mud slope, conquerable only by employing the aid of hanging vines and unlucky saplings. After correcting what appeared to be a wrong turn we came to a bridgeless, roaring succession of waterfalls with a possible crossing in the only flat area between the bottom of one drop and at the start of another. Jumping the main channel into the weaker current and bracing against an exposed rock seemed safe enough. Slipping wasn’t an option with the machete occupying one hand. The machete did get me into trouble a little down the path when it enraged a tropical species of nettle that puts all others to shame. As the searing pain and swelling of my arms and knuckles progressed rather than lessening (like any tame Oregonian nettle) I doubted that any location could be worth such an ass-kicking.

All my doubts and clothes were discarded at the edge of the turquoise pool that ripped a hole in the dense undergrowth; an isolated slice of heaven worth any amount of hell. A retaining wall harnessed the feeder brook of boiling water into a steaming, chest-deep, 30ft. diameter paradise. The infinity-pool drainage design beckoned the excess water towards the unobstructed view of the valley and surrounding snow-capped peaks. To make sure perfection wasn’t short-changed, the sun’s rays cut through the thinned canopy and put on a private dance across the pool’s gently undulating surface. Unworthy palm frond fans, grapes and scantily clad servants would have been laughed away from our kingdom. Thoroughly pruned from a full day of soaking (advisability questionable), we stepped outside of the gates of our bamboo-walled stronghold and stooped back into the muddy reality of our peon status.

The night brought us back to our confounding catch-22: starting a fire with wet wood in order to dry wood for a fire that could actually burn. After making wood shavings and chips of every demeanor, we found the last of a bottle containing a mix of oil and gasoline. We were determined to get the fire raging and cook…or at least watch a lot of gas explosions like the starving pyromaniacs we were becoming. After many pretty fireworks and singed eyebrows we called it quits before reaping the rewards of our unknown success.

We awoke the following morning to newly-arrived cabin dwellers burning our dried wood. We added dry oats for texture in our morning tropical Tang medley while cooking lentils for future nourishment. The three fire starters chuckled at the evidence of our desperation and the ease of attaining their own flame. We just grinned and ate our uncooked concoction. Who needs pre-dried wood when you have pre-mixed Tang?

A light rain graced us with respite from a full on boil during our soak. Our fountain of youth had nursed my knee and cured the nettle rash by the end of the day. Try as I might, I couldn’t convince the soothing water to drown the ticks I found lodged in my butt cheek and thigh. I made a truce with my two flesh-park-goers and gave them the E-ticket ride through the raging river rapids, down the mud slalom and back to the shanty resort for supper. The match head and tweezers bouncers insisted that the gluttons had drunk beyond their limit on the rollercoaster and promptly straitened them out in the alley after waving us through. We feasted on tortillas filled with our undercooked lentils, tuna, vegetable chunks and hot sauce. Our three friends were delighted when we shared our Gringo delicacy with them and their starving dog, which had commenced to devouring the writhing mass of fishing bait. Maybe we couldn’t impress them with our fire (or lack thereof), but MAN could we mix a mean meal!

The promising clear sky yielded to thick mist and drizzle the following morning. Not really the departure omen we had desired, but our clothes were already at their maximum saturation capacity anyway. After the first five minutes of murderous ascent, our pants insulated us as well as any neoprene. The life-giving rain was so damn effective at its job that zealous bamboo tendrils and thick spider webs again obscured our route and tugged at our ponchos. Throughout the whole uphill labyrinth we shut out the jungle’s Siren calls as even the mud animated itself and begged for a shoe to remember us by.

The ravine wall finally transitioned into the ridgeline so thick with fog that every inhalation hydrated us thoroughly. We found the prophesized secret route which made the grade of the jungle ravine seem like a mellow stroll. With no canopy we were at the mercy of the icy sheets of rain blowing in sideways at a stinging velocity. The last of my gumdrops kept the hypoglycemia at bay until the refuge when the army of sugar was tragically routed by a deft exercise-induced flanking maneuver. We ate everything but a few precious morsels of simple carbohydrates and eliminated the option of staying the night in the next refuge. With our boats burned, we set off to the City of Gold which lay within striking distance just down the valley (according to Malinche).

As we entered the farmland on the other side of the pass, we found ourselves walking abreast a herd of bulls that had us outnumbered by no less than 20 to 1. I wondered if my stylish, bright-red backpack was caked in enough mud to not arouse some primal bovine urge. I prayed it was no highly-evolved herd with psychic abilities because there would have been some difficult explaining to avoid an onslaught of prongs. How could I convey the difference in thoughts of my burning calves and theirs?

We reached Alao just after twilight shrouded the land and helped our imaginations run wild with every silhouette we encountered on the road. We reached a restaurant Zan had visited before his first attempt, paid our respects to the owner while falling onto a bench and leaned on each other to try and maintain an upright position. A table was dragged over to us out of pity. Staring up at me from a bed of potatoes and cheese sauce was the meal I thought I might never have to eat. The charred body of a guinea pig (an Ecuadorian delicacy) reached to me for help with a wizened claw only to find a malnourished mouth.

The only other patrons of the restaurant happened to be members of a bus co-op that was making an unscheduled trip to Riobamba immediately after dinner. The dark mountain road snaked so treacherously that the driver had to actually stop the bus to shoot down the drinks poured by his friends. I was just happy to put on dry clothes because I'd be damned if I was going to leave this world in anything but my most comfortable attire after conquering a quest of such magnitude.

I couldn't walk right for a week, but it was a good hurt. The suffering was so trivial and brief for the experience. At every moment of despair I had also been hacking through an Ecuadorian jungle with my best friend in search of the Fountain of Youth. All the injuries I recovered from were just testaments to the miracle of a functional, regenerating body. With duality inherent in every experience, life is too short to focus on anything but the good. Perspective is a lot easier to change than mud's tendency towards slipperiness or the skin breach inevitable in the dance between a needle and my abdomen.