Look Alive Out There

that reads as par for the course for an experienced climber. I wouldn’t know. I was not she and the decision to spend thirty-six hours up a glacier-encrusted mountain instead of bargaining for alpaca scarves had been a minor one. But even if I had gone the scarf route, the constant state of newness in a foreign country lends a little drama to everything. Even the maiden operation of a local ATM demands problem-solving. It becomes increasingly difficult to parse personal adventure from objective adventure, until you’re certain everything should be a challenge, every path a learning curve. It is only later that someone native to the region hears you decided to ride a bicycle to the airport, laughs, and says: Not that steep of a curve.

*   *   *

Lush green hills look patchy and weighted down. Drops of rain pelt my forehead from a crack in the Jeep’s window. We have under an hour to go, according to Edgardo. This is a relief as Edgardo’s musical taste leans toward German rap, which, for reasons that will be apparent to anyone who has heard German rap, makes me feel less like we’re on a road trip and more like we’re in a postapocalyptic novel. The music doesn’t stray too far from this genre except for a few plays of Ace of Base’s “The Sign,” a track I pretend holds emotional significance in order to get Edgardo to skip it.

Twenty minutes later, Edgardo pulls off the highway without warning, stops the car, and runs away on foot. Perhaps this is normal. Perhaps Americans are unnecessarily diligent about telling each other where we’re going all the time. If I hear a funny noise in the engine, I say, “Do you hear that?” I don’t just stop the car, get out, and leave everyone inside thinking I’ve embarked on a one-man game of Chinese fire drill. Or if you and I are having a discussion at a party and I have to go to the bathroom, I excuse myself. I don’t dart off like a startled horse. I’m not the kind of person who’s going to, say, pull over unannounced and go searching for weed in a random village while an overly inquisitive but otherwise tolerable American tourist waits in my car.

I have no idea what this little pit stop has to do with getting to Cotopaxi. Pedro popped out of the vehicle almost as fast as Edgardo, so he’s not even here to give me inscrutable looks. The gas tank is full. Maybe it’s not weed. Maybe Edgardo has to pick up a quilt his grandmother made him or something. I look around. The landscape outside features chickens, torn advertisements for soda, men leaning against walls, and shirtless children. A soldier strolls by with a large gun strapped to his back.

I push down on the door lock. Then I pull it up again.

I shut my eyes. When I was four years old I came down with pneumonia and hallucinated that my room was packed with bees. To avoid getting stung, I took refuge in the safest place I knew: under the covers. But of course there were bees there as well. Being inside or outside of the Jeep feels like the same kind of choice.

Bored, I open the glove compartment to find a pile of scratched CDs, ratty gloves, and some travel-size spray cologne. I pick up the cologne. It has the silhouette of a boob on it and rust on the bottom and I am not even tempted to remove the cap. I get out of the car and lean on it, which makes me feel like a prostitute but I don’t mind. I reason that prostitutes seem more in control than already kidnapped women locked in a car. A chicken runs by with a couple of kids following behind. Easily distracted from her own survival, the chicken stops to peck at a half-eaten paper plate of food.

When Edgardo and Pedro finally return, Edgardo succinctly instructs me to get back in the car and tosses a large bottle of water on my lap. Quito is not Tokyo, no, but it is not Khartoum, either. There is absolutely no way it takes this long to locate bottled water. I raise one eyebrow at him. If drugs have been introduced to this vehicle, I think I’ve earned some.

“Drink,” he says, adding, as I open the bottle, “you will need on the mountain.”

I pull the bottle from my lips like it’s poison.

“Do I drink the water now or do I not drink the water now?”

“Now drink,” he says, starting the car.

I unscrew the cap again.

“Drink on the mountain.”

I have seen many films with scenes like this. I don’t need to be part of one myself. If Cast Away, 127 Hours, Alive, Touching the Void, and Panic Room have taught me anything, it’s that you should never leave home without a lighter, a bottle of Gatorade, and a Swiss Army knife. At this point, people who do leave the house without an EpiPen basically deserve what’s coming to them. But the survival stuff is never the worst part of these movies. The worst part is those innocuous scenes, before the epic journey, the ones that appear to have nothing to do with anything. Chop off my arm, feed me butt cheek, lock me in a room with Jodie Foster—these will never be the moments that move me as a viewer. It’s when our hero or heroine thinks longingly of some basic household staple that my stomach lurches. Nothing is so gruesome to the human imagination as regret.

I drain the bottle down to the plastic rib equidistant between the top and the bottom.

Soon there are no more towns to be found and no more donkeys to be avoided. We drive over lava-worn ground. Wild dogs appear from nowhere and run after the car, barking. It starts to rain harder. The sky blends into the clouds blends into the ice blends into the rocks. Cold air whips through a crack