Ruco Pichincha

Diamox: Day 1. Acetazolamide is an inhibitor of the carbonic anhydrase enzyme and is used in medicine as a diuretic and in the treatment of glaucoma, epilepsy, benign intracranial hypertension, mountain sickness, and lots of other things...beet juice also works great, mixed with milk. 

 We went up Pichincha, a famous 15,480 foot old volcano to acclimatize, it is a hike not a climb, although I did start up the climbing ridge route, but did not continue because I was in the fog, the wind was blowing sideways, and it was getting cold, like it might start raining, instead, a little later it hailed then it rained. It rains every day here, usually in the afternoon.  I like the rain.   We  made friends on the way: a pediatrician resident from New Orleans, a food scientist from Chicago, a woman studying to be an elementary teacher from Quebec, and  two ecology students from Germany. One of them, Mica, made it to the top.  

 Feeling good about the hail. we still made it up to the summit in about 3 hours, 2 hours less than the expected time.  4696 meters. 

 Hail, but I have seen far worse. And fog, lots of fog on the summit.

 We start for Cotapaxi tomorrow, we have not been able to see any of the big volcanoes, it is too cloudy and rainy, but the plan is to get to the mountain tomorrow, hike up to the shelter, then leave for the summit around 11PM or 12:00 midnight.  My plan is to wake up at 4:00 AM tomorrow to be ready to go to bed at 6:00 PM. The plan is for the snow glacier to be hard enough to climb up and down without avalanches, and hopefully catch some clear weather in the early morning.

The sign says take a medicine cabinet, along with a whistle and if you get lost, stay in the same place.  I was tired, and very glad to get down to the Teleferico, the gondola type lift that takes people up to the starting point.  It was just starting to lightning and thunder, I grabbed one of the best hot chocolates ever, in a small red cup, and jumped on the tram.  So calming and relaxing and warm, it was the best tram ride ever.  

I need to make one of these. 

 I was thinking, I just want to go back to the hotel, but got a burst of energy and decided to have the driver take us back into the old part of the city (Quito is huge, 3 million people), because I wanted to see a museum, they were all closed yesterday.  So I dragged Spencer up a few more hills, and into a great exhibit of Ecuadorian indigenous political art and photography, then to an even better museum of ancient Ecuadorian pre-Columbian work, where we saw some amazing ceramic work and sculpture. We also visited a crazy market, with wonderfully strange food, ceramic beads, and reliquaries. 

 Very ancient pot, for the remains of someone...I want to make one of these. It was perfect, with a greatly worn patina. 

 Ancient, early 20th century loom and backstrap loom, which I am intimately familiar with. These are early 20th century photographs from an exhibit about how views about indigenous people have changed.

 I was so happy to be drawing in the museum, and even though I had already hiked for 5 hours, was greatly rejuvenated and said buenas tardes to the guards and thanked them for letting us see the museum and bought a nice chocolate chip cookie for 50 cents!  One of the best I have ever had, we had to walk in the rain the entire time, but I didn’t mind. The extremely ancient, so old it looks modern, sculpture on the left is placed next to a grave place and represents the person going to the next life. This museum only had artifacts from Ecuador. 

This ceramic vessels describes the various levels of the cosmos.  I need to make one of these also.