All this being said, I do not regret coming here alone nor do I feel like I want to come home or anything like that. This blog has been a great outlet for me and as long as it helps me express my emotions will continue to write and write and write.
So after I finished writing my last post, I went back to the hostel, changed into my dirty climbing pants, put on my rain jacket and grabbed my pack. I wandered down to the Supermaxi which is supermarket that is surprisingly resembles a save-on or a Safeway. Its funny, they even have Smuckers jam which is import and it`s 8 dollars a jar.. Did i buy it..? Yeah right.. I located the cheese that i had tried at Juans houses (super yummy kinda soft.. like feta .. salty.. but not crumbly), grabbed some buns for 6 cents a piece, some Aqua de coco which is coconut water and a can of tuna..all this cost me 6 bucks.
After i finished i walked back to my hood and went and banged on the door of Marcus`s pizza restaurant. About a week before, i had met him and he had mentioned he liked to hike into the mountains. We talked a while and decided that we wuld go for a hike on the following Monday… IE me banging on his door on this Monday. He was busy cleaning his bar after a slightly saucy night before that he had had with some friends. On the counter was some smoke and we both par-took in a long healthy safety meeting before leaving on our adventure. The day was pretty cloudy, the rain was on and off but it seemed like it was going to hold off. After he finished cleaning we set off for the bus and I chased Marcus down the street as he cut in and out of the sidewalk, through cars at red lights and past people wandering the streets. We made it to the bus stop and I watched the big blue city busses puff out black diesel smoke as they barely stopped and people jumped in and out of the semi rolling bus. I’m told that because of the elevation and the lack of calibration to the engine for the elevation even a brand new bus puffs out thick black smoke. Its pretty gross. When our bus came, we jumped on( it was literally moving as we got on) and we paid our 25 cents for the ride. The bus quickly filled with people on lunch break and hoards of kids going to or from school.. I don’t think it was a usual tourist route because I received more then a few inquisitive looks from the kids and adults alike. The bus winded through the street and i couldn’t help but notice the fact that it was normal for the bus to roll as people got on and off. WCB would totally not approve..
About 20 mins on the crowded bus and we made it to our stop. We were on the outskirts of town and the mountain we were going to hike was just south of us. We walked down the road, turned down a driveway and walked up to a house. This was the house of buddy’s girlfriend. We were greeted by a couple sketchy but harmless dogs. Marcus told me they had rescued one of them from some guys yard. Its collar was so tight that its neck had been lacerated.. Poor thing.. it was really scared and barked a lot with its tail between its legs as we walked up to the house. We went in, met Marcus` girlfriend and I learned that she was from California, bought this adobe open plan house and land for like 30 000 ( ½ acre at least) and had like 2º years on Marcus who was in his 30s. We talked for a little while, had another safety meeting and said goodbye.
When we left the house we walked down a dirt road for a few hundred meters and turned up an overgrown path. We walked up and up past cows and sheep and really cute farm style houses with a Spanish twist. We stopped at a little renegade general store where Marcus filled his water bottle and bought some candy coated peanuts. He told me the name for them in Spanish but I forget. As we walked away from the store and up the path there was an indigenous women and her kids walking towards us. A little girl.. maybe 2 or 3 was running ahead down the past and with classic toddler style did a face plant dive onto the ground. She immediately began to scream bloody murder and Marcus, the women and me all cringed.. Now in North America.. If i was in Vancouver with a friend and we saw this.. i think we would probably just say.. ouch , bummer.. something like that.. Well as we got closer to the little girl who was now crying against her mom, Marcus walked over, said something in Spanish and handed the little little girl a few candied peanuts.. she took them, stopped crying and put them in her mouth. The women said gracias with a big smile and we continued past them .. Something about this really made me feel good inside. The simple act of what he did seemed to be a natural reaction for these people..Simple.. yet extremely touching..
The houses faded away and we were soon hiking up a grassy half treed mountain. Marcus, being from Buenos Aires which i think is pretty flat had a hard time with the steep incline and we stopped muiliple times before we got to the top. Along the way he collected flowers that he planned on putting in his restaurant and he also was grabbing dirt, smelling all the moss and ferns and kept saying wowwww look at that view and omg isn’t this amazing?? It was really beautiful but I wasn’t as in awe as him. I think this is because I live in one of the most beautiful places on this planet.. We walked along a treed ridge we came across an old creepy building and went inside. All that was inside was a massive cross, dirty walls and a make shift alter. There was also writing on the wall that read ``12 de abril 1963`` creepy.. I took some photos and as we trudged along the mountains reminded me of home and as we summited the top we got a glimpse of an ever higher mountain down the other side and across the valley. It was scatted with small little buildings that he said were mostly empty and there were cows and horses way up high on some parts. There was also a large cliff that looked at least 70 meters. We talked about hiking down and across the valley so we could hike up the bigger mountain but it was too late so we opted to traverse the ridge instead. We walked for a while and stopped to have cheese and tuna sandwiches. As we ate lunch of decided that in a 10 days we would start really early, pack enough food for a night and hike to the cliffs I saw. Currently this plan stands and Marcus has scoped out the tent and sleeping bag he’s going to buy for the trip. After lunch we continued across the ridge through a little mini valley and up another ridge. We walked probably for 4 hours and when we go to the top we had a 360 view of Cuenca, Banos and various other valleys and mountains..Amazing view. I celebrated by doing handstands while Marcus took photos.
We hung out at the top for a little while, Marcus collected more flowers and we started to descend towards Banos. It took us probably another hour before we made it to the bottom and hit a street. We sat at the bus stop and across I could see another makeshift store in someone’s house. I went over and bought a big beer for us to share and we drank it sitting on the side of the road while we waited. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed something move across the street. I looked closed and realized it was a drunk lying on the ground... He was just starting it sit up and rubbing his eyes. He must have been walking and passed out.. Sad.. Really sad... but a few people now have told me that alchoolism is rampid here and gerneally accepted in the public. You can get 26 ounces of 80% liquor for 3 bucks… maybe this is part of the problem? Hasn’t anyone thought of this? Anyways the drunk guy staggered down the street away from us and I’m pretty sure I was the only one feeling sad at the bus stop. I kept thinking of intervention on TV. Such a 1st world shows... people have issues? Let’s stick em on TV get them the best treatment and help them`... Here? I doubt that guy has anyone who’s going to help him before its too late… sad...
All these thoughts were quickly washed from my mind when the big blue bus rolled up. This was a special bus! There was music blaring from it and I laughed when I realized it was TLC playing... I turned on my video recorder before we boarded and got some awesome footage. The driver had decked out this bus with custom speakers and a cd deck... haha seriously? Not going to see that in Canada...
The few days leading up to the weekend were pretty boring. When I first got here I was climbing with Juan Gabriel during the week. This of course was possible because Juan doesn’t work besides going on guiding missions. So he was around every day and we climbed and climbed and climbed. Well this past week, Juan has been out of town and all the other climbers that I know are either working, or students. I haven’t met a single tourist climber here. So everyone climbs at the climbing gym during the week and goes out to the real rocks on the weekend. Weekend Warriors.
So what have I been doing? Well I’ve found a pretty good internet connection with a really helpful guy who runs the café. The computers still suck in the place and I finally go frustrated and bought a tiny cheap laptop. As you probably have noticed if you read my blog I’ve finally been adding photos to the blog and soon to come are videos! I’ve found a really cool falafel place that you can get a falafel sandwich, and a plate of fries for 3 bucks... yum! Just down the street from this guy I met a man who runs a ``convenience`` store. I put this is quotations because really they are just little holes in the wall behind bars... yes behind bars. When they open up shop the roll the big metal gate of and behind it you’re looking into basically a walk in closet behind bars. They see anything from chocolate to chips, booze, bread, eggs and even toilet cleaning pucks! When I met this man... I think his name was Herman or something, I asked for Peqeña aqua sin gas… small water that’s not carbonated. He quickly responded in English in a heavy New York accent... We got to talking and he told me he had been in New York City for like 20 years, had a US girlfriend and his daughter was born there. The reason he was back is because as we all know the US economy is in the tank and I’d guess the first people to get laid off would be the immigrants. So Herman decided to buy this shop off a lady for like $5000 fully stocked with Coca Cola , Cigarettes, candy, toilet pucks and a lot more. At the end of our conversation he invited me to his house for his daughters’ bday but I wasn’t available because I wanted to be climbing.
On Friday I woke up late because the night before Cati and I were talking about Peru on Skype till late at night. The plan for the day was to meet one of Juan Gabriel’s buddies at the climbing wall to get a key for the house in Cojitambo. I went to the bathroom and on the way back a guy stopped me and introduced himself as john. He is a fellow Canadian who’s lives in Montreal going to school. He’s an interesting character and he explained to me he was trying to be here for 8 months on like 4000. He was just at a juggling convention sleeping in a park and he told me he does juggling acts at red lights for cars... Kind of like a squeegee kid but clean cut and with a circus routine. Pretty cool guy and defiantly a funny sense of humor. Anyways, he just got to town at 530 am and I invited him along to the wall. We met Pedro, grabbed the key and walked around town for a while not doing too much. At 5pm I got a call from Margarita and went to meet her at the bus terminal. We made it to Azgues, met Pablo and jumped on another bus to Cojitambo. We had dinner when we arrived at Juan’s house and went to sleep.
That morning we woke up hiked from Juan’s house up the hill and up the mountain to the base of an easy climb. We each tied in about 15 meters apart and silmileltanous climbed up the 6 meters to the top. We walked along the top of the mountain and over to the start of the rappel. We rapped down to the ledge where helados helados is and 2 climbs over from that was the 13ª Marga and I were going to try and the direct 13b line that Pablo was working on. We stayed there for the whole day, each of us taking turns burning ourselves out trying to make progress on it. I made it farther then I had before but once I figured the beta out I was too tired to do it. We rappelled off in the dark and walked the 30 mins home. Oh I forgot to mention... I saw the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen inland... You get awesome sunsets on the ocean no matter where u are in the world but to be 4 hours inland and 3000 meters up.. Wow... what a sunset. I didn’t have my camera with me but luckily Pablo did and he got some awesome shots... booyyah.. The next day I woke up sick… something I ate maybe... and Pablo and Margarita couldn’t climb anyways… The night before I had copied Dexter season 1 so I watched like 12 hours of Dexter while I lay on the couch. The house was empty and before I went to bed I was feeling pretty upset. So today is Monday. My plans? Well I’ve decided on weds to go to Guayaquil for a night then on Thurs morning I’m going to Montanita. What`s there you ask? The OCEEEAN. I’ve been feeling down, people are busy and not really able to climb that much so I figured what better thing to do then hit the beach! 30 degrees, sand and surf will cure anyone’s blues in OCT. I’d rather be climbing but I’m really not doing that much lately so I’m out! I’ll keep you posted! Love.
PS. These photos are straight off Pablos camera. Nop photoshop. no nothing!
No comments:
Post a Comment