In the Shadow of a Volcano

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel like I should be doing something else. - Gloria Steinem

 Ah, it is good to be blogging again, if for no other reason than it means I'm once again experiencing a new country, and a new world.  Today I write you from Ecuador, better known as the country closest to the Galapagos Islands.

This trip will be a unique experience.  Ordinarily, I pick a place, buy a flight, and have a general mental framework for what I want to do, but leave it very flexible.  I prefer to leave opportunity to meet strangers in a bar, then rent a car to go visit our bartender's hometown on a whim.  Prefer to need to meet locals to bring me to places where there are no taxicabs.  To learn enough of a local language to explain my destination (and to haggle their fee).  To discover hiking trails, archaeological sites, and restaurants by happenstance, not because they are well-known.

Rather, for once, I am putting someone else in the driver's seat.  For this trip, I discovered a comically cheap deal on a 9 day trip with a Philadelphia-based travel agency called Gate 1.  It was perfect; I am between trips and had already had to plan Botswana, and am in the process of doing the same for South Korea.  So I didn't have the mental energy or funds to do a larger-scale trip.  I honestly had no idea what we were even going to see until the day prior to departure.

Thus far, despite the cost, I am clearly living in more upscale accommodations than ever before.  I am currently writing from a lakeside resort in Otavalo, and you can see the water from my room.  They have porters that carry all of our things, and almost all meals and entrance fees are covered.  It's a tremendous difference from my usual travels, and I must say, I would definitely do this again in the future.

The demographic of our group is diverse, but skews a bit older thus.  I was nearly immediately befriended by a fiftysomething named James.  His first words to me were, "thank goodness there's another young person here."  In the hour we have spent together thus far, he has used both of the words "legend" and "prodigy" to describe himself.  He has mentioned he graduated a year early from dental school more than twice.  He has told me the maintenance cost on his beachside condo, and has mentioned multiple times that he has retired early.  James is unmarried, and spends most of his time traveling solo.  James was joined by Eric, a retired wall street executive.  He worked also worked hard with the intention of retiring as early as possible, and discovered he didn’t enjoy retirement as much as he expected.  They serve as reminders that I have truly a rare blessing to have a job I am in no rush to stop doing.

At the equator, there are no seasons.  As the earth spins through its axis, it rotates on its tilt, with the point that is closest to the sun alternating on a sinusoid between the tropics of cancer and capricorn.  As such, the coldest it gets at the equator is when the northern or southern hemisphere is in its hottest part of summer (that is, when the sun is closest to the tropic of cancer or capricorn).  The closest thing Ecuador gets to a season is whether it is raining or not.  As an entertaining aside, depending on the "season," the north- or south-facing windows of their homes may be variably facing the sun.

Quito is nestled 9,000 feet above sea level in a valley in the Andes mountains.  The city stretches for miles in a north-south direction, but only a couple miles east-west, bordered by a mountain on one side and a volcano on the other.  The heart of the city lies in the deepest part of the valley, and most of the working class live in homes painted in bright pastels that climb the side of these mountains.  This is a theme recapitulated throughout South America and the Andes in particular.

Quito’s history, like most of South America, is framed by the Spanish and Catholicism.  It was first conquered by the Incas, based out of Macchu Pichu in neighboring Peru, who ruled through military might.  The local tribe resented their presence, so when the Spaniards arrived in the mid-1500’s, the Quito people offered their support to oust the Incans.  The result was a relatively peaceful transition, and consequently their historical district remains intact moreso than other Latin American countries.

Note: I did not take this picture. But it shows what
I was trying to describe.

The resultant vistas are spectacular.  In every direction there are homes jutting out of the clouds, framed by towering mountains.  Thanks to near-daily earthquakes, there is a limit to the height of buildings, and consequently the mountains often take the appearance of an arabesque mosaic.  There are no dominant buildings to the skyline, and each colorfully painted home adds its own tile to the larger work of art.  It is a distinctly different feel from American cities, where mankind’s desire to conquer and control nature results in a sprawling, gridlike metropolis that is limitless.  Here, humanity must comply with the limitations mother nature has set.  The steep slopes are not amenable to habitation.  The earthquakes command architectural respect.  And at all times, the active volcano Pichincha hovers above all, reminding us that in the end nature can have the final say.