12

Papallacta, Ecuador

Saturday, October 23, 2004:

1

Clean crisp air. Wide open spaces. Panoramic views of soaring snow-capped volcanos and jagged mist-shrouded mountain-tops. The great outdoors. The untamed wilderness. What more could one ask for? What in the world could possibly be missing?

Three things came to mind within the first two minutes of my wild bicycle descent from the peak of a 13,000 foot summit near Papallacta, Ecuador, down a narrow rock-littered dirt and dust trail, a sharp bumpy trail, a trail quite possibly lain by the Devil himself:

ONE: An "athletic supporter"

TWO: Pepto Bismol

THREE: My sanity

I hadn´t been on a bike in years. As the graveled earth rattled and raced by my wheels and the blue spinning sky reeled endlessly overhead, my jarred, addled brain wondered in fact just precisely how long it had been, spontaneously spun up snap computations and brisk chronologies, and --- having formulated a near-simultaneous conclusion --- began promptly to instill a heart-racing, breath-stricken sense of unmitigated full flat-out panic.

I had lived for four years in New York City without bicycling once. Prior to that I had spent three years in Michigan with nary a memory of time on a bike to show for it. Preceding that timeframe, what was there? I couldn´t recall. Had it really been as many as seven full years? Eight or even nine? Perhaps I should have thought a bit more about this earlier. Perhaps I would also fly right over that steep nearby ledge and into an azure and cloud-white oblivion. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. The possibilities seemed painful and endless... and endlessly painful.

In those first few moments, it wasn´t the speed of descent alone that produced such a high degree of mental and physical discomfort, but the speed combined with the relentless, very sharp jolting of tires against many tens of thousands of pebbles and rocks (not all of them small) and the consequential difficulty they produced in steadying and controlling the bike as it skidded by cliffs and down the uneven, winding road. Bump, bump, bump. Bump, bump, bump. The seat of my pants and the seat of my bike parted and reunited, parted and reunited. They did this a little too quickly. Not only did I not want to die but, assuming I lived, I wanted to one day be able to have children. Children I could warn against biking recklessly down mountains without the proper equipment. But the prospects for this seemed to be worsening with each progressive bump, bump, bump. The entire descent was one continous bump, bump, bump. Go figure.

Adding to my cocktail of frazzled anxiety was the fact that I had never ascended to this height before, some 4,000 feet above the city of Quito, where I had already encountered the mild but noticeably dizzying impact of altitude sickness. Full-throttle descent down a mountain on a vehicle I could not control seemed a poor means of acclimating to this new, significantly greater altitude. The breath-taking view I was afforded over the rolling green spine of the Andes was, in fact, truly breath-taking. I wheezed and gasped as I rode, though I barely had to pump the pedals at all.

Meanwhile, my stomache (an increasingly prominent player in my travels to date) began to lodge a formal protest. Already upset with me for the stale turkey sandwich and bag of Doritos it was forced to make do with for breakfast (purchased at a ramshackle gas station en route to the mountain), the bouncing and jarring did little to improve our troubled relations. "Slow down bud," it threatened, "don´t make me race you now." My abdominal muscles locked into knots to steady the shock of each rocky impact, just as my hands clenched into rigor mortis-like fists on the handlebars. It was about this time that I began to consider just exactly what I was really thinking signing up to bike down the top of a mountain:

"Just exactly what were you really thinking, signing up to bike down the top of a mountain?" I asked myself.

"Damned if I know," my self answered. "This was all your dumb idea. You´re the one who wanted to bike down Cotapaxi for crying out loud... You should really do a better job of taking responsibility for me and my actions."

My self was right and I realized in that precarious moment that in a peculiar sort of way, I should really consider myself a bit lucky. Two harrowing minutes of fearing dreadfully for my life had passed and although it seemed there was more trouble in store, the fact of the matter was that I hadn´t crashed yet. Moreover, if I wasn´t completely losing my mind, the road ahead did seem to be improving somewhat and leveling off to a slower decline. I had gone through the worst already and just made it by. And I had in fact originally signed up to bike down towering Volcan Cotapaxi from a starting point of nearly 15,500 feet (at over 18,000 feet, Cotapaxi is, according to disputed sources, the highest active volcano in the world). We were only biking near Papallacta because the disgruntled Cotapaxi park guards had gone on strike, precluding my tour group from entering. God bless you, disgruntled striking Cotapaxi park guards, I thought, you just saved my life. Cotapaxi would have creamed me.

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2

Some ten minutes later I was beginning to thoroughly enjoy myself. I don´t know why, perhaps it was a lack of oxygen to the brain or a consequence of mild shock. Whatever the case, my stomache still felt like lead and my fists were still locked in a permanent Kung Fu death-grip, but my breathing came slowly and steadily and I had gained a confidence-inspiring sense of familiarity with the bicycle and, in particular, my good friends, the brakes. In addition, the road conditions had improved considerably. There were still a lot of rocks, but the decline wasn´t as steep as before and the bumping had noticeably dimished. Perhaps I would one day have kids --- kids I would name over disgruntled striking Cotapaxi guards, if I could just get their names. It would make for an interesting call to the Ecuadorian park authority.

I was part of a group led by a company called Biking Dutchman (www.BikingDutchman.com). In total, not including the drivers of our two trucks, there were 11 of us on bikes, ranging in age from the early 20s to 30s: the Ecuadorian guide and his assistant; two young Ecuadorian guys; a 30-something married couple from London; two German guys roughly my age; a couple of Canadian college students; and me. There was no Biking Dutchman, however. Apparently he no longer leads many groups, having already built and consolidated his Dutch Biking Empire.

We had piled into two souped-up Land Rovers at 7:00 AM in the morning, one of them holding a dozen-plus bikes on a vast rooftop rack. After a stop for something that was not-quite breakfast, we rode an hour east from Quito toward the juncture at which the Andes mountains plunge down into the lower-land Amazon jungle basin, the region dubbed Ecuador´s "Oriente." We caught a glimpse of distant looming Cotapaxi as we passed, its peak masked beneath angry purple-black storm clouds (huge, beautiful and yet trecherously nasty-looking, Cotapaxi is to volcanos what Anna Nicole Smith is to super-models).

At our destination, our guide, Robert, briefed us on the bikes and our plan down the mountain. For this first leg of the journey, we would descend for a total of some 30-35 kilometers, stopping periodically to let stragglers catch up with the group. The two trucks would meet up with us at these junctures, where the bike trail intersected the narrow roads, and would carry us on to the next point when the initial path finally ended. We put on pads, we put on helmets. People tested their bikes. I made sure I could still balance on one. Score one for the old cliche --- I still remembered. Great! This would all be cake, I thought.

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3

I wasn´t the last in the pack. As it turned out, the Londoners had the roughest time of the bunch. Not that I was racing anybody --- my thoughts were more focused on making it down the mountain period, even if there were dozens of camera crews waiting for me at the bottom, the way they wait around each year for the guy who takes 40 hours to run the Manhattan Marathon with a bathtub strapped on his back. Still, I took solace in knowing I wasn´t a complete waste on the trail. And, sure enough, every few minutes I found myself gaining more control of the bike and improved balance. Eventually, the cold mountain air gave way to the warmth of the sun. I peeled off layers and built up speed as I passed along a ravine running parallel to a rolling creek. To my left, herds of cows so close I could touch them grazed on grass on the side of the path.

After approximately 20 kilometers, Robert stopped us at an intersection where the bike path met the road. The trucks were there waiting for us. We had to load up the bikes, Robert told us, and drive several miles away before we continued. The only road that continued here was well used by cars and the traffic was too heavy for it to be safe for us. We took off our helmets and pads and began to lift the bikes up to one of the drivers, who strapped them onto the rack on the first vehicle.

But wait. The other driver whispered something to Robert in Spanish. They talked in low voices for a moment. Then Robert turned back to us: "There is a change of plans," he said. "There is a new road they are building down this way." He pointed just across the interesection to a wide dusty path that had yet to be paved. "I have not been down it yet, but there is no traffic and it should be perfect for us."

A new road? A road not taken before? Our ears perked up. We all liked the sound of it. Trail-blazers, pioneers all of us, we pulled the bikes back off of the Land Rover, strapped on our helmets and pads and marched our bikes purposefully across the street toward the start of the brand new trail.

Down we went, winding along the side of the mountain with views for miles across valleys and gorges and forests and farms. The road ran through narrow canyons of rocks which had cleanly been blasted away by construction crews in the not distant past. We passed families tilling fields, children playing in dirt, horses and cows and small dogs that yipped playfully as they chased behind our rear wheels. Then we turned a corner and came to a dead end. Not that the road stopped, per se. There was still plenty of road. It was just that the road ahead was buried in what looked to be eight to ten feet of dense red and brown mud. Robert dismounted from his bike and went forward to investigate. He climbed up the steep bank of mud, bicycle with him, and disappeared. We milled around, waiting, a bit put-off with the anti-climactic drawbacks to pioneer trail-blazing but still in good spirits. Somebody drew a bad analogy to a certain Robert Frost poem and I didn´t bother to correct it. After a while, our own Robert poked his head up over the mound of dirt and he rode back down to us on his bicycle.

The good news was that the mudslide wasn´t very wide. The bad news was that there was an enormous and insurmountable second mudslide some fifty feet after the end of the first mudslide. We couldn´t keep going. We also couldn´t bike back up the way we came. Or, at least, I certainly couldn´t and most of the others members of the group indicated that they felt they couldn´t. As a final stroke of misfortune, there was no realistic way the trucks could come down the mountain on the road to pick us up. We had to find another way down.

As it turned out, there was a grassy slope leading several hundred meters down toward a small road that connected with the route the Land Rovers were taking. We began to carry our bikes downhill. Before the road, however, we came upon a low barbed wire fence, evidentally meant to keep cows and other farm animals from wandering into traffic (however little traffic there was). We formed a line to pass bicycles over the wire and then another line to limbo under it. When we were finally on the road, the trucks picked us up. We strapped the bikes onto the roof and called it quits for the morning.

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4

Nestled in a valley in the Andes, the thermal baths at Papallacta are surrounded by towering green peaks that are themselves bathed in an ever-present, obliterating white fog. As the clouds roll low through the sky, entire mountains disappear utterly --- mountains that rise up from no more than a half-mile away. The landscaping of the entrance to the hot springs is not unlike those depicted in numerous 19th century sketchings of the traditional Japanese garden. The hedges and trees are meticulously trimmed, the buildings blend onubtrusively into the foliage, and a narrow bridge just inside the gate leads guests across a rushing, white-water creek. Every aspect is consciously focused on seamlessly integrating man-made artifice and nature in the least conspicuous, most unconscious manner.

It was gray and bleak and very nearly freezing when we made our way into the hot springs facility. After changing in an unheated locker complex, we wandered out into the cold dry air and tentatively made our way toward the baths. There were at least a dozen of them, spread out over several acres, connected by winding stone paths that led up and down hills and through small thickets of forest. The baths were of various sizes and depths but were generally the size of respectable in-ground swimming pools and tiled and paved accordingly. However, in keeping with the vaguely zen Japanese theme, jagged rock formations occassionally jutted out from the water´s surface and the geometry of each pool was uniquely incongruous, their imperfect ovals forming the shapes of clean, clear ponds one could expect to see well-stocked with goldfish or coy.

In fact, the baths were instead well-stocked with numerous Ecuadorian families, including small children. But the pace was leisurely and serene, the sound of trickling water and mountain silence consuming the background splashing and chatter.

Our Biking Dutchman group split up, the various members investigating the baths that most interested them. The two Germans, Steffan and Rolf, made a bee-line for the hottest pool in the facility. I decided to follow along in the noble interests of mordant and (very much consistent with the rest of the day) masochistic curiosity. In stark contrast to the others, this one bath was conspicuously empty but for a couple of shriveled, ancient Ecuadorian men slumped up along the far side of the pool. Motionless brown lumps with closed eyes, they could have been dead for all I could tell.

"Yah! It is hot!" said Steffan, wading in up to his ankles.

"Yah! It is hot!" confirmed Rolf, himself stepping in to his knees.

"Aaaaaaarrrrrghhhhhh!" I said, putting my right foot in. "Aaaaaaarrrrrghhhhhh! Aaaaaaarrrrrghhhhhh!"

The Germans smiled politely. "No?" asked Steffan, "You don´t think it will just take some getting used to?"

"People get used to lots of things," I responded, "Chinese water torture and routine beatings included."

"And bad sex?" offered Steffan, somewhat too earnestly. Rolf and I stared at him. The head of one of the old Ecuadorians slumped ever-so-slightly forward. I decided it was time to move on to another pool.

I found what I wanted. The bath of my choosing was certainly hot, but my flesh did not peel off of my body --- at least not right away. With a view of the mountains all around me, I assumed a comatose position in a corner and watched the mist roll in and out of the valley. After a while, the two Ecuadorian members of our group joined me and we decided that we would collectively stay permanently where we were for the rest of eternity, mas o menos, excluding toilet stops and, it went almost without saying, picking up beers and spicy chicken empañadas. This is quite possibly what the old men back in the hottest pool decided to do when they themselves were lads in their 20s.

Eventually the Germans joined us, grinning from ear to ear. "It was not that bad," said Rolf. His skin was bright red all over his body. Previously pasty Steffan had also taken up the countenance of a rich blend of borscht. The five us sat in a line along the bath, staring into space. An hour passed in more or less this manner. The occassional low groan, both primal and lazy, was all that ever punctuated the silence.

Eventually Robert found us and told us that we would have to get changed and leave if we wanted to eat lunch. My stomache, no longer in knots, was insistent. The rest of me wasn´t at all. Reluctantly, we all made our way back to the lockers, dressed and drove away from Papallacta with mournful backward glances all around.
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5

After a brisk but filling lunch at a small roadside restaurant, we drove back toward Quito to a point above a village called Cumbaya. Robert informed us that this second half of our biking excursion would be spent riding along an old 25-kilometer stretch of train tracks carved into the side of a mountain beginning at more than 13,000 feet. Over time, we would drop nearly 7,000 feet to reach Cumbaya, where the trucks would be waiting. This time around, they would not be meeting us periodically, as there were no junctures at which they could do so. This meant that if you had any serious doubts about your ability to go all the way, you should consider sitting the ride out. One of the Londoners decided on this basis to do just that.

There was one other thing: Robert told us that at certain times the tracks would rise at an incline for a stretch. However, he assured us that they would do so at no more than a "very slight 6 degree angle" and that the "vast majority of the ride would be downhill." With the benefit of hindsight, and many pleasant memories intact nevertheless, I will spoil the suspense slightly by letting you know that Robert was one of three things: (1) crazy, (2) a liar, or (3) a crazy liar.

The ride started well enough. The tracks were covered over in dirt so that only the rails were visible jutting up through the earth. The group spread out a bit because the rear bicycle wheels kicked up substantial amounts of dust, blinding and choking any cycler who followed too closely behind another rider. After a few easy moments, the tracks led us into a tunnel under the side of the mountain. It was pitch black and one of the Canadians collided with and knocked over one of the Ecuadorians. Fortunately, however, nobody was hurt in the slightest.

Then, ten minutes into the ride, on a jaw-dropping stretch of path along the side of the mountain that one easily imagines Wily Cayote charging off of full-speed, the earth began to rise. It was gradual, but it was visually quite noticeable. Pumping hard, my legs began to cramp and burn. But the incline did not stop. Because Robert was riding far ahead at the front of the group, I pulled up along the assistant guide, Jen. "When is this incline going to end?" I asked.

"Ten, fifteen minutes," she said. I felt like I could make it for maybe another 45 seconds.

"You´re kidding," I said. "I thought Robert said it would be brief. Also, there is no way this is only 6 degrees."

"Oh yeah," she agreed. "This is way more than 6 degrees. He´s crazy."

"Or lying."

"Or both." She shrugged as she pulled ahead of me.

I am ashamed to say that it was my fear of the embarassment of being left to choke on the dirt of a small, 110-pound 24-year old woman that got me through the end of that uphill stretch. Though I had to stop once to pant uncontrollably on the handlebars of my bike, I largely kept up with the group, despite the numbness in my thighs and a parched dryness in my throat the likes of which I had never felt before. I did not carry any water on me because the agent at Biking Dutchman told me that the trucks would carry along all the water we would possibly need. But she had also told me that the trucks would be following behind us at all times. That was clearly not the case right now. Clearly a minor oversight. I wondered if the Biking Dutchman himself would have allowed this to happen. I also wondered if I could sue him.

The final minor oversight was that nobody mentioned that the second half of the trip would not be of scenic mountain vistas but of backstreet impoverished barrios instead. As the path curved in from the ledge of the mountain and wound its way down to the outskirts of Cumbaya, it took us through backstreets sprinkled with run-down shacks and littered with garbage, glass and the occassional lonely figure wandering or rummaging through it. More importantly, for purposes of my griping at the choice of location, there were dogs, lots of stray dogs along the tracks, many of them fiercely territorial. I was chased on several occassions, with plenty of savage howling at my heels. It was exhiliariting, yes, but it wasn´t a lot of fun. I do not think these dogs were playing and I know that it was in my best interests to pump the pedals as fast as I could so as not to be there to find out.

I was just about to continue down the tracks past a side street when the driver of one of the Range Rovers yelled from my left and directed me to pull over. The trucks were just up the hill. The trip was more or less over. 25 more kilometers done. I biked up the hill, on a quiet residential street, for several minutes. Cruelly, it was very steep and the worst possible way to finish the ride. I met up with German Rolf on the way and we continued until we saw the trucks pulled up in front of a large white house. When we got there, a tall thin man, balding, in his mid or late 50s greeted us in a strange, vaguely European accent:

"How vaz de ride?" Wait a minute. He sounded... Dutch.

"Great," I said, at least somewhat genuinely, now that it was all in the past. I sat with Rolf and Jen on the curb as a big jug of water was passed around to us. There was no sign of Robert or the other riders yet. This confused me a little, because I knew that Robert had ridden well ahead of us. "Where´s Robert?" I finally asked.

"He kept going," said Jen. "Steffan was first, didn´t know the ride was over and continued down the tracks. Robert went after him."

Oh. I was glad that I didn´t ride first --- my lack of stamina had paid off in spades. It was clear that Steffan kept going because nobody had been there at the time to stop him and there was no reason to think the side street marking the end of our ride was different from any of the countless others.

Meanwhile, the Biking Dutchman´s enormous Bull Mastiff, "Molly," had wandered up to my side to solicit an ear-scratching. After several minutes of accomodating her, I made the mistake of stopping to sip some more water. In an effort to remind me that my priorities lay elsewhere, Molly promptly jammed her gargantuan head into my side, bowling me over. I went back to petting her.

"Molly iz in loov wit you," said the Biking Dutchman.

"So were all the other dogs on the trail," I said.

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6

When all the other bikers had made it to the trucks, we saddled up and rode 5 miles into Cumbaya to pick up Robert and Steffan, who had gone all the way to the end of the tracks. Steffan was still grinning from ear to ear (he never really stopped), clearly happy with himself for going the extra miles. It was all the same to Robert, who would have probably biked back to Quito and gladly had he not been leading our group that day. I, however, was exhausted. And filthy. As we drove back home in high spirits, we decided that the smells coming from all of us were too strong for any individual to be singled out and ostracized.

"Is Cotapaxi harder than this?" asked one of the Canadians.

"Oh yeah," said Robert. "Cotapaxi is hard. Last year, a guide flew over the handlebars during one of the steeper descents and cracked his head open on one of the rocks. He was in a coma for two weeks and is lucky to be alive."

"What´s your favorite trail?" asked one of the Ecuadorians.

"Its hard to say," said Robert. "Probably Cotapaxi."

I silently took stock. During the course of that day I had been propelled down the side of a mountain on a vehicle I could not control and rattled around like a can of soda in a washing machine. I had been blocked by an enormous and recent mudslide on a road few if any people had biked down before. Then I had had slid on my back in the dirt under barbed wire and, in the course of trying to relax, been nearly boiled alive in the hot springs at Papallacta. I had biked up a long sadistic hill until my legs turned to jello, choked on dust and dirt, and, to top it off, been chased by packs of vicious dogs. Lets even say they were rapid dogs. Nobody can ever prove otherwise.

I had done something and it felt good.

"When do you think Cotapaxi will reopen?" I asked, wondering if it would be possible to dictate stories about the trip from a hospital bed while in traction.

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Two Things:

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