* * *
Turns out the reason I needed to conserve water is because there is no water in the refuge. Correction: there is water in a barrel by the toilets, but it’s reserved for washing away feces. If we want drinking water, we will have to heat snow and then cool it. The irony here being that this is because one of the pipes is frozen.
On the ground floor of the refuge, there is a large space filled with booths that look exactly like the ski trip booths of my nightmares, as well as one inexplicably padlocked cabinet filled with bottles of Fiji water. Someone or someones had to do what I just did but while carting a giant glass door on their backs. They probably had to go back down for the padlock. Now it’s taking about ten minutes to fill one pot and there are three burners for the fifteen people already here. And by people, I mean people with penises. Barring any surprises, I appear to be the only woman around. This is a coincidence. Just last night, a guide from Seattle tells me, there were two female climbers staying at the refuge.
What I can’t understand is how he would possibly know this information. How long has he been here? Does he live here? If he lives here, should he not have figured out how to get into the goddamn cabinet by now?
It turns out he and his fellow climbers have been acclimatizing at the refuge for two days. They have also ascended a couple of “minor mountains” in Peru in preparation for this one.
“That’s funny,” I say, even though it’s not. “I got here last night.”
“I thought you guys just arrived,” the guide says, gesturing at Pedro.
He is untangling a pile of ropes across the room, a whole apple in his mouth.
“Nope.” I am still watching Pedro. “I flew into Quito yesterday.”
The guide’s eyes widen. He asks if I’m on a medication called Diamox, which prevents altitude sickness by quickening the heart and thinning the blood. I am on no such medication. I have never even heard of it. I know that coca leaves are often chewed at Machu Picchu to prevent altitude sickness. I also know that Machu Picchu rests on a midget of a mountain, clocking in at under 8,000 feet. What should make me wary does make me wary. But despite my fear, it also fills me with pride. Preventive medication is for sissies. Me? I have the red blood cells of a goddamn Sherpa.
* * *
The idea of men traveling to push themselves to the limit is a culturally familiar one. Not every man hears the call of the wild, but those who do—the Krakauers and the Jungers—are not startled by the ringing. There is something inherently manly about climbing a mountain. Though, taken literally, that would make a deep-sea dive the most feminine activity on the planet. Perhaps it’s less directly correlated to gender and more that mountaineering allows men to try on an idolized extension of their daily selves. Here is the prize for which a certain kind of man has been aiming with every beer chugged, every Super Bowl watched, every video game won, every drunken piggyback ride given to a one-hundred-pound girl. And now it’s time to let the machismo run amok. You’re on top of the world! Drink a shot of gasoline! Punch a bird! For women, to be on a mountain (assuming you’re not a professional mountain climber) is not an extension of stereotypical behavior but a break from it. Therefore, to be part of a successful mountain-climbing expedition, it’s important to play against the worst assumptions about one’s own gender. Do this by being okay with more or less everything. Never refer to the pile of excrement on the outhouse floor as “icky.” Try to avoid weeping when you feel your life may be in danger.
“I can’t believe you’re climbing this after one day,” says a doctor from Baltimore, part of the Seattle hiker’s team.
He translates for the third member of their party, a Chilean, who is so impressed he repeats it.
“Un día!”
At which point Edgardo, having just returned from the stove with a steaming pot of ramen noodles, gives the group a wave of his finger. He proceeds to rapidly debate with the doctor’s Chilean friend.
“He says that this is not true.” The doctor’s translation has a five-second delay. “He says you have been in Quito for a week.”
I grab his arm.
“Who said that?”
“Edgardo,” says the doctor, eyes fixed on Edgardo’s mouth as he speaks to me, “says you told him this.”
Edgardo and I lock eyes. I look to him as a toddler looks at a parent, checking to see if this skinned knee is worth crying over. Should I flip out about this misunderstanding or not? But his face is inconclusive. He only shrugs optimistically. The doctor tries to comfort me. He explains that altitude sickness is unpredictable. There’s nothing that says I’ll definitely get it. Then again, there’s nothing that says I won’t.
I sit down and inhale as deeply as I can, which isn’t very. The city of Quito, without even trying, is 9,000 feet above sea level. The friend who recommended I go see skeleton paintings is a playwright who came down with altitude sickness for eighteen hours upon landing. The friend who recommended I climb Cotopaxi did not. When I recount this story months later over a sea-level glass of wine, this second friend will remind me that he is a world traveler and Australian and that he told me climbing Cotopaxi was going to be “bloody hard.”
“When we say something’s hard, we mean it.”
The question now is: Do I have theater geek lungs or Australian lungs?
“Tranquilo,” Edgardo offers, putting his hand on my shoulder. “All will be fine.”
I go outside into the crisp germ-free air and swallow a
