la mujer dormida

in those bland concrete detention facilities where we spend the better part of our childhoods (those soulless thought factories known as schools), a singular moment is burned into my brain. under the laboratory's oppressive fluorescent lights, i remember learning that other countries existed outside of my own.

a teacher showed us a globe that depicted each nation in its own color. canada was lime green, the u.s. bile yellow. and our neighbor to the south, mexico, was salmon pink. far off places were presented from the often-patronizing american viewpoint. one central american country was effectively reduced to an amusing palindrome:

a man, a plan, a canal: panama

that's about the level of personal knowledge i held on much of the world until i first started traveling. all i knew was home, and my small-town life, and the restaurants and shops and family that were in my immediate proximity. it was a world filled with certainty and comfort. other nations were little more than classroom abstractions, just different colors on some map. more distant in my brain than the constellations; captured and labelled and so alien that they almost didn't exist apart from a toy globe. i was happy to live in monochrome. grounded in one place, one reality.

the caged bird may still sing, but he has no songs of his own experiences. he only regurgitates the latest lovesick bubblegum pop-culture rehashed-chord-progression top-40 muzak his ears have bathed in all his life. brought to you by viagra and coca-cola.

there is a tradeoff that comes with leaving the truman show, though. one of the great paradoxes of travel is the resulting loss of a sense of "home." suddenly the environment you lived in before begins to feel a little small. it begins to feel a little stuffy.

someone once told me that when that chance comes to be bold in your life, take it. commit to it.


******


my buddy micah was planning a trip to valle de bravo to do some paragliding, and it was going to overlap with my christmas vacation. with hardly a word spoken between us, it was understood that an ascent of some mexican volcanoes was in order.

our bromance goes back almost 8 years, and we don't see each other nearly often enough. a mexico trip would also be a much-anticipated reunion of the a-team, the infamous duo from the historic mt. kenya/ mt. kilimanjaro film-making expedition of 2009 (which is still being discussed by scholars and movie critics).

as always, micah and i carefully consulted various outlets of the american media machine, which, as usual, advocated the abdication of logic and reasonableness. give in to fear, they said: stay home and worry about health insurance and soap scum.

as fun as it is to get whipped into a frenzy, micah and i decided that there might be at least a few mexicans, say 3 or 4, out of the country of 121 million who might not try to kidnap and murder us in a flurry of drug cartel violence.


we went south:

two mans, no plans, a peak: méxico.

meeting up at a hostel near the zócalo in mexico city, we bussed it out to amecameca, our basecamp.


grabbed some supplies for the attempt on iztaccíhuatl, la mujer dormida. the peak looks like the profile of a sleeping woman, with her breasts being the climactic highest point (of course).


because deep down in the heart of every man is a mexican mistress.

cruise through the open air markets. buy some cheese, tortillas, beans, water. find a friendly taxísta named martín for a ride up to the trailhead.

shouldering our packs, we hike up the sleeping woman's feet and make camp around 14,700'. the wind is howling over the ridge and the sun disappears, and i set up my tent on the leeward side of the ridge.


firing up our cookstove, looking out over the twinkling lights of puebla and mexico city.


helping ourselves acclimatize by singing jay-z and alicia keyes: neeeewww yoooorrrrrrrrk... these streets will depress you, these lights will annoy you....

spooning hot beans and melted cheese into corn tortillas, brewing up pots of green tea.

where beers cost you 12 bucks, you can't even get drunk, only in neewww yooorrrrkkkkk...

the wind pummels the tent throughout the night, and between our frequent pee breaks neither micah or i get much sleep. eventually the earth spins itself out of the black void for one more day and we hike up to 16,400', to the sleeping woman's knees, and consider our future. the wind is still cranking at least 50 miles per hour, and upslope clouds are engulfing the summit glacier which is within sight.


a narrow exposed ridge awaits us, and micah and i agree that it's not a good idea in the wind or clouds to continue. my attitude toward climbing is never that of a conquerer. it is that of a humble pilgrim. i never feel like i have climbed a peak so much as the mountain has permitted me to ascend that particular day. and the mountain will always be there another day. but if i let summit-itis rule my decision-making, i may not be. if we make it, we make it. si la montaña nos permite subir.


we descend to the refugio to spend one more night and try again in the morning. a couple teams of mexican climbers hunker down with us in the shelter, and we cook another dinner and try to get some rest.

rats run across our exposed faces in the dark, making sleep difficult. in the morning, the wind has not diminished at all. furthermore, we are running out of water, so micah and i make the frustrating decision to descend.

sleeping woman wins this time. she won't let me slide up past her knees: the story of my life.

down at the trailhead parking lot, micah and i soak up rays while waiting for martín to collect us. a woman with a small food stall invites us over. pulling up a bench, eating blue-corn quesadillas filled with spicy salsa verde, washed down with good cheap working-class mexican beer: sol, indio, negra modelo...

martín arrives and we invite him for a cold one. this turns into 3 or 4 and we decide to continue the pub crawl down in town, with martín as our personal guide to the best local watering holes.

outside of amecameca we stop at a place thick with young ladies (all with their boyfriends, como siempre). the floor is covered in straw; cats running between your legs angling for spilled chicharrónes. when their novios aren't looking, the girls steal glances at the two devastatingly handsome climbers quaffing brews.

yukking it up with the locals, who always seem amazed and bewildered at the gringos speaking spanish in their midst. surely we smell like dead goats after 3 days on the mountain, but no one cares and we remain a novelty. the color of life here; the passion, the friendliness of mexicans, the girly sweetness of humble smiles. i want to tell my teacher: somehow salmon pink doesn't capture it.


******


our next (and main) objective is the highest point in mexico: el pico de orizaba. citlaltepétl. star mountain.


we catch a few different buses and stay with the incredibly gracious joaquin and maribel at their climbers hostel in tlachichuca. home-cooked meals and cold rooftop beers.


on the sun-drenched wall of the courtyard, numerous birdcages hang on pegs, their occupants flittering about and chirping relentlessly. yearning for flight.

with supplies packed, we catch a ride up to the trailhead the next day. micah and i do a quick hike to 15,000' and then back down to basecamp to set in for the night.


at 3 am, i awake and stumble outside. rub my eyelids and gaze up into the vacuum. catch the inverted big dipper spilling its whisky into the cosmos. unzip and splash some hot piss on the frozen rocks. wake up micah and cook some oatmeal and tea. put on layers, lace up boots. start our long cold slog up through the lower flanks of rock and ice, headlamps illuminating the next few steps.

wind up through the labyrinth, pausing around 15,200' to put on our crampons. shoot up a snow-filled couloir around boulders frozen in place, locked away in time. my lizard brain, further dimmed by hypoxia, tries to contemplate geologic ages against the tiny footprint of a human life. doesn't succeed.

i laugh to myself about the big egos in climbing; about the conquering mentality of australopithecus dipsticus vs. the humility big peaks inspire in others. the native americans knew this:

the ojibwe word for stone, asin, is animate. stones are alive. they are addressed as grandmothers and grandfathers. the universe began with a conversation between stones:

a thousand generations of you live and die in the space of a single one of our thoughts.
a complete thought is a mountain.
we don't have very many ideas.

when the original fire which formed us subsided, we thought of you.
we allowed you to occur.
we are still deciding if that was wise.

about 2 hours after starting, micah and i reach the base of the jampa glacier around 16,000'. i take a drink from my quickly-freezing water bottle and look east.


plasmic arc-welding lines of flaming gold and apricot ignite the eastern horizon, breaking through a smoky black plain of tierra and purple pomegranate sky seeded with stars. i take a rest step and stare out into space. watch my exhaled breath condensing in the chill. listen to the sweet song of blood sugar singing in my eardrums. feel the ol' ticker pounding through stinky layers of polypropylene. good ol' heart, trying to deliver enough oxygen to my demanding chicken legs. at 18,000', you only have 1/2 the oxygen available at sea level.

a good ways up the glacier, still in shadow, i feel like we are making good time. a rock outcropping just below the summit appears about 500' vertical away. but with each step, it seems to recede. another trick of hypoxia? or the optical illusion of being on a snowfield with no contrast, a compression of space and time?


distant specks on the glacier: fellow climbers. the mexicans and the romanian who told us they'd be starting at 1 am. after passing abeam of the rock outcropping (which ended up being about 1,500' vertical), i am beginning to taste the summit within reach and offer a quick prayer of gratitude to citlaltepétl. it seems like she is going to let us up today. sí, la montaña nos va a permitir subir.

we reach the summit ridge, a crater rim on the dormant volcano, just below the true roof.


micah and i look at each other and smile as we take those final few steps.


the obligatory pictures on top. drop our packs. shed a layer or two in the sun. not a breath of wind, only a few high cirrus streaks across an azure sky.


nearly 60 degrees. we lay down on our packs and take a siesta in the perfect stillness.


pico de orizaba, the highest peak in mexico, is also the third highest mountain in north america. and as it is not climbing season on alaska's denali, nor on canada's mt. logan, we are most likely the highest people on the continent at the moment.


but after 3 hours on top, we humbly conceed that man is but a visitor in these lofty places.


******


we bus it to the caribbean beaches north of veracruz, both buzzing from our recent summit, unsure of what to do with all of this oxygen back on the good earth.

"so many o's down here, bra!"

"what are you gonna do with your extra half?"

the playa at chachalacas is a smattering of seaside pulperías serving simple dishes and cold beers. we pause for refreshment.



a nice kid strolls down the beach, selling bottles of homemade crema de liqueur.

"un trago para probar? es gratis."

it's phenomenal and i buy a bottle of the coconut flavor. micah and i gaze at the pretty mexicanas walking past. urge each other to go talk to this one or that, but invariably when they approach, they are always 14. stuff ourselves senseless with picadas, huevos rancheros, quesadillas, chiles rellenos de queso fresco, salsa, salsita, siempre más salsita picante! it seems a crime to eat such tasty filling satisfying homemade food and walk away for $3.

we fill our packs with cold beers and hike a couple miles down the beach away from the buzz to some deserted dunes. climb them (of course) and find a spot overlooking the curving beach and sea of sand.



plant my ice axe firmly into the dunes and declare camp lobos locos.


at night, the symphonic sounds of the swollen sea crashing. the quiet tinkling of sand grains taking flight from the crest of a dune. these mountains that refuse to stay in one place. i remember camping once in the sahara: rolling out my sleeping bag in the wind, sand and stars.

we collect some driftwood and pour leftover cooking fuel into a small pit dug in the sand. start a bright happy friendly crackling. drinking beers, telling lies, singing all the hits from the crash test dummies, the cranberries, and beyoncé. repeatedly cursing when we impale our feet on the pointy cuernavaca thorns hidden like mines in the sand: powerfully effective drunk catchers. we're too buzzed to care though, and continue our primitive dancing around a midnight ocean bonfire.

"chinga los cosmos!"

only visitors on this lonely planet, making the world our home.