Pacazo (47 page)

It is confirmed that we are tourists and they are cattle farmers in town to shop for feed. I ask again, and yes, the womanasays, in these very clothes she tends cattle. She asks me the same question about my clothes and tourism, and seems equally surprised.

We thank them, walk again, find the bureau off the plaza and are welcomed. Maps are handed to us and spots are indicated. Then a ranger comes, saysahe is leaving for the park in five minutes, headed for the lodge and can take us.

We load ourselves into the bed of his truck, and the road again, south. Karina holds Mariángel and for a time we half-close our eyes. We pass the same halved hog, and still the womanaleans. East into the park, and the country is big and sharp and bright. To one side, smoke from a clearance fire. Up switchbacks through highland conifers, a twisting and to the lodge.

We are for now the only guests. The nightly rate is ten dollars or seventy thousand sucres per person. To show that I too have been studying, I ask the ranger where we might most likely see a spectacled bear. He scratches his face, asks for my map, circles the three areas farthest from the lodge.

- From here, a two-day walk to each, he says. And even then you won’t see the bears.

- Why not?

- You would have to be silent. Can the three of you be silent? But there are other animals to see.

I ask which ones, and he saysawords that I have never heard before, and I write them down. He fixes the spelling and still I do not know what the animals are. He tweaks Mariángel’s cheek, nods to Karina and leaves for his post at the gate.

The lodge is cleanaand well organized though here too there is no hot water. I wait for Karina to comment and she does not. The beds are firmer than at the hotel. I look again at the map, and there is a loop we can walk, three hours hard or four easily according to the distance indicated.

We set off and the wind grows distantly, a thick white soundaabove our heads. The path up the closest ridge is at times steep and at other times muddy. There are fungi and bromeliads in the trees. Karina walks well and Mariángel revels in the green.

We pass the treeline, reach the ridge, and here the wind hits. The trail thins and we step carefully, only air to either side. Twice the wind lifts Karina from the trail, sets her down well below us.

Higher still through sage, and in spite of wind and the fog that now drops there is a bird, blue and black with an orange topknot, and I have to hold Mariángel to keep her from chasing it. We shelter and eat though it is not yet time for lunch: sandwiches and water, and for Mariángel a beige mixture that the label calls peas and turkey. The wind moves the fog in whipping swells around us.

We walk for some time. Mariángel shiversaand I switch her to my chest. The fog deepens and we walk and are silent in silence as if capable of seeing bears. A step, a step, another. Once I slip, and the sound of the rockslide extends invisible miles beneath us.

Karina asks if perhaps we have missed the cutback for the return trail. I assure her that we have missed nothing. We push up through thicker brush. Half an hour later she asks again and I squint and do not answer. More walking, and as she gathers her breath to ask again we break through the fog, areastanding on a crest. Half a dozen ridges stretch back to the west in blues, and below us are lakes: small, slate, glacial.

Mariángel points, and we agree, yes, wonderful. We sit and look, drink from the canteen,alean back. I check the map, and the cutback is well behind us.

Back down into the fog, and from this direction the fork is clearly marked. The return trail is longer and drier and less steep. Then the fog ends and ahead are two men, hunched. They have binoculars and are watching a brown bird that is neither far away nor beautiful. It is exactly the size of a breadbox. The men turn as we approach, nod and smile, and one whispers Britishly:

- Bearded Guan!

- What?

- Yes! Look there, the throat!

And he is correct: at the bird’s throat is something bright red, skin or a bit of bandana.

- Your first one? the other asks me.

- I believe it is.

Karina reaches as if to fondle and pinches the back of my neck, but there is no way past these men without disturbing their bird, and they whisper among themselves:

- Very rare.

- Endangered!

- Marvelous.

- Marvelous, yes.

The bird slips into the foliage, and the birders let us pass. An hour of easy walk to the lodge, and no one is present but a fire has been started in the wood stove. I attend to Mariángel and Karina warms food. The bathroom faucet mys abe pushed and turned simultaneously, making my head hurt nearly as much as my legs.

The birdersaarrive, decline warm ham, drive away, and coming in now is a Dutch couple with fair Spanish. I do not wish to converse but Karina invites them to sit with us. The womanais blonde and teaches, and the man is bearded and paints. Unfortunately they are both very nice. Their food is also much better than ours, and because they share their wine and ravioli I suggest Hearts. I explain the rules poorly to everyone, shoot the moon three times running and feel somewhat better.

In the morning the ranger comes, is sufficiently impressed by our bird sightings, agrees to give us a ride to the main road: today is for Vilcabamba, not the final refuge of the Incas but the Ecuadorian town of the same name. The first bus to come along stops when Karina waves. The ride is brief and we debark above the plaza.

A girl perhaps four years old rides by on a donkey. She wipes at the mud on her face, climbs down,aleads the donkey in circles, climbs back on. From somewhere come the smells of laurel and damp earth and fresh paint. The saddle looks to have been built to fit her, and she whips at the donkey, wanting speed.

Karina has information, and as we walk through the brief town and over a small bridge and another small bridge and up a long hill she tells me: the locals live to be a hundred and twenty due to the air and the altitude and minerals in the water. The people we pass look to be normal ages, young and averagely old and in between.

Near the top of the hill is the resort where Karina has reserved a room. There are many activities, says the lady behind the desk, including ping pong and billiards, and also there are hammocks. We pay our ten dollars or seventy thousand sucres per person. She mentions other possible diversions—horses, bicycles, beauty treatments—and leads us to our room.

The beds are large and well-netted. Karina lies down and I wish to join her but Mariángel’s diaper is ready to be changed, and there is something else, something worse: her bottom, red as the throat of a Bearded Guan. This is something which untreated worsens qyickly, but I have the proper cream, and Karina helps, tapping Mariángel on the head with an empty plastic bottle as I apply.

There is an outdoor cafeteria, wooden tables and benches, and guests are waiting for the latest of breakfasts: Argentines, Australians, Danes, Israelis. There is also a small monkey who comes to take papaya chunks from our fruit salads. Mariángel is unsure whether or not to be terrified, cries when the cafeteria manager shouts at the monkey, trembles when he promises us that Erasmo is about to learn an important lesson.

The manager leaves, returns with a bucket of water. Erasmo chatters, a clear and present dare, and the manager drenches him. Erasmo vaults, swings, screams almost as loudly as Mariángel. The manager goes back to the kitchen, and Erasmo returns for more papaya. It is vaudeville, I realize, this fruit and water and screaming. I say so to Karina and Mariángel, and neither of them believes me.

When we have finished eating, Karina says that she wishes to ride a horse. She says this as if it were a natural thing to do. I have never ridden a horse and do not see how it could go well, but she is looking at me earnestly and so I nod and smile as if she had suggested sex or a nap. Back in our room she looks for her boots and talks about stirrups. What will occur with Mariángel is unclear.

The desk lady is very sorry. Horseback toursabegin at eight o’clock in the morning she says: four hours around the valley and back, eight to noon. Karina grips the loose skin of my elbow and asks if we can ride tomorrow morning. I say that if we do, we will most likely not make it to Macará before the border closes. Karina looks at me as if I have not yet spoken, and yes, of course, and perhaps it will all work out.

For a time we dither. We begin with half a game of billiards, and continue through a third of a game of backgammon, the swimming pool, and lunch. We walk back into the five square blocks of town, and Karina buysahandmade paper with petals arranged in the weave. Then she remembers that in Loja I had meant to search for ambiguous farming utensils for my mother. She suggests that Vilcabamba might also serve, and each store we check looks likely, and no store has what we seek.

We sit down at a café to observe still more people who do not look unusually old but possibly are. Karina reminds me that the weather is neither cold nor dry, is in fact warm, is in fact humid, is in fact clouding up at this moment. On a side street, children on bicycles run into one another. We drink our coffee and admire the handmade paper, repeat short words in the hope that Mariángel will like them but she does not. She prefers instead to pretend to run into the street, watching each time to make sure that I disapprove, and the sky is a solid metal sheet.

I call for the bill and rain begins to fall. The bill arrives and rain is falling harder. I pay, and the rain is torrential, and a boy locks his brakes, flips over the handlebars, is helped up by his friends. The rain will not be stopping soon. We run, a paper placemat covering Mariángel’s head badly, down and over and over and up, drenched and laughing, into the room and pulling off clothes, Mariángel’s first, then mine, then deliciously Karina’s.

Dinner is salad and hummus and bread, and fried fish, perhaps trout. Dessert is more fruit salad, and Erasmo, the manager, the bucket of water and screaming. After this there is ping pong but Mariángel cannot simply watch, mys agrasp at our legs, and so we switch to Scrabble. Mariángel circles the table, pretends to wish to chew each piece. Karina plays in Spanish and I play in English, and we both cheat as well as we are able.

When she has won we take Mariángel to a patch of grass and scuttle around her like geckos, nip at the backs of her legs until she tires. Then we return to the room. Soon she is asleep. Hours of traced birds, flowers, mammals on my back. I invent name after name and Karina says I am never mistaken.

It is now clear: this bus will not make the border in time. I would have called Arantxa from the last rest stop if I thought advance warning would make her any less angry. We will stay the night in Macará, and with luck tomorrow I will miss only my morning class.

I would like to blame Karina for this situation, would like to be angry, but she sleeps agains amy shoulder and Mariángel sleeps across our laps and the sunlight lies bright in the leaves of each branch of each tree on each crest. Also our time with the horses did not end disastrously. I was the last to arrive as my bootlaces were problematic, and my horse was not a great deal larger than me. When Karina saw how I sat, she suggested that she carry Mariángel instead, and Mariángel could not believe their distance from the ground.

The land was rife with hillsides. I wished briefly for a lance, fourteen feet long but light in the hand. Karina’s horse bit an Australian’s horse, and the Australian’s horse kicked at Karina’s. There was confusion and fear, then something like merriment as the guide circled back.

Through groves of pine and eucalyptus, and the land opened into high fields of corn and sugar cane. The guide goaded his horse to a trot, and most of the other horses trotted too. Some only walked. Mine stopped to eat a bit of bracken. When he was full he cantered until we caught up at a shallow river. There was splashing and sharp cold, and birds singing, wild canaries bright as spattered paint.

Again the river, and this time a wooden bridge. On the far side we climbed a sharp pitch up through something like jungle but friendlier. Over the top and out onto a flat open ridge where Karina took her horse to a gallop and my lungs seized and she laughed, free, circled back to me, Mariángel’s arms outstretched, impossible happiness.

Just then my horse tried to buck me off. The thought would have terrified me, the slow falling and landing and breakage, but it had been clear for some time that this horse would not be capable. I leaned to his ear, said that he was correct, that at first the Incas were terrified of horses, a squadron famously trembling and receding as Soto wheeled in front of them outside the Royal Baths in Cajamarca, and yes, Atahualpa had them executed for showing such fear. But soon the Incas learned. They killed their first horse before the Spaniards even got to Cuzco, the counterattack at Vilcashuamán, a beautiful white stallion, and they made banners of its mane and tail.

Perhaps horses like babies understand the tone. Mine lurched once more, lost wind midway. The buck took the form of a hiccough and the brakes squeal as we come to Cariamanga.

We step off the bus, walk to a restaurant on the plaza, sit and order and slump. Even after the food arrives, the nature of the dishes is hard to ascertain, and we no longer remember what we ordered. I chew gristle from a bone and help Mariángel with her soup. Karina lowers her fork.

- Isn’t that our bus?

- It can’t be. The driver said twenty minutes.

- It looks like our bus.

- No. Oursais more—

Then I see our backpacks strapped to the roof. I throw money on the table, an approximate amount, and Karina has Mariángel and I have our knapsacks and we run but not qyickly enough.

We watch the bus disappear. It does this slowly. I turn in abrupt circles, hoping for a taxi. Karina stops my spinning and flags down the next car to pass, a small white pick-up. She asks the driver how much he would charge to catch up to the bus, and he saysahe’ll let us know when we have.

We load in, and the man wishes to practice his English, his French, his German. All of them seem fine to me and I ask him to please drive more qyickly. It is fifteen minutes of this before the bus is sighted, and of course: ten dollars, or seventy thousand sucres.