Thursday, 12/10/98, Quito

Was awake between 2 and 4 A.M. Awoke with visions of another Viteri collage: la puerta negra de mi infierno. I like it -- want it – for two reasons. It complements Jim’s voces del silencio: dark where his is bright, guilty where his is innocent. And, somehow, it is about the celebration of our trip and our discovery of Viteri together.

Through Nuevo Mundo, Jim arranged a day trip. First stop, Saquisili animal market, then the crafts market. Next, the Cotapaxi volcano. On the way to the top, we stopped at a small museum, then for a picnic lunch at a quiet lake, during which it was pouring down rain.

Cotapaxi volcano was astounding, even if we didn’t get to look into its maw. Probably the highest active volcano on the planet. We drove to the start of the snowcap. Tundra. It is near the basecamp and nearly 16,000 feet. It was a long drive to a cold, dramatic vista. We were feeling the oxygen deprivation but gamely crunched along in the black ash and snow to see the geology of the ancient lava flow – a slash of red in layered rock. The whole downhill scene looked like the Pamirs as we decended from the Khunjerab Pass to China: beautifully desolate in grays, terracottas and browns.

Vocabulary note: minga refers to collective work, a project in which everyone participates, like a barn-raising. (What people in villages do.)