How to End Up in Hospital in Less Than a Week

So maybe you're wondering what I was doing standing by the side of the road eating cookies at 11 at night, some 50 miles outside Quito in the middle of nowhere. Maybe not, but I'll tell you anyway. Let me rewind a bit, past the taxi ride, the rush down the mountain, the headache, back to a couple days ago when Anne and I were walking around town figuring out how to spend our last few days before heading to Cuenca.

We were thinking of doing a jungle tour - a few days seeing wildlife, taking canoe trips, visiting villages - which looked interesting enough. But then we found out we could hike up Cotopaxi, a volcano a couple hours from Quito. Definitely the better option. A good hike, amazing views, and an elevation of 5,896m, which meant using mountaineering boots, crampons, and ice picks. Who can resist a good challenge?

Yesterday morning we set off. A newly-married Italian couple joined us. They were doing a 1 day trip, up to the base of the glacier and back, whereas our trip was two days. The itinerary involved a short hike to a hut at 4,800m (15,748 feet), lunch, another short hike to the glacier at 5,100m (16,732 feet) where we would have crampon and ice pick training. We'd sleep for a bit, then at 1:00am set off for the peak, a 6-7 hour trek, to reach it at dawn. We'd be back at the hut at midday, and back in Quito in the afternoon.

Before climbing to the hut we made a couple stops. At one we saw a canyon carved by floodwater rushing down the mountain after the last eruption. At another, we saw a small beautiful lake. Once at the trailhead, we packed our gear in the wind and flying dirt and began the hike to the hut. We started at what seemed like a ridiculously slow and easy pace, but it soon became clear that at that altitude it was necessary. The 300m climb was tough and took an hour. After lunch we climbed another 300m to the base of a glacier and learnt the proper use of crampons and ice picks.

It was during this part of the trip that I began to feel funny. At first I thought I was just tired from the hiking at high altitude. By the time we got back to the hut, I needed to lie down. I was hoping that I could sleep for 7 hours and be OK by the time I got up at midnight. An hour later, I had a bad headache, and after another half hour it was pounding. I knew I wouldn't be able to climb the peak, but was hoping it would die down and I could sleep until it was time to go down the next day.

Anne asked some of the other people at the hut what to do. Thankfully she had no problems with the altitude and took care of me the entire time. The advice was to take two advil and drink lots of water. By this point I had the worst headache I'd ever experienced. I kept trying to shift my head and somehow rest it so that it didn't feel like I was getting stabbed. The advil and water didn't succeed in getting rid of my headache, but it did succeed in making me throw up a couple times. Bad news. Even worse news was that our guide was taking the Italian day-hikers back down the mountain, so no one was there to take Anne and me down.

A little while later, after pills provided by two experienced hikers who thankfully came to help, I was throwing up again. Anne started packing my things so we could leave as soon as our guide showed up.

It was dark by that point and the air had chilled, so the two hikers and another guide helped me into layers of warm clothes and my boots. When our guide showed up, we started down immediately. The hour climb to the hut took 5 minutes in reverse. The others helped me into the front seat of the car, reclined almost flat, and we set off for the hospital.

It took over an hour to drive back down the mountain and out of the park, a bouncy ride over twisting dirt roads (more vomitting), and then finally we were on blissfully smooth paved roads. My headache got better and better as we descended, and I was doing fine when we got to the hospital. I was hooked up to oxygen through nose tubes, then lay there while the nurse apparently went to watch the soap opera I could hear coming from a TV nearby. I lay there enjoying what people in New York and Tokyo pay top dollar for at hipster bars. After a little while a doctor came by and checked out my lungs, breathing, pulse, and temperature and said I was OK. I was given a prescription, and that was that.

The guide set Anne and I up with a taxi for the 1.5 hour ride back to Quito. I felt completely normal again, and hungry too because of my newly-emptied stomach. Since we hadn't done the summit climb, we still had some of the cookies and chocolate we took along as snacks. We had just broken out a pack of Chips Ahoy when we felt two thuds - BAM! BAM! - and then heard a squealing eeee-eeee-eeeeeee as the driver pulled the taxi to the side of the road. We hit something, whether it was a rock or an animal I don't know, but it managed to take out two tires on the right side of the car. The driver radioed for help, and Anne and I got out of the car, eating our snacks as we watched the driver jack up the car and start changing one of the tires.

Soon another taxi pulled up, lent the driver his spare, and we got in and left in the second car. Our new driver liked his music loud and 80s. Although he made exceptions for essential newer hits like Blue by Eiffel 65. The rest of the ride passed by uneventfully, and by the time we reached our hostel in Quito at 1 in the morning I felt like I had lived 4 days in the space of one.

The question now is how to top this experience. It can't be all downhill after the first week. Maybe we'll try being dropped out of a helicopter and skiing down a mountain. Maybe we should go back to Cotopaxi and do it there.