Chugchilán, Ecuador
We rise early before setting out and enjoy a bountiful breakfast of yogurt, eggs, cereal, and juice served up by Mama Hilda. At 7:30am our guide, Pedro, meets us at the hostal, and we are off on el camino.
The dirt path drops down quickly into the canyon as we pass group after group of youngsters headed up to the village church in Chugchilán for confirmation preparations. Donkeys, goats, sheep, campesiños - dark-skinned from the high Andean sun, and coated with the dirt and dust of the land. One by one they pass, a Buenos dias exchanged with each passing.
This path of dusty earth their feet know so well, the trail of their existence through generations, centuries, civilizations before them. For us, each step a new revelation - feet groping for the contour of the earth, staring wide-eyed into the fullness of all that unfolds before us. Looking into each pair of eyes as they rise to meet us with a Buenos dias in the crisp morning air. What do they think of these strange-looking, light-skinned lost souls who come to meet them on this morning? I offer my greetings in my attempt to seem natural - as if we meet every morning, and this is my trail as much as theirs. In my attempt to fit into the landscape, I act as if there is nothing strange or foreign about our encounter. The truth is I am completely fascinated by them, and have traveled all these thousands of miles just for this encounter - to set my feet upon their trail and look into the eyes that pass before me on this very morning.
We cross a footbridge over the Rio Sihui. I ask Pedro if we can stop and rest in the sound of the river below. We sit on a high perch above the river, and Pedro asks if we'd like some music. He pulls his small Andean pipes from his pocket and begins to play. The music mixes with the sound of the rushing water below, and rises into the air, where it settles into the landscape of its making: mountain, stream, burro, llama, eucalyptus. Vincent posits a theory that perhaps the pipes served a physical purpose - requiring the player to take short in and out breaths, which aids the flow of oxygen in these high altitudes.
We move on and face the steepest incline of the climb - up the opposite face of the canyon, and the high ridges beyond. At nearly 4,000 meters, every step becomes a physical ordeal. I quickly become intimately acquainted with my level of physical fitness (or lack thereof). Pedro does not show the slightest hint of tiring. I make my way: STEP... STEP... (Racing heartbeat)... Gasp for air (no oxygen)... STOP and REST... REPEAT.
Our hike goes on for about six hours. We pass through high Andean villages, where smoke rises into the thin, crisp air; cemeteries of brilliant white and aqua blue - where los muertos make their final rest in the Andean sky.
Pedro assures us that the hardest part is behind us, and that in un poco mas we will reach el plano - the flat portion of the trail. This conversation will take place at least fifteen times before the trail actually flattens out (which is when we reach our truck at the end of the trail). Poco mas by poco mas, we climb higher and higher, up what seems to be a never ending series of ridges - each appearing on the horizon just as you expect to reach the top. I grow so incredibly tired and oxygen-deprived that I barely take a step each minute.
At long last, our efforts are rewarded with the grand prize: breath-taking (literally!) views of, and a circular loop trail partially around the Quilotoa Lagoon - an alkaline lake formed in a volcanic crater 400 meters below us.
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