Flying through the Andes from Quito to Lima, Ecuador Journal

At Guayaquil, the tectonic force of the Nazca Plate and the Cocos Plate disrupts the land. Isolated dome stratovolcanoes of Ecuador, not how I envisioned the Andes. Such enormous differences in structure, like comparing the coastal range to the Rockies or to the Cascades. Yet the name of our California andesite is derived from the Andes.

The plane takes off between the two ridges barely clearing the volcanoes. I find myself praying for safe passage, heart in throat, such vast girths. I am in awe. Cotacachi, near Otovalo, and sublime symmetrical cone Cotapaxi, Mt. Fuji's twin sister. Cotopaxi means "Neck of the Moon" and is worshiped as the “rain sender,” home of the gods. La Avenida de los Volcanes is aptly named.

One of the world's highest volcanoes, Cayembe shrouded with clouds, is the second highest in Ecuador, at 19,347 feet. But the tallest, Chimborazo at 20,548 feet, is perpetually hidden in cloud cover. Chimborazo is a massive double volcano. It was once thought that Chimborazo was the highest mountain on Earth.

Chimborazo means Snow on the other side. In Quechua it's called Urcurazu,  Urcu is mountain of ice. Chimborazo is the Taita (Father) and Tungurahua is Mama, hence Taita Chimborazo and Mama Tungurahua. Pachatata and Pachamama. A reference we'll hear again and again.

At the Equator, snow level begins at 15,000 feet. It is winter here, cold on the equator. We wear our winter clothes, and still we're cold. My blue Ecuadorian sweater weighs several pounds, I am glad for its warmth.

San Francisco de Quito, at 9,350 feet, is nestled between two long Andean ridges, and the páramo, the high semi-alpine grasslands or moors between timberline and snowline—with myriad strange plants that grow nowhere else in the world. Situated north-south in these pockets, is the old city. Quito, with its colonial architecture,  considered to be the most beautiful city in the Andes.

South of Guayaquil, and Ecuador, the terrain changes dramatically from coastal jungle to coastal desert. One bids goodbye to the equatorial Andes and its massive stratovolcanoes.

The contrast between Lima, Peru, and Quito is as startling as the cold weather. Lima sprawls on for miles at sea level along the coastal desert. The Cordillera Niegra at 15,000 feet on north-south block fault,  El Callejón de Huaylas. We are still on the avenue of the gods, la Avenida de los Volcanes. The Cordillera Blanca, long north-south block-fault ridges spreading out.

Escarpments and cirques, vast glacial walls. Cirques in every color of glacial blue imaginable, like blue-eyed tropical water beneath all that white. The Andes begin to look like how I imagine them to be in my dreams.

Beneath the plane, high ridges, eroded desert mountains, infrequent torrents, El Niño leaves scars, memories of riverbeds, and flashfloods, like Baja, like Death Valley, like Los Angeles Basin.

Lima is surrounded by real shantytowns, the Rímac River, the Babbling River, is a pit of burning garbage and devastation. I don't want the plane to land. The city center of Lima is inland. Lima is landlocked, while Miraflores, the place of flowers, is a long beach that we will escape to, and find blood blooming in the gutters of the Chorillos Tunnel. We have descended into the belly of the beast. Into hell. God help us.

7/25/1988
revised, added 10/16

*Rímac from the Quechua, rimaq, meaning "speaking" nicknamed El Río Hablador ("the talking river"). —Wiki