Tag: cayambe

12 hours of epic suck We eat a light fish dinner at 5:30 pm at the high hut. Afterward, Ossy announces the plan: normally the climb begins at around 1am, but Ossy says the nasty weather forces consideration of leaving later, maybe as late as 3 or 4am. The guides will come and wake us, […]

I went to bed last night at 8:45 and read for a half hour. Ambien drops me quickly. I wake feeling surprisingly good and ready to move. Last night, Ossy announced that the groups were officially merged, and to seal the union, we move two dinner tables together and ate at one. While our enlarged […]

We return to the lower hut and energy rebounds instantly. It’s so much nicer—cleaner, roomier, with Wi-Fi—and not another soul around. Unlike the wood-burning stove in the upper hut, which seems purely ornamental, Señor Juan keeps the one here roaring, and we lounge gratefully around it. Dinner is flattened grilled chicken with potatoes and rice, […]

Today is a hard day. “White wind,” Ossy calls it—windy mist that drenches everything in its path. Internet forecasts for Cayambe, presumably algorithmic analyses of residual coca tea, cheerfully promise only “light humidity,” which becomes a running joke for the trip. After breakfast, we head up the main summit route, which begins with a brutally […]

Last night is the worst in recent memory. I crash asleep with a ripping headache around 8pm, but wake only two hours later. The snoring of one of the other climbers in the room is unfathomable — loud, erratic, beastly and inhuman. Subsonic waves accompany the audible abominations, causing deep internal vibrations and nausea, and, […]

Pinsaqui to Cayambe Town Exhausted and crashing asleep, I fail to notice that I’m sharing a bed with a rubber hot-water bottle, and I wake with the startle of someone realizing their inebriation brought home a surprise guest. I’m not the first person in that situation to slip out for breakfast without saying goodbye. On […]