3rd weekend

The trip to Quitumbre, where the class was meeting, was stressful, because we thought it would only take an hour to get to one bus that would take us to Quitumbre,. It instead took an hour and forty-five and two buses, and the bus full of students almost left without us. We sprinted with all of our gear, and we made it. I am so glad it wasn’t me going alone, because I’m sure I would’ve broken down at the point where we thought we were supposed to be, but really needed to hop on another bus.

The hike was the most physical exertion I’ve done in my life. I consider myself to be an active person, but I’ve never had to push myself that hard, and I’ve never hiked a mountain that large. When we were hiking down the mountain, I was afraid of slipping, and when we were hiking up I was afraid I would collapse. We didn’t walk on level ground for more than a minute. Add twenty pounds of gear, six hours of hiking, no real friends, and rain, and I felt miserable at certain points of the trip. Other times when we had a second to rest, I was able to see the beauty around me, and I felt incredible. We finally made it to camp in the dark and rain. Our “campsite” was really a family’s cow field, so there was wet cow poo everywhere. The tent my friend rented was broken, so we slept in an Ecuadorian guy’s tent instead. It was nice because we got to talk a little. The class is mostly extranjeros, not Ecuadorians, so I spoke English most of the trip. There were some kids from Germany, so there was some German too.
The next morning, still mojada (wet) from last night, I managed to step in human poo while looking for somewhere to pee. There weren’t bathrooms at the campsite, and I thought we would’ve been told to bring a small shovel for that sort of thing. It’s really unsanitary to have about thirty people sleep at a camp site and not have bathrooms or shovels, and I didn’t think to look out for human poo when every where I stepped was cow poo.

Not the best start to the morning, and the three hour hike to the bus was the worst yet, but also very satisfying. The bus ride back was entertaining and scary because while going down the one-way street down the mountain, most of the people on the bus were off their seats, dancing to loud salsa and reggeton. After that bus, I took two buses and a cab home. I spent more time riding buses than hiking, but it was worth it.