29 Ecuador Stories, Part IV: Shit

In downtown Baños sits a basilica, the Church of the Virgin of the Holy Water (Nuestra Señora de Agua Santa), blunt and dark on the outside, vibrant and colorful within. The artworks on its walls go beyond the standard-issue Bible stories to depict a series of wild Baños miracles, most notably the tale of a man who fell from a snapped rope while traversing a crevasse. Mid-fall, he cried out, “¡Madre mía de Agua Santa!” and was caught by an unseen hand. The painting shows him dangling against a backdrop of clouds and jagged cliff faces, his round black hat winging like a Frisbee through the sky. Meanwhile, his virginal guardian levitates on a throne behind and above him. Quite a picture.

We visited that church first thing, partly from a sense of duty: It’s famous, and we’re here, and Chris would have brought us first thing, too. We didn’t spend much time there—only long enough to say we did. But that one painting of that one story has followed me everywhere, ever since. The man flailing. The chasmal depth. The flying hat. The cry for help followed by the hand of salvation. Impossible not to think of that man as I dry off from my impromptu dip in whitewater. Impossible not to think of another man, on another descent much closer to home. And now, here, me. So much of life is falling. From the moment of crowning at birth to the lowering of ashes, gravity does its work.

But I survived. And because I survived, I have to confess that almost drowning was sort of a blast. Really and truly. No way could I possibly top that in my single-minded pursuit of buzzy family experiences. Follow me, children! Watch me lead! Hear me laugh in the face of death!

Or, in this case, shit. Literal shit; nothing woozy or fanciful about it this time. This time, our riotously entertaining adventure takes us straight up the butt of a large land animal.

Upon our return from rafting, we head back to the hotel, where I slather Bacitracin on my wounds while the girls and I discuss whether to wear long pants for horseback riding. I tell them they should, as the sweet, tiny lady was awfully explicit about it in her instructions. She even wrote it down for us: LONG PANTS. Madeleine and Jeanne beg to differ. They are already wearing teensy-weensy shorts. I suggest they wear something more expansive. We find this an excellent opportunity to have another argument.

Madeleine: Mom. No. Listen. I am not going to wear long pants. Seriously. Mom.

Mom: But but but but. The lady said we should.

Jeanne: I’m not, either!!

Mom: But but but but. The lady said we should. There must be some REALLY GOOD REASON she said we should. There must be some REALLY BIG ISSUE for tourists wearing shorts.

Madeleine: Mom. Listen. No. I am not wearing long pants. I am not going to ruin them. Mom.

Mom: But but but but. You’d rather ruin your legs?

I actually win this argument. At 4 p.m. we appear once again at the storefront and the sweet, tiny lady calls a taxi, which brings us five or six blocks to a yard with two men—one young, one old—and five smallish horses with pretty coats and banana-yellow flaps covering their backsides. With some aid we climb onto the horses’ backs. The old man hands us the reins. His instructions: “Hold. Un mano. Left—go left. Right—go right. Up—stop.” And we set off with the young man as our guide, winding slowly along the streets of Baños toward the Rio Ulba and the breathtaking mountains behind it.

The kids take to riding immediately. Mitchell’s grin never leaves his face. “I LOVE horses, I LOVE horseback riding, this is so much FUN,” he says throughout the ride, and the remainder of the day, and the days that follow. He and his sisters are utterly at ease. Madeleine’s horse, Maria, is the leader. She is also the eater, stopping every few minutes to sample the grass while Madeleine laughs. Jeanne’s is the biter: She keeps taking snaps at the other horses’ asses.

Mine is the crapper. I can’t see it, but the children inform me that his output is frequent, fluid, projectile and green, and thus we grasp the reason for the banana-yellow butt-flaps. When the horses bump into one another other, smearing each other’s fecal matter front, side and tuckus, we also grasp the reason for the long pants. Shorts = horseshit on legs. Without saying I told you so to the girls, I say I told you so to the girls. Or maybe I really do say I told you so to the girls, more or less every time the fulsomely excreting ass of the horse beneath me shoots yet another fountain of equine feculence in their direction. And I love how florid one can be in describing manure, don’t you? Regardless: PLEASE TAKE NOTE, FRIEND-OS, BECAUSE MOM-O WAS RIGHT-O.

Meanwhile, Mom’s horse picks up speed at random intervals, causing her to bounce dangerously and painfully in the saddle. Mom is reminded that she almost fell off a horse at age 14. This reminder becomes especially pronounced when a pack of stray dogs emerges from the brush, coming after us with horrible growls and slavering fangs and dreadful purpose. The kids yell: Mom! Don’t fall off! Don’t fall off! Mom says: I won’t fall off! I won’t fall off! Meanwhile, Mom is thinking: How many more adventures can I take? For crap’s sake, haven’t I fallen enough today? Mom is also thinking: Screw you, gravity! Which is one stop short of an appeal to the Agua Santa. Mom has no idea what she’s doing, but she yanks the reins up as directed (“Up—stop”), which the horse ignores, probably because the horse senses that Mom has no idea what she’s doing.

In this manner we make our way down to one of the main thoroughfares that zoom past Baños, and I wonder about the sweet, tiny lady’s assurances that the horseback riding would only travel lightly trafficked streets. This is not a lightly trafficked street. This is a narrow but speedy two-lane highway with cars, buses and overloaded trucks screaming past, and I am again reminded of the prevailing Ecuadorian driving philosophy. (E.g., “I am now passing three cars and five people on horseback with oncoming traffic heading toward me at 100 kilometers per hour. This won’t kill me.”)

“Derech’, derech’! (“Right! Right!”) yells our guide, a slim, gentle fellow named Fabian, and we all do our best to comply. The kids and their horses are derech’ enough for safety, thank God, but my horse veers ever farther into traffic. Horns blare. Engines gun. I yank on the reins. Again the animal ignores me. I think: Why does this horse hate me so? Does he smell my fear? He thinks: Would that stupid lady just leave me the #$%!?! alone? If only I could shit on her legs!

Without any instruction from us or Fabian, the horses wander off the highway and up a dirt trail that climbs to a picturesque waterfall—one of many beautiful cascadas in the region. The views are, like so many in this country, absolutely stunning. Su país es muy hermoso, I tell Fabian: Your country is very beautiful. We get off, watch the horses poop, snap photos, watch the horses poop some more, hear them fart, get back on, head back onto the highway and back past the pack of strays. This time, our horses start running before they appear. We do not fall off. We are not bitten by potentially rabid dogs. Not so far.

The next day, our last in Baños, heading off on a short hike for a better view of Tungurahua, we cross a bridge over a yawning cleft in the earth—perhaps that very same crevasse depicted in the painting of the hatless man. A sweet, tiny lady sans infant sits at the midpoint with a bundle of cords and a pile of shiny buckled things, selling a la carte bungee-jumps into the abyss. The set-up looks a little sketchy, and I am not about to attach myself to a long rubber line and chuck myself over the edge. I’m not chucking my children over, either.

And yet the dizzying height fascinates me. All heights fascinate me now. There’s no emptiness to them any longer; when they aren’t filled with grief, they’re filled with questions. I look down and think of Chris, what he felt and thought and feared, and I find myself meditating on miracles and failures. I had prayed for a miracle for Chris, just as I had prayed for a miracle for Lucy, just as all believers pray for miracles for their desperately suffering husbands and sisters. After Lucy’s suicide, I spent some time dwelling on this pissiest of all religious conundra (why does God say “no”? why do I ask, and why do I still believe?), but after Chris’s I didn’t even bother. I know myself well enough by now to know I’ll always believe, I’ll always ask.

And sometimes, the Almighty replies in the affirmative. Jeanne’s dream was as quick and vigorous a prayer response as any I’ve ever received. It wasn’t just a “Yes.” It was a “Yes Indeedy, Here You Go, And Would You Like Fries With That?”

So it happens. God nods. Men fall from great heights and live, whether cradled by luck or a hovering virgin. It’s just that mine didn’t.