Ecuador

This past weekend was the longest hours of my life. I don't want to tell everyone what happened in the most impersonal way, but I feel obligated to let anyone know who wants know. And for those willing to wait, I just want to make it known that I am recovering very quickly, faster than I ever thought I could, and I am feeling a lot better now. Things like this don't go away, but I feel like if I can make it through the next week, my travels with my brother will be a lot more comfortable and reassuring.

I am trying to figure something out. Why is it that everyone in my family in Ecuador seem to have their birthdays on the most inopportune times. In the last week there has been FIVE birthdays.

There is something you should know about birthdays in Ecuador. They drink. A lot. There is no acclaimed alcoholism, and maybe that is because everyone is an alcoholic. So they push you to drink and to drink a lot. Only tonight, I am not in the mood. I got too much to do. It figures that the night is a big one too. The fiftieth birthday of my host mom's boyfriend.

Andacocha is a destination for prayers of people who are subjected to inequalities so common, especially outside of the towns and cities. It used to be a place for prayers to protect animals or children from illnesses and the like but it has evolved within the last twenty years into a place to pray for safe migration to the United States or elsewhere, often illegally.

They say you have to suffer on the way to get there, and I got a good idea of what that entails. We climbed up steep rocky, muddy, swampy trails until we reached a pass between two higher mountains that is undeveloped, where a church and plaza stood. Depending on the type of suffering required for the type of prayer you are asking for, some migrants climb the slopes barefooted or even by crawling. The thought of either of those is remarkable. It was bad enough with a pair of tennis shoes.

As we climbed, we went along houses that have developed along the way now that a road leads up to the church. The church used to be a small little outpost, but now it is a grandiose building, reconstructed with the thousands upon thousands of dollars from migrants sending money back to pay homage and thanks to their miracle.

The church is home to a miracle, thus making it a miracle working place of worship. The story goes that a worker of a large hacienda found an icon of Jesus, no larger than the length of my hand, out in the middle of the páramo. The owners took the image down into the town below on three different occasions, each of which end with the image miraculously making its way back to the place it was found, close to the poor disfortunate workers of the hacienda. After the third miracle, it was decided that they would construct a chapel there, close to the indigenous people, to serve the indigenous people. Now, the less fortunate go there asking for a change in the inequalities of society here, by allowing a safe passage to the United States.

I made my own sacrifice in reaching the top, hiking the steep trails, and I had a little prayer of my own. One that the heavens above had heard many a time from where I lit my candle. I asked for my safe arrival into the United States. The church itself was lavishly decorated in stained glass windows, paid for with migrant money. They also had a museum paying homage to all the successful migrants who made it to the United States and who are making money to help their family out of debts and suppression. The room was not very big, but it was littered in photographs and plaques professing their thanks and devotion to Señor Andacocha.

Well the scare from near two weeks ago continued to haunt me until Saturday. Hopefully now, it will once and for all be resolved.

Over the past twelve days I have been monitoring the health of the dogs near Sayanusí where I was bit. I had a relatively precise memory of the scene that took place, remembering the exact site, the owner, and the two dogs that chased after me. The advice I heard over and over was to track the dogs, if you can find them, and if they have not died or shown signs of illness from the virus, then you are in the clear for rabies. But still you can't be too sure about anything when your life could be at stake. So I decided to pursue getting the rabies shots (10 in all, 3 more than I previously knew about) for the peace of mind of everyone back home and for myself.

Friday afternoon I went to the clinic, a little in daze, not fully aware how it was like I was walking the last mile. Narcisa and I found out some more unwelcoming news when we found a doctor to talk to. It seemed like tracking the dogs in the area was about as certain of a safety precaution as taking the shots. The doctor told me I was crazy. He basically outright refused to give me the shots at first. He said that after ten days I would have a headache and fever, some sort of personal sign of having contracted the virus. He also gave some information that I did not know about the shots. Not only are they painful, but they are risky. There is a somewhat significant risk of contracting the virus from the shots themselves. Uhh, what, huh?

So I didn't take the shots. That was Friday.

Saturday, I went early in the morning with Narcisa to check up on ol' yeller. The dog was alive. Better yet, we talked with the son of the woman owner of the two dogs and he said the dogs had their injections, something we have heard from many people, but not directly from the source. The son was much more believable than his mother. I think in part because he seemed taken back about having to bring the dogs out and maybe because he had some first-hand experiences on having that dog bite him, as well. So I feel as confident as ever about not having contracted rabies.

Now, I am taking my showers and spending time outside in the sun, proving to myself each day that I have no symptoms of rabies. I think I'm in the clear.

Saturday I went to Cajas National Park with David in order to see what we could find in the polylepis forests in the páramo above the tree line. We are going to be writing a paper on the diversity within the unique forests, but our interest waned because we both knew that the paper that we are going to write is not necessarily scientific. What we really wanted to do in Cajas lay right in front of us, towering up to probably 4000 meters or so. Climb a mountain.

We looked to come around to the ridge at its lowest point and ascend to the peak from there, but when we got over the first hills, it looked a lot more difficult than we thought originally. But we kept on going. I didn't really take note of how difficult it was to breath because my adrenaline was pumping with my excitement. We took a little shortcut to a much higher elevation by climbing up a steep face on a nonexistent path. From there, we could see we were not going to make it up to the ridge. The slope was at least sixty degrees or more and we were already grabbing at our knees to stop ourselves for rest. But there was a polylepis forest right there! What good fortune!

So it was time to come down from our stunning vista, but we hadn't given up all hope of reaching the top of the mountain. So we thought we should walk around the peak at the altitude that we were already at, but we managed to trap ourselves on the way. At our height, I failed to realize before hand that it was mainly sheer cliffs down to where we started, thus our walking around the side earlier in order to find a more accessible way to reach the summit. We went down a steep little incline in order to get around on of the cliffs and at the base it became clear we had only one direction to keep moving, down. To make matters worse, it started to rain.

At long last, we managed to get down off the mountain, slowly but surely, by creeping beside the steep slopes along the bases of exposed rock faces. I would like to thank the physiology of tusset grasses for being sturdy and easy to hold on to, making the decent even possible. It was one of the most exhilarating hikes/climbs I have ever done.