por Gabe Gómez

Christina collapsed in a puddle of tears and gasping breath. Her knees and palms were covered in dirt – trekking poles and backpack tossed to the side in frustration. The mountain was taunting her. We were only halfway up.

The largest “mountain” Christina had known prior was the Ravenell Bridge. We both grew up in Charleston, SC. Though, her father had been in the Air Force, so she bounced around a bit more than me. But it was our struggles with identity as people of color, vastly different in our experiences, that led us to this tangled tale.

While I’m Mexican American, I didn’t grow up close to my father’s side of the family. That culture, my birthright, was lost. I was left with a name, a slightly darker complexion, and a lifetime of being the oddball. To my Latinx friends, I was always seen as “the gringo.” And to my non-Latinx friends, I was known as the Mexican. It was a dynamic I didn’t truly understand until much later on in life. To be honest, I felt more “American” than anything else. I was raised on the slow southern customs of Charleston. The grandparents I knew came from Michigan. We’d visit the mountains in the fall and pick apples.

“Well, if we’re going to travel to Ecuador together, we better have dinner first and get to know each other.”

Tina, on the other hand, was a second-generation Ecuadorian. Her mother grew up near Guayaquil while her father was from outside Quito. She came from a large family. Spanish melodies and her Ecuadorian legacy surrounded her. Her Abuela still makes empanadas from scratch, and they eat pernil for Christmas.

Funnily enough, the first conversation Christina and I ever had was about a trip to Ecuador. She and her mother were planning to go, but she wasn’t exactly looking forward to spending so much time together. She jokingly mentioned she could use a travel buddy. Having just visited Peru a couple of years earlier, I’d take any opportunity to get back to South America. Truth be told, I was rather inebriated that evening. It was St. Patty’s Day, and our large group of friends was celebrating appropriately. Christina didn’t believe I would remember a single word of our conversation. But when the next day came, I was the smoothest I had ever been in my entire awkward oddball life. “Well, if we’re going to travel to Ecuador together, we better have dinner first and get to know each other.”

The trip was postponed for a few years, but eventually, I made good on my promise. Eventually, I became that travel buddy.

When I saw where her father was from, so close to the area known as the Avenue of the Volcanoes, I couldn’t believe he didn’t have her hiking before she could crawl! It’s a magical rolling landscape that seems specifically crafted to elicit the most extraordinary adventures. I was completely captivated.

But here Christina was, this person that had never been hiking despite those mountains being in her blood. Part of her birthright had been lost too. She had been dealt dreams of assimilation; dreams in consumption. The lands of her ancestors were forgotten about in the midst of striving for prosperity.

It’s hard to fault her parents, though. If you saw the poverty from which they came, you’d understand wanting to abandon it all – forgetting every ounce of your past. It’s a level of poverty that’s incomprehensible in the US, a level that would influence anyone’s judgment in pursuit of something better.

When Christina and I were planning our trip to Ecuador, I agreed to a week of visiting family if she agreed to a week of hiking around in the mountains with me. It was a deal. I bought her the very first hiking boots she had ever owned. I made sure she was draped in layers of technical fabrics she never knew existed. We even got her a fancy pink backpack for the rest of her essential gear. The mountains were calling, and she was ready.

“Look at where your feet are. You’re standing on the top of a mountain. Did you ever imagine you would be here?” 

Pasochoa was our first hike – an extinct volcano sitting at 13,780ft. It was supposed to be our “easy” climb. But you never know how altitude will affect you – especially when you come from a life at sea level. Christina had just run a half marathon a couple of months before. I thought she would be ok. She wasn’t. She struggled. The mountain broke her physically and mentally. It was the most helpless I’ve ever felt. While I faired significantly better, I couldn’t carry her up the mountain. She had to find the strength to get herself up there. She cried. A lot. She stumbled. A lot. But she never gave up. That’s probably why this is one of my favorite memories. She exhibited far more resilience than a mountain has ever required of me.

When we finally reached the peak, I vividly remember telling her to look down. “Look at where your feet are. You’re standing on the top of a mountain. Did you ever imagine you would be here?”  She smiled. Be it out of the joy of utter relief; still, she smiled. We had a picnic lunch on the top of Pasochoa before making our way back down to our little hacienda. The impact of that single climb had yet to resonate with us. We were too exhausted. We needed a nap.

In the following days, we climbed Rumiñawi and even spent the night in José F. Ribas Refuge on the side of Cotopaxi. I couldn’t be more proud of Christina or more grateful that she was able to connect with the lands of her people. Her story is one that I will always carry with me – she is the reason why I fight for representation in the outdoors. We are peoples of the land – of the sea – of the mountains and beaches. The outdoors is our right, our very breath, our heartbeat. We are all children of Mother Nature, and thus we long to connect with her. That’s what our single hike did for Christina – she reconnected with another part of her identity, with another piece of her soul.

Christina and I now visit the mountains in the fall and eat pernil for Christmas. She still uses her fancy pink backpack every day.