San Pedro and Failed Cotopatxi Attempt

So that last time ya´ll read about us, we were working on the Comuna de Rhianon farm, located on the edge of the world in Malchingui, Ecuador. We had been working on the farm for nearly two weeks when we started preparing for ¨the San Pedro¨ceremony. Lilli and I didn´t know what exactly it was going to be like or what we were preparing for. And then all was explained by our good friend Emil, also an Oregonian. San Pedro is a medicinal herb that comes from the cactus of the same name. It can be taken as a tea or ingested as an herb. It has been used for centuries in South American communities as a way to gain insight into one´s life, pray for help, and general path finding use. To set up for the ceremony, we would be decorating the yoga room and taking some more time to ourselves in order to mentally, physically and emotionally prepare for the event. Lilli and I were initially skeptical that the night would be just a bunch of people wanting to ¨take a trip¨ but one of the owners of the farm, Nikki, explained that the night consisted of a led ceremony with the shaman being very careful to make sure that every person received the right amount of tea. She also explained how insightful the entire experience can be and how she has gained quite a bit of insight through her experience.
Lil and I said we would join the night. The night before the San Pedro ceremony, we all took part in a sweat lodge in order to cleanse our bodies. A sweat lodge is not a spa as some people think. Although you are sitting in a room with very hot rocks and sweating a lot, you are in there in order to rid your bodies of all the toxins lodged in there over the days. I didn´t realize how taxing it was going to be until I had been sitting in the room for over 45 minutes and started to feel quite light-headed. Also, during the sweat, each person said something they were thankful for, something they wished healing for, and some dream they wished to come true. It was quite a memorable experience, hearing all the wishes of others as well as hearing my own voice echo the desires of my heart. After being in the sweat for an hour and a half, I emerged feeling like a wet rag, rinsed and rung out to absorb the good energy of the world and my current location on the farm.


Pedro and Juan Diego prepare the coals for temazcal

As you can imagine, the next day everyone on the farm was anticipating the evening´s proceedings. Many people fasted for most of the day; I only fasted from lunch on as was recommended by Nikki.



the yoga room, prepped for the ceremony


The Shaman arrived around 8 o clock at night and we anxious awaited the start of the ceremony. The ceremony started at around 10;45, and began with us all sharing our intentions for participating in the ceremony. My intention was to practice patience and respect for others, and Lilli´s was to gain more confidence and strength while traveling in an unknown place. After sharing our intentions, the shaman passed around the sacred tobacco, which he had rolled in a cornhusk and blessed. Afterwards, we all took our share of tea and passed the evening listening the the Shaman´s music, watching the fire in the center of the room and chanting, which was intersperced with small ¨sermons¨ which were translated into english for us by the Shaman´s American interpreter. At about 2:00 in the morning, the Shaman preformed a cleansing on Pablo, one of the members of the farm, who is from Argentina. Although the cleansing was performed soley on Pablo, it was meant to benefit all of us. The Shaman touched certain points on Pablo´s body while chanting and moving rhytmically with the chanting. Pablo then stood before us and the fire and called his name. It´s hard to explain what happened next, as Pablo started to shake and fell against a wall, he had expended so much energy that he was suddenly shivering and cold and crying out for the Shaman to help him. The Shaman was able to calm him and bring him back to the room within minutes, but we were all shaken at the power of the medicine and of the Shaman.
Soon after the Shaman came around the room and blessed each one of us, which resulted in many smiles, and some tears of joy. We all continued on the journey with the Shaman until the sun rose and we watched a beautiful sunrise out the window of the yoga room. The ceremony ended with a beautiful water ceremony, which took over 2 hours and consisted of the Shaman and his assistants discussing the importance of water and sharing water with all of us (we were not able to drink during the ceremony). The next day was spent recovering, spending time with other members of the farm, and falling asleep in the yoga room; we all dragged in the matresses and had big giant sleepover! The last day at the farm began with a huge breakfast and ended with pictures, goodbye hugs, and a long truck ride to Quito, where we caught our bus to Latacunga, the starting point of our hike.



The yoga room, prepped for our sleepover!


Olivia and I in the yoga room, post ceremony


our rhiannon community family, big family photo before departure!

After arriving in Latacunga, we got ready for the Cotopatxi hike. First, we needed to get fuel for our camping stove. To let you all know, white gas is a white lie in this country. It does not exist. And diesel fuel sucks to try to burn with. I had to get unleaded auto fuel after a full day of running around like a chicken with my head cut off asking untold numbers of people. So Lil, Emil and I were ready for our hike. We had our IGM maps, the ¨trail¨ guide, two compasses and all the food we could handle. Our first day started in the small hamlet of Pansaleo, located under the shadow of Rumiñahui, a mountain with three peaks above 14,000 ft. We had about 4000 feet of elevation gain to complete over the next 2 days so we started early in the day in order to get a good start.


Dave and Emil, on the truck ride to the trailhead!

We charged the vehicular track and made quite a bit of headway by lunch. Clouds had settled in but only a sprinkle of rain was falling upon us. And then, the directions and trail started going very awry. We came down to a stream and thought we needed to cross but realized that we actually needed to be on the true left of it climbing this hill (by the way, anything that says true left or true right is very unhelpful in my personal esteem; writers could just as easily use landmarks). After crossing the stream again, we went back up to the cattle fencing, tossed our packs, and continued the march. We had to climb a tussock slope in order to gain the trail at the top of the ridge. As we were hiking up the hill to the trail, rain descended upon us. And not just light sprinkles but buckets. We quickly buckled down under Emil´s tarp. And we were there for 1 hour, holding on tight through high winds, heavy rains, thunder, some lightning and the pressing realization that we would not be getting to the final camp site tonight. After waiting for that long, we just ran for it, slipping and sliding up the hill until we got onto the trail and started making out way to the second, closer camp site listed on the map. But there was snow in the distance! The mountains were making monkeys out of us. We spied a copse of trees to our right and booked for some cover and to make shelter for the night. Tromping through brush and shrubs, we got down to some trees, threw up the tent and all cuddled in for the night. We were soaked and needed to get dry fast so we all huddled close for warmth. (Quote of the night: ¨we´re just trying to survive!¨-Emil) Now, I might be a bit over exaggerating here but trying to get dry and warm without a fire sucks. Lil, Emil and I had been through worse at our jobs, but it was still pretty miserable. (Emil works for Youth Corp, building trails during any season). We made a pot of hot soup, prayed for a clear morning, and fell asleep at 13,000 feet.


The only fire we managed to have on Tuesday night:(

The next day, the clouds parted and we saw Rumiñahui for the first time. Beautiful and magestic, we knew we had to continue for at least another day. (The night before we had discussed the possibility of returning to the trailhead if it continued to pour the next day) After packing up, we found the trail and booked for the next camp site in the promise of water. Lil used her Steri-Pen in order to sterilize the water while Emil and I built a fire to warm up. The wood was wet so we were only able to build small one to get a bit dried out before moving on. The day was great at this point with even some hints of sunshine. And then the fog moved in. This fog was so thick at points that I couldn´t see 10 feet in front of me! And trying to navigate through that is really hard. We pressed on, with a definite trail in front of us, all feeling like real hardcore adventurers. And then the trail disappeared and we were wrapped in fog for a while. Upon a bit of clearing we realized we were near that valley we wanted to be at. We descended down, feeling light and free that we had made it to at least here. This is when things started to go downhill. (Lilli is writing now so the rest of this blog is from her point of view)

There was a river in front of us that our directions indicated we be to the true right¨ of, while also walking on the west bank. These two directions were conflicting, so we crossed back and forth a few times, and decided on the side of the river that had a visable trail. After hiking for 45 minutes, we realized that this trail was actually a cattle trail, which disappeared over the top of the ridge line. From this vantage point, we could see a clear trail on the other side of the river. The fog was getting thicker and we decided that we would make our own trail and follow the ridgeline down to the lake we could see in the distance, which was our ultimate destination for our campsite. Hiking the 2 miles down the ridgeline took over 3 hours, and included bushwacking huge bushes and grasses up to our heads in the pouring rain and fog, becoming disoriented, constantly needing to catch our breath (still at 13,000 feet) and falling over several times. The fog cleared for a few minutes and we saw that there was a road in the distance with an occassional truck passing by. We decided to head towards the road since the fog had swallowed up the lake and we figured that the road probably headed towards the lake.
Finally, finally, we were about 50 feet from the road. We charged full steam ahead, only to discover that the river had snaked back around and getting to the road meant taking a running leap over this rushing river. Awesome. Emil and I leapt across (I leapt 2nd and knocked Emil over, who was waiting to catch me on the other side) and then Dave threw our packs across (these also knocked Emil over). Finally, we reached the road, ate lunch in the rain and started hiking towards, what we thought was, the lake. We flagged down a car about 40 minutes later to see how far we were from the lake, and they told us that the lake was one hour in the opposite direction! We were only 20 minutes from it in the first place! We turned around, again, and started hiking. A truck pulled up about 20 minutes later and asked if we wanted a ride out of the park, to the panamerican highway. We made a spontanious decision to accept and abandon our mission. We were cold, wet, lost, and miserable, and we decided that going back to our hostel and sleeping in warm dry sheets, would be much more enjoyable than climbing in my wet tent and shivering. We accepted the ride, hailed a bus from the highway, hightailed it back to Latacunga, went back to our hostel where all our dry clothes were stored and waiting for us, showered, ate wayyy too much fast food, and collapsed in our beds. Cotapaxi definately won this battle. We all agreed that bailing out on the hike we´d been planning for over 2 weeks felt pretty crappy, but we´d rather feel crappy about it than end up hypothermic and dead in Ecaudor.





The few pictures we managed to take of our hike between hiding from lightning storms drowning in torrential downpours, and being lost in disorienting fog.

Wow, this has been a long post. It´s time to go! We are off to Banos tomorrow, where we will bathe in hotsprings, relax, and do some hiking (with real trails this time). Until next time!