I am brought back to consciousness by the sound of heavy panting. I open my eyes to see that not only has Chartreuse meandered into the room, but she has settled herself into my field of vision. Fran must have left the door open a crack.
“Hi,” I mouth.
Chartreuse pants while I stare, unblinking, into her eyes. You’re not supposed to stare animals directly in the eye for a prolonged period of time, but what’s she going to do to me from all the way down there? She proceeds to have a full seizure as I look down, my cheeks crammed into the headrest. Her body shakes. Her ears go in different directions. I am unclear on the etiquette here. Fran says nothing as Chartreuse keels to her side and shakes, her limbs going stiff. It looks like she’s trying, and failing, to break-dance. Still, Fran stays mum. She moves methodically down my spine as if nothing is happening. Because, for her, nothing is. She sees this kind of thing all the time. But me, I don’t move a muscle, because I have never seen anything like it.
Up the Down Volcano
Apparently, Ecuador is graced with all four seasons in the course of a single day, and so I pack for none. Instead, I throw a random selection of clothing in a small duffel bag, stuffing a bikini and a fleece vest into the pocket of negative space that appears when I zip it. A sense of satisfaction washes over me as I force-feed nylon straps through plastic teeth. There’s no reason for me to feel satisfied. You need many more items than the ones I have chosen for a day at the beach or a circumnavigation of Greenland. But I have made a habit of underpacking, of escorting aspirational accessories around the globe as if they were children on a disastrous family trip.
“You wanted to see Miami?” I put a straw hat on a glass coffee table where it will stay untouched until I repack it. “There, now you’ve seen it.”
My aversion to overpacking and its uptight cousin, overplanning, stems from the belief that neither tendency is a fake problem. These are not amusing tics. They are instead reflections on the personality of the packer. They suggest a dubiousness of other lifestyles (racist), a conviction that the world won’t have what you need (princess), and a lack of faith that you’ll continue being human when it doesn’t (misanthrope). And how hard is it, really? I think by now we can all agree that the foundation of world travel goes something like “Bring a cardigan.”
Thusly armed with my meager tributes to a four-in-one climate, I lift my bag. My bicep aches from yesterday’s visitors: a series of offensively long needles. I am off to Quito, the capital of Ecuador, because a travel magazine has told me to go there. My nebulous mission is to wander around the city for a few days, interact with locals, and write about it. It’s a dream assignment for anyone and I have never been to South America. Thus, I find it to be extra dreamy.
Because I am the temporary ward of a media company, I am advised to seek out multiple inoculations, including one for typhus. It’s all fun and games until someone gets typhus. I am also encouraged to pick up a prescription for malaria pills should I venture farther afield. Quito isn’t Tokyo, no, but it’s a major city with running water. The quotidian equivalent of such precautions would have me being one of those people who spray hand sanitizer on subway poles.
“Is this really necessary?” I ask my editor, who points out how difficult things will be for me if I get sick and can’t communicate.
“You don’t speak Spanish.”
“I hablo un poco de espan-yoal,” I defend myself.
“Uh-huh,” he says.
* * *
Few instances in my life have made me feel so tough as helping the Duane Reade pharmacist locate my malaria pills.
“What are we looking for, hon?” she shouts over her shoulder, thumbing her way through a bin of pills and creams for normal-people problems.
Chain-store pharmacists put exactly as much effort into patient privacy as I do into packing. Until they invent a Libido Dampening syrup or a capsule for Being Too Darn Pretty, this will be the only time I’ll proudly announce the contents of my envelope to all the land. A line forms behind me. I feign shyness at the impressed glances of my fellow customers. They wouldn’t have pegged me as a war photographer or an aid worker but oh, how wrong they are.
Both the pills and the shots wind up bolstering my sense of adventure, my desire to take my body out for a spin. As if I am dealing with extra minutes on a phone plan, not my immune system. Use it or lose it! I wish I could apply this attitude to my daily life, but I’m a lazy person within the confines of New York City. I won’t meet a friend more than ten blocks from my apartment if it’s too windy and the sidewalks are looking especially hard today. I am skeptical of ferries and bus transfers. Often I will walk past a restaurant and have the thought: I should order out from there later.
But the whole point of this trip is to leave it to chance. Well, chance and Facebook. Unlike casting a social net for tips on Dublin or Buenos Aires, where comment after comment would compete in an e-thumb war for supreme regional wisdom, people are content to deliver their advice regarding Quito in direct messages. Few have spent quality time there. Three people chime in. One suggests a restaurant with fruit drinks, one suggests a museum with paintings of skeletons, and the third suggests I climb Cotopaxi, a 20,000-foot active volcano. Dubious of the Wi-Fi in my budget hotel (racist), I type up the list in advance: fruit drink, skeleton paintings, active volcano.
