Chimborazo Article Publication

I'm happy to announce that my article about "The Last Iceman of Chimborazo" is now up on The Travelers Notebook, a section of Matador Travel. I put a lot of effort into this piece and I'm proud of it, so give it a read. If you like it tell your friends. The story follows Baltazar Ushca, the last man to go up on Chimborazo, an extinct volcano in Ecuador, and collect ice to sell at the market every Saturday.

I had the chance to go up with Baltazar on Thanksgiving day last month, and it was truly an amazing experience. You can also find some of my notes from the trip on my blog back in November, as well as more photos. Hope you enjoy.

The Last Iceman

The night before the big trip to Chimborazo, I could barely sleep. My room was right on the street and it was loud until 3 am. The bed was uncomfortable and the pillow was a rock. For some reason I woke up in the middle of the night unable to breath, and every time I went back under I would come to again, unable to breath. And of course, I was excited and nervous for the trek. But when the alarm went off at 5:30 am, I was ready to go and enthusiastic.

I'm not going to get into the complexity of the story or the trip because I'm going to write an article for Matador Travel about the whole experience. I took a lot of great photos and video, and I think the entire piece will come together nicely. But I will say this:

We were lucky with a great day for the hike. Chimborazo, which stands at about 20,500 feet, is the highest peak in Ecuador. It's an extinct volcano and is permanently snow capped. We went up on horses to make sure we could finish the hike with Baltazar Uscha, an indigenous man who speaks little Spanish and mostly Quichua. Uscha is the last iceman of Chimborazo. For centuries, people have been climbing up Chimborazo to chop out blocks of ice from the glacier and sell at the market, but because of the invention of the refrigerator, it is now an obsolete job.

Uscha climbs up to about 16,000 feet twice a week to chop out 6 blocks of ice to sell at the market, and since his children don't want to continue the tradition, when he dies there will be no one left to continue it, and that part of the culture will be lost forever. The majority of the information will appear in the article, so that's all you'll see for now.

The hike was a success, and though we came back later and Sarah missed her class, it was a good day. Later that night I met up with another Riobamba volunteer, Annie, for dinner. The next morning I took the long 6 hour bus ride back to Cuenca. I rested up for a bit and waited for my friend Becky to arrive from Loja for a Thanksgiving feast on Saturday night.

Above: Baltazar Uscha working on the ice, in the field, and with his donkey

Into Riobamba

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I woke up early Wednesday morning to catch a bus to Riobamba from Guaranda. Instead of going to the terminal, Dan told me I could just stand on the side of the road and flag down a bus, essentially like hitchhiking, but it's a very common practice here. It was my first time trying this on my own. Waiting for the 7:50, I found that no bus was coming or stopping for me, and the long wait began. An indigenous woman walked by and I asked her when the bus was coming. "Ya mismo," she told me, meaning right now. But in Ecuador, that generally means not for a long time.

We talked for a while and she was nice enough to sit with me on the side of the road and wait until the bus came. As we sat there big plumes of black exhaust were blown in our faces by other buses and cars, polluting our lungs. In the ditch on the side of the road the sun slowly rose and became stronger, and about an hour later I could feel by neck burning. Every time a bus came by I asked the woman if that was it, but she kept saying maybe, but probably not. Dan eventually came down, surprised to see me still there. He got on his bus to town, and about 15 minutes later the bus finally came. I picked up by backpack, said thank you, and ran after the bus which was waiting up the road.

Two hours later and I was back in Riobamba. My plan was to show up at the hotel I'd been told about, ask for the man I was told about, and hope I could do the climb up Chimborazo. Normally I would love to have a plan and know what was going on. I think part of living here has eased me up a bit on that. When I lived in Europe, I would have all of my hostels, planes, and trains planed out perfectly. Now, however, I'm going with the flow of life in Ecuador.

Showing up at the hotel I asked for the cheapest room, $6 a night, shared and with a bathroom down the hall. The guy at the desk insisted that I get my own room with a bathroom for $10, but I wasn't interested. I soon found out the reason he was so concerned was because the hotel was practically empty, and I had my own room anyway for the cheaper price. After I settled the room, I told the man that I was looking for a man named Joel who worked for Alta Montana. He knew who I was talking about, called Joel, and 10 minutes later he showed up to talk business.

Though I'd emailed him twice a week earlier, he hadn't gotten back to me until that morning, when I had no Internet access. A short man with a lot of energy, he was enthusiastic to tell me that I would be able to go on the climb Thursday morning with Baltazar Uscha, the last iceman of Chimborazo. My friend Sarah, who teaches in Riobamba, also wanted to go, but she had to be sure that she would make it back by 4:30 pm to teach. Joel assured her that she would be back in time, and we would rent horses to make sure we could finish the difficult hike and make it back in time.

We settled on $65 for the transportation, hike, and horses. We probably over payed, but since I'd already arranged to write an article about the experience, I was mostly concerned with getting it done. After we finished the business, Joel took us to buy hats, gloves, and rubber boots, necessary for the hike. A man who seemed to know everyone in the city, he helped us get fair prices on all of the goods. A pair of boots ran me $6.50 and a warm wool hat was $3.50. Though I didn't need the hat, I liked it enough to splurge.

After wards Sarah invited me to have lunch with her host family. The host dad, who's going a little blind, loved to talk about Frank Sinatra and imitate John Wayne, using his fingers as pistols as he walked into a fake saloon. He also loved to talk about Boston, since he's hosted so many volunteers from there, he feels like he knows the city even though he's never actually gone.

Sarah showed me about Riobamba before she had to go to class, but she later called me to tell me that classes were canceled because of a student strike over elections. I've passed through Riobamba a few times and had only seen the outskirts, so the town looked like a dump. But going into the center, I could see that it was pretty nice. The center was pretty and though there isn't much to do there, it was cool to check out a different city for a couple of days. The best part of the city is the stunning views of three different volcanoes on the edges of the city. On one side there is Chimborazo, leading to the coast, and on the other side is Tungurahua, leading to the Oriente, or Amazon.

After a great burrito for dinner, I went back to the hotel to try to get some rest before waking up at 5:30 am to get ready for the day on Chimborazo.

To be continued...

Above: A sign showing the way for the hike of the hieleros, Baltazar Uscha's grandchildren at home, Chimborazo in early morning

A Week of Finals and Firsts

This week has seen my time occupied with proctoring final exams, and though there have been some days when I've had almost no work to do, there have been others, like yesterday, when I had to grade 52 tests at once. It feels a bit like leaving a stifling hot house and going out into the cold winter night. It's just screwing up my system and confusing my body.

In between nearly falling asleep listening to the same oral exams over and again and grading the written exams, I've been trying to figure out what to do with my week off next week. I had originally planned to head south to Loja and Vilcabamba for a couple days each. But then I was suddenly presented with a great opportunity.

My friend Casey had gone up with his wife Lara to Riobamba last week and did some climbing on Chimborazo, the tallest mountain in Ecuador. Also, because of the equatorial bulge, Chimborazo is technically the highest peak in the world. While there, Casey and Lara met a man who is the last of a dying breed. For centuries, indigenous people would climb up the mountain to chop out blocks of ice and sell them at the market, but because of the invention of the refrigerator, they have been dwindling away. Now there is one man left, a 65 year old, who is the last ice man.

Though he hates tourists, you can arrange to follow him up on the 8 hour hike to about 16,000 ft and watch him chop out the ice and bring it back down the mountain. The man also speaks Quichua, and not much Spanish, making it a bit more complicated. But I plan to go to Riobamba now and do this climb, and hopefully be able to write a nice story about it. Along the way, I'll probably also stop in Guaranda, about 2 hours away, to see a couple friends for a day or two.

I'm by no means an expert climber, so hopefully the altitude won't do me in too badly. I have been living at about 8,800 feet for a couple months, but when I was still in Quito, I was sucking air at about 13,000 feet on Pichincha.

Next week is also Thanksgiving, and some people were planning on coming into Cuenca for a little feast Saturday night. I'm hoping to be back by Friday afternoon, but the only problem is I have no idea how to cook a turkey. Or anything else for Thanksgiving. We might have to just wind up going with some street meat in the end. The main point, however, is to meet up with some friends and other Americans to celebrate the holiday in one way or another.

I've also learned something important. For a while I would say that some people in Ecuador speak Quechua, but that is a mistake. The indigenous in Ecuador speak Quichua (kee-chew-ah), and the indigenous in Peru speak Quechua (keh-chew-ah). The pronunciation is slightly different, but apparently it's nearly an entirely different language. So to review: Ecuador=Quichua, Peru=Quechua.

So there's the chance that I won't be writing much next week, but you can be sure that when I get back there will plenty of good stories to tell, and no doubt with some nice pictures as well. Who knows, there might even be some video. Stay tuned.