On Ecuador

Ecuador, on Earth’s equator, experiences twelve hours of daylight everyday of the year. The sun rises with the cool freshness of a spring morning, embraces the day with a summer warmth, and sets with the crisp clarity of a fall night. This consistent climate allows for native plants to thrive year-round.

Last spring break a few friends and I planned a ten day journey to and from seven cities, spanning three countries—the United States, Mexico and Ecuador. On our third day of planes, Ubers and shuttles we found ourselves in Quito, Ecuador, piling into a taxi with six friendly international strangers, all destined for the Cotopaxi Secret Garden Hostel, three hours outside the city. Our yellow caravan rumbled down uneven stone roads towards the rolling green country side. The last stretch of our drive bounced us around a dirt road riddled with holes and lumps. We rounded one last contour of the rich green highlands, and were delivered safely to our secret garden. 

Tucked-in at the base of a jungle-ous mountain it felt cozy. But turning my back to the mountain it felt vast, opening up to the expansive valley we drove through, where cattle, sheep, horses and llamas grazed. Ducks splashed in a little pond near the garden. Lavender sage grew gentle and fragrant; aloe blossoms added vibrant peachy-pink exclamations; green succulents grew abundant, mesmerizing with their fibonacci-spiraling pedals. My eyes and mind alike tried to digest this abundance of living, lush, flora information. Beautiful and strange. But the most humbling of all gazed out at us all from the clouds above the horizon line. Massive, majestic and close enough to kill every living being in sight—Cotopaxi is her name. She is one of the worlds tallest active volcanos, peaking at 20,000 feet. Since 1738 Cotopaxi has erupted more than fifty times. But for the past seventy years she’s been sleeping, an unusually long nap for her. 

That first evening I laid in the netting suspended over rustling grasses. I watched the sun set and the sky morph, like a slow motion painting. The pink and purple sky was layered with texture behind the horizon of mountains, inactive volcanos and Cotopaxi. Her wide snowy summit would soon be illuminated by the moon, and competing with the stars for brightness. The small pond down to my right reflected the hazy purple-pink of twilight. A couple ducks enjoyed the view with me from their pond. Fog filled in where the cattle grazed, as the sky continued to dim.

Cotopaxi’s lullaby flowered in the deep quiet of the night: cows mooing, crickets chirping, frogs croaking, an occasional duck quack and splash of water. The long grass rustled underneath the net I laid on, making me aware of the cool breeze descending from the mountains—telling everyone to settle in for the night.

This memory may be the most visceral of any I’ve had. Maybe because that was the night I fell in love with the magical, mystical Ecuador.   Carly Rundle-Borchert