Los vientos, cápitulo dos
EcuadorSalinas de Bolivar, a primarily indigenous community, thrives from a commune-style economy fueled by cheese and chocolate factories, which distribute throughout Ecuador under the “Salinerito” brand. Tours of the factories and community, coupled with the beautiful mountain scenery at 11,600 feet above sea level, have attracted off-the-beaten path tourism in recent years. I had intended on taking a day off in this little pueblo to experience all these things.
But los vientos were still howling through my temples and my intestines, so instead of sampling cheese and chocolate, I spent my off day back and forth between the bed and the baño. When I finally ventured outside in the afternoon for food, I opened my wallet to discover I had no more cash. “No cajero aquí,” I was told, so I had to take a fifty minute bumpy ride on the back of a truck to the nearest town with a bank. Upon return, the only restaurants I could find in town were pizzerias. Each of the three pizzerias had a dinner menu, and each told me that they weren’t currently serving from it. “Solo pizza.”
Shockingly, pizza and bumpy collectivo rides didn’t improve my gastrointestinal situation. So the bed-to-baño rotation continued for the remainder of the evening. I wasn’t sure what I would do in the morning. I wasn’t excited about riding my bike. I also wasn’t excited about eating pizza all day again.
But when I woke up, it seemed I had made a sufficient number of trips to the baño to purge los vientos from my body. So I suited up for another bike ride.
Los vientos cackled as I crawled upwards from Salinas into the páramo. I mentally braced for another session of torment, but the bullies seemed preoccupied today, pushing but never punching.
Then I pedaled over a ridge and saw Volcán Chimborazo. I realized — I’ve been on this road before! I recognized the volcanic dust and the packs of vicuñas nibbling on the few weeds that grew out of the wasteland.
Last year, my buddy Chris and I climbed Chimborazo, a glacial volcano so imposing that until the early 19th century, when altitude measurements became more scientific, it was believed to be the tallest mountain in the world. At 20,549′, it actually falls 8,480′ short of Everest when measured from sea level, but because the earth’s centrifugal force causes sea level to be furthest from the planet’s core at the equator, Chimborazo is, in fact, the furthest point from the center of the planet and the closest point on earth to the sun.
That day last year didn’t go my way – the cold, altitude sickness, lack of sleep, and an upset stomach tortured me. But we still summited, and now I look back on the effort with pride. Not every day can go well in the mountains, but we had accomplished what we set out to do.
I looked up to the round white summit glowing in the bright blue sky and remembered when I had stood up there, trying to punch through the frozen layer atop my water bottle, tripping over the snow, stumbling like a borracho, dizzy from soroche, while los vientos beat against the hood of my coat and whistled through the holes in my mountaineering helmet.
As I biked higher and higher on Chimborazo’s flank, los vientos grew louder and crueler. But the snow capped summit grew closer and closer and I kept thinking – I’ve stood on top of that thing. This bike ride today is nothing. I can do anything.
Climbing a mountain is a very impractical exercise at its core. Why put yourself through pain to arrive at one of the most inhospitable, uncomfortable places on the planet? Especially, as I complained on that day a year ago, if you can’t ski down!
But for me, climbing mountains has always been an exercise in defeating the perceptions of possibility. Looking at the top of a mountain, especially one like Chimborazo, reaching the top seems impossible. But step by step, poco a poco, the impossible becomes reality. Just like a project or a promotion at work, just like learning a new language or skill, just like developing relationships, just like riding a bike across a continent. And I imagine, just like a lot of other challenges in life that I have yet to face. Step by step, poco a poco.
Sure enough, I was soon coasting downhill on the other side of Chimborazo, los vientos gently pushing at my back. About time, I thought – los vientos owed me one.
