Screw the beach,..I`m going climbing!

After spending my 3rd night in Montañita I woke up and decided to head back to Cuenca!! Haha I just can’t seem to get away from that city. I had a few reasons behind my sudden change of heart. Number one was the weather. It rained every day I was in Montañita; I went for a swim and froze my ass off. Jeez... Not so tropical. Another few reasons were the people. Montañita is full of people wanting to party, get wasted, waste their money, and hang out with other tourists. Not really my scene. I was planning on heading north and camping alone but I just wasn’t feeling it. The weather was the main factor. Plus, I had kind of made plans to go camping on a mountain near Cuenca with the Buenos Aires pizza chef and when he called me all excited to tell me he bought a Tent and sleeping bag just for the trip I didn’t feel right ditching him. So when I woke up, I quickly packed all my things, ran to the highway and jumped on a bus headed for Guayaquil. I was told this was a direct bus. Yah well. Direct to a town where I had to switch busses... Haha wtf... I made the switch, rode another 3 hours on the bus and made it to Guayaquil without much of a hassle at all. When I arrived at the bus terminal (remember, it’s the size of YVR) a guy, probably 19 came up to me. I knew the drill; he’d show me around get my ticket and get me on the bus. All he wanted in return was some mooola. I was ok with this today because I didn’t feel like wandering around. We rushed to the counter bought a ticket to Cuenca for me, rushed upstairs and I was on a bus in less then5 minutes. The best 3 dollars I’ve spent since I’ve been here. The bus to Cuenca is pretty awesome. You go through the city then the rural fields of Guayaquil. After this the bus enters Cajas national park. Awesome views. Wow. I think the highway goes about 4500 meters. You can see the clouds in the valley below, there’s super scary hairpin turns... Kind of like the highways at home! When the sun was setting I saw the nicest sunset! WOW. I’ve got a video of it but for some reason my blog won’t let me upload videos right now.
After a long 5 hour or so ride, with plenty of naps I was in Cuenca. I forgot to mention. My favourite thing about busses in this country? Every time you stop in a little town, people board and try to sell you Colas and ice cream and candied peanuts... fresh fruit, coconut water...Even empanadas!!! You don’t need to get off to find food. Food finds you. It was 8pm and I went straight to my usual hostel. It’s awesome. I get a room with 2 beds, free wifi and no checkout time for 7 dollars a night. Pretty good deal. Once I dropped all my stuff off I went across the street for a Pizza and to talk with buddy about camping. The pizza was great, thin crust, loaded with cheese, olives, oregano, tomatoes, peppers... mmm yumm. Buddy was stoked to leave in the morning. The plan was planned haha.
After dinner I went to bed a picked a movie to watch. When I was in Montañita this ausie guy I met had 500GB of movies on a portable hard drive so I got hooked up! I quickly dozed off and morning was upon me.
After showering in the morning and calling Buddy we met up and went grocery shopping. He tried to convince me that we should each only bring 500ML of water. Uh... No... We bought fruits and veggies. Wine, chocolate, tuna, cheese and bread... We went back to his restaurant and packed it all up. I got the short end of the stick in this regard. You see, he only had a little pack which fit his tent, some clothes and not much more. He also had this massive sleeping bag to carry. So I loaded my pack with all the water the food, my tent, my sleeping bag, paper for the fire, my stove...and a buinch of other shit. 50 pounds later my pack was finished. We walked through town looking for white gas or kerosene or something. But we didn’t find anything and decided we’d just cook on the fire. I hope we find wood to burn...
We caught a cab out of Cuenca, around a mountain little mountain and got dropped off at the base of the bigger mountain that was lurking over us. It was steep, but not rocky. Mostly rolling grassy hills with sections of pine and ecuopiptis trees. We didn’t have any particular destination in mind except up. So, up we climbed. Wow. So fucking hard. I can’t even explain it. After hanging out by the ocean for 4 days my lungs were used to the extra oxygen. So wearing a 50 pound pack and climbing a steep mountain at 3000 meters was super hard. My lungs couldn’t get enough oxygen and I found myself gasping for air. On top of this my weak chicken legs were burning under the extra weight. Luckily for me I was hiking with a guy from Buenos Aires that never climbs mountains in his life and he wanted to stop every 10 meters. The sun was out and we were both dripping with sweat. We climbed, stopped, climbed some more, stopped, climbed a little more, ate lunch. After lunch we climbed our last bit of the hike and stopped in this big open field. There was cows here and there wandering around and grass up to our knees. The view was more than 180 degrees looking over Cuenca, Banos, and some other rural mountain settlements. You could see mountains way way way off in the distance and see a storm far off swirling towards Cuenca. And nothing but complete silence. I mean actual silence. No water, no birds. Just the wind through the grass and once in a while a cow mooing. I figured out later that there was a random nomad farmer that kikes around with his cows and lets them graze on the long grass.
After we set up our tents we gathered some wood and made a fire. Marcus told me he had never hiked like this, never camped, and never lit a fire. This became apparent when I watched him try to light the fire. I dug a hole in the field as a fire pit but then went to my tent for a minute. I came back to a really funny scene. He had crumpled all the paper and put it in the hole, put ALL the wood, including the big old stumps we found in a meter tall pile. His plan was to light this and call it good. After a short discussion about proper fire lighting technique he agreed to let me dismantle his pile and light it my way.
Once the fire was nice and hot we cooked mushrooms, onions, garlic, zucchini, broccoli, bread, tuna, cheese, and peppers in the hot coals. We feasted on our creation and washed it down with a litre of boxed wine. The wine in this country. Not so hot. Chile and Argentina are the only two countries that have the pimp wines. After dinner we sat around the fire, burnt the rest of our wood and called it a night. I was standing by my tent getting ready for bed, and I realized I was looking at something I’d never seen before. Fire flies!! Wow... I can’t even put it into words. Standing in as grassy meadow at 3000 meters, pitch black except for a little bit of moonlight, a small flicker of light illuminating my tent, complete silence and the whole meadow flicking with fire flies. Magical is the best word I can describe it with. I tucked into my tent for the night, and just before I went to sleep I called Cati on my phone. HAHA so far away from everything yet I can make calls on my phone. Such a dork... We talked for a few minutes and I drifted into sleep land with a smile on my face... I love falling asleep in a tent.
In the middle of the night I awoke to buddy calling my name. “Max... Max... MAX! Are you awake..?”
“Yeah... what is it... you ok?”
“Come outside, it’s amazing!”
I crawled out of my tent, well, half out of my tent and saw buddy standing in the moon light with his head cocked back looking at the stars. It was, really beautiful... Full moonlight breaking through the clouds, stars bright and flickering, fire flies dancing around. I took all this in for a few minutes, said goodnight again and tucked myself back in.
I slept soundly until 9am, when I couldn’t ignore the fact that my tent was roasting me alive in the sun. Just like in the middle of the night, I crawled out, except this time, I pulled my sleeping bag out laid it in the sun and baked. Yep, defiantly not missing the 5 degree days in the Kootenays. We made tea on the fire, ate a mango and some Mr Noodles and packed our stuff up. We took a different and steeper route down. Wow, my legs were sooooo effed up. They felt like jello. We were walking down a steep gully when all of a sudden the bag that had buddies sleeping bag and his pack went zipping past me. I could hear him saying oh fuck oh fuck and I couldn’t help but laugh... An accident right? Nope, he figured since we were going down he just toss his shit down the hill. What he didn’t take into consideration was the sharp grade of the hill and the fact there was water running down the center of the gully. His bag opened, his tent flew out and his sleeping bag came to rest in the water about 50 meters below us. Smooth. So smooth.
After a few hours of down climbing we made it to the road, caught a bus and made it back to Cuenca. All in all, even though I got a little frustrated with my non mountain hip friend, it was a magical trip. The scene with the fire flies will always be with me when I think about Ecuador. The rest of the day I didn’t much, bought a few essentials, watched a movie, and went for dinner. I discovered this Columbian place that makes these corn pancake things. They put cheese or guacamole or salsa or pretty much anything you can think of on top. SO good. I talked to Juan Gabriel just before bed and made plans to go to his place in the morning. He wasn’t going to be there but his buddy John from Columbia would be. The plan in my head played out as I fell asleep. Climb every day until Sunday, Sunday, wake up for an early morning climb, catch a bus to Cuenca, and then catch a bus to Guayaquil. Monday morning, wake up, lurk around Guayaquil then catch my airplane to Lima at 640pm. Tues morning, go meet Cati at the airport!!!! Such a good plan. I slept like a baby.
In the morning I woke up and caught my bus to Cojitambo to meet John. John is a really nice dood that is about as far along with his English as I am with my Spanish. Perfect. He speaks English to me, I answer in Spanish. It’s actually a great way to learn. After getting to Juan’s house and unloading my things we discussed where to climb, packed our stuff and started hiking. We climbed an easy 2 pitch climb to the top of the mountain and then hiked across the top and rappelled down to the usual ledge where Helados Helados is and the 13 Named Kusha. It actually wasn’t the plan to come here but on the approach we got lost and I lead him to the only climbs I knew how to get to. One thing I have to mention is that for the last 24 hours I’ve been wearing my glasses.
So, we rapped in got set up for Helados Helados and John did the first lead. He made it pretty far, but from what I understood he has just been in a motorcycle accident and was pretty stiff. He called it quits, we drank some Mate and then it was my turn. I wasn’t really feeling amped about climbing this one again but it is such a beautiful climb so I agreed. I made it to the crux, was standing on an awful foot hold and I forgot about a crimp that is essential. I slipped and fell. John had me pretty tight on the rope so this meant a high impact fall. I slammed my shit into the rock and scraped it for 12 inches. My body flailed on the rope and... my glasses fell off!!! Fucking hell... I knew those looses pieces of shit would fall off one day. I don’t normally climb in glasses but I had forgotten to put on my contacts. I watched my glasses fall 120 meters to the ground... well actually I saw them fall about 10 feet then I couldn’t see anything at all. Fuck. Ok well here’s a first. 120 meters up a cliff face, climbing a 12b, pretty much blind with my shin dripping blood soaking my jeans. I worked my way up to the last quick draw john had placed and called take. I switched out the draw for an old locker I had and got lowered back down to the ledge. My shin looked and felt worse than it was. Nothing deep. Just a bad scrape, a bruise and some blood. A rain storm was coming in and since I couldn’t see anything we decided to rappel down and get out of dodge. As I was rappelling the 120 meters, a thought occurred to me. I’m so blind... I rely on my glasses and my contacts way too much. For someone who loves to live in the mountains, someone who constantly finds himself in rain storms, snowstorms and any other kind of storm, I really need my eye sight. The conclusion I came to as descended the mountain, half blind, bleeding and wet was that I should probably start seriously considering laser eye surgery. The idea scares me, but the benefit would be huge.
After we made it to the ground, we walked in the rain to the store, bought a few beers and continued our soggy walk home. We made dinner and called it a night. As I fell asleep, I contemplated the day, the conclusion about my eyes and thought... everything really does happen for a reason.

All night it pissed rain, so in the morning we decided to take it easy and lounge out until the sun dried the mountain out. We had coffee, eggs, toast and yogurt for breakfast and after, Gustavo, Juan’s worker came in with a glass of what looked like pineapple juice. But pineapple juice it was not. I was liquid drained from these massive agave plants that were in the yard. Same stuff they make tequila out of. It was sweet, warm and had an after taste of mild B.O... Not something I’d buy in the store, but not bad. In the afternoon we climbed a 3 pitch 5.10 and after we rappelled down we climbed 2 5.12s. As I was climbing, the fall from the day before was playing out in my mind and I had a hard time concentrating. When your lead climbing you want lots of slack in the rope. The more slack, the softer the fall in. Yesterday John had me super tight on the rope and today I felt a slight sense of distrust in my belayer. Not a good mix for strong climbing. We finished the day without Incident and went home. I watched a movie, talked to Cati and went to sleep. I woke up this morning with a wealth of emotions, none stronger than the others but it left me with the same feeling I had just before I left Canada. It’s hard to explain but it’s almost like there’s so many emotions that they cancel each other out and I feel blank. I Leave Ecuador in a few days and my mind is already starting to reflect on my time spent here, and looking forward to my next stop Lima Peru. I’m sure as my adventures in Peru start it we be easier to put my thoughts and feelings about Ecuador into words. Love.