The End of the Hike

All photos are available at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/meghanhatch/

This is Part 2 of the story of my lungs and the bulls and the search for the hummingbird cave...(scroll down for Part 1)

Now here's the thing about the first substantial hike at altitude: it all goes to your head. This giddy elation takes over, combined with a subtle sense of invincibility. Just when you should be weary or disoriented, having reached 4,000 meters after 2 or 3 hours of steady climbing, you are energized instead.

It's as though you are being moved by a force within, and your vision clears as your chest expands. Sometimes on hikes like this one, my heart is pumping so vigorously it's as though my brain is moving inside my skull, pulsing behind my eyes. It feels like oxygen is reaching parts of my body that have never breathed before: the skin of my forehead, the very bone of my eye sockets, the muscles deep within my back, under my shoulderblades, the inbetween spaces of my spine, even my teeth and gums begin to tingle with fresh, oxygenated blood. My diaphragm never lifted so high! I forget how hard it is, and instead feel an insane desire to push through and overcome the struggle of going up and up and up. I have lungs used to the bars of Brooklyn, and now they must adapt to the high altitude plains of the Ecuadorian Andes.

Having found those tire tracks, I turned right and followed them along flat ground for about 15 minutes before they began to descend. Now the energy and elation came from heading down! When I tell you I danced down the mountain, I mean I danced! With no one around for miles, standing atop this giant, looking across to the massive Cotopaxi, I let loose and boogied with abandon all the way to the bottom and across the canyon, continuing down the dirt road toward home. I turned up the volume on my iPod, conveniently attached to my belt, and heard only the sounds of Phoenix's "If I Ever Feel Better," Metric's "Combat Baby," and Mr. Wainwright's "Oh What a World." I was no longer concerned with any bulls, but rather felt like I was in my own movie, specifically the last frame, where the fabulous, independent protagonist (the one who conquered the bulls) gets further and further out of focus, as her legs carry her proud and strong...and groovy. Now, I dance a lot, and often in unexpected places, but this was a first. And let me tell you, there is nothing like shakin´one's money maker down the side of a lichen laced, wind blown little mountain in the middle of a wilderness nowhere! It was pure freedom, pure joy--complete uninhibited elation manifesting itself in the movement of my hips, my hands above my head, and my hiking boots kicking up impressive dust as I twirled and twisted; my smile as boundless as those hills.

Why am I always on a plane, or a fast train?
Oh what a world my parents gave me!
Always travelin, but not in love.

Still I think I'm doing fine.
Wouldn't it be a lovely headline:
"Life is...Beautiful!"
on a New York Times?

--Rufus Wainwright