Two of my college friends and another friend of their, all originally from Maine, are about to attempt an ascent of Cotopaxi (Ecuador) and to ski/snowboard down.

From:Jamie Z.
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 12:44 AM
To: Gen Kanai
Subject: quito, ecuador
Hola Estancias!
All is well here at 9,200 feet in Quito – or should I say all was well until 5 minutes ago when I had spent about 40 minutes composing my last email, and my computer suddenly turned off. And the reason it shut down was that Porter F., who is sitting next to me at the Papaya Net Cafe on his Papaya, went to kick me to draw my attention to the striking blonde tourists walking in the door, and rather than connect with my shin, he connected with my computer, turning the whole thing off. What comedy.
So anyway, we (Jamie M., Porter and myself) arrived at the Swissotel 2 nights ago and have been enjoying the swanky accommodations, though sleeping head to toe with Porter in a full sized bed brings back some disturbing memories of drunken nights in high school and college. Neither of us has
attempted the spoon yet, which is good.
Since I was here ten years ago, things in Quito have rapidly entered the 21st century. The government abandoned the Sucre currency and adopted the U.S. Dollar, which is convenient. (Porter has dubbed this “The Ziobro Repeat Tour” as this is the second time I have been here, and when he and I were together in India in 1999, it was the second time I had been there.) The young people here listen to electronic music in the clubs, and dress like they are in Los Angeles or New York. Cell phones are prevalent, as are internet cafes. And this difference between the wealthy and the poor is every bit as striking and discturbing as it is anywhere, but here everything is packed on top of each other, not compartmentalized as it is in so many places in the U.S.
The weather has been cool and cloudy, with some intermittent bursts of powerful equatorial sunlight in the afternoons. We are concerned about the weather in the mountains, but are headed to the Jose Ribas Refugio at 16,000 feet on 19,300 foot Cotopaxi, the worlds highest active volcano, tomorrow. When we tell people of our plan to ski and snowboard it, they say something like “this is not possible.” We shall see. The plan is to return July 1 or 2, depending upon conditions.
The photography around town has been great, and last night, near sunset, the weather briefly cleared, revealing Cotopaxi about 30 miles to the south, huge and beautiful beyond a ridge of densely packed houses, looming like that print of Mount Fuji from that Japanese woodcut of the boat and the tidal wave.
As I look out the door of this place, beyond the guard with his hand ever close to the grip of his .357 magnum revolver, I see taxis and small trucks and small motorcycles and an 8 year old boy holding an infant, sitting against an aging cement wall with sharp metal spikes on top of it. This, as Noel or that other Gallagher boy sings over the stereo, “Because maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me. Because after all, youre my wonderwall.”
My best,
Jamie Z.