I wake up this morning before my alarm. This is usually a good sign – as my body adjusts to the (relative) reduction in self-imposed physical distress, I start waking up with the equatorial sun. The light is already bright in my tiny bedroom and I stiffly make my way out of bed and into the living room. My joints are a hundred years old. My feet crack in what would be an alarming cacophony if it weren’t so quotidian.

The rains and clouds of the Andean winter have been slowly admitting defeat to the bright, clear, skies of the dry season. Today, winter is a memory. I’m reminded of the game we’d play in Perú during the summers; lying on our backs in the scratchy, green grass, starting up at the jagged peaks outlining the too-wide, too bright sky. Find the Cloud, we called it.

On this Find the Cloud, Quito morning, all of the surrounding bright white, snow-capped peaks dominate my usually urban view.

The kettle screams at me.

“Your coffee’s ready, stupid.”

“Thanks,” I mumble.

It seems all too reasonable to have an early-morning conversation with my kettle. Maybe, I need to get out more.  Maybe, I need a bit more human interaction.

***

I’m a creature of habit. Particularly when it comes to running, I tend to establish a routine and fall in love with it. The security of the familiar. Somehow it makes the on-paper ridiculousness of my day-to-day life seem more reasonable.

As I leave my apartment this particular sun-struck morning – my joints having de-aged a few decades in the hour I’ve been up – I begin my run as I do every day. Cross the street (yes, the infamous hit-and-run street), take a left at the park, and follow the bike path past the hot-dog stand, along the main pedestrian boulevard (try not to inhale too much bus-smog), back onto the grass…

I’ve probably run the same 4km loop around Quito’s Parque de la Carolina close to a million times in the last six months. But today, I stray away from my habit, cross Los Shyris, run past the monstrous Quicentro mall – Apple Store, Papa John’s, and over-priced designer clothes dominate the modern façade – and keep running east, up, up, up into the foothills of the Andes and the dark green eucalyptus forests that flank the edge of the sprawling city.

The steep climb leaves me breathless. I don’t really know where I’m going, just up.

I stumble upon the entrance –the only one I’ve ever been able to find. The steep grade squeezes my chest tight; I’m running in army boots through Nutella. As the climb levels off, I abandon the cobbled road for a path of well-trodden wood-chips. At the top of the roller-coaster now, I turn back and look from whence I’ve come. The city a billion tiny gemstones poured into a long channel scooped out by G-d or glaciers or time or some combination of the three.

The park straddles a ridge, separating Quito from the infinite mesa to the east. As I reach the top I see signs pointing to miradores – lookout points. At the last minute, I veer away from my woodchips and down the far side of the ridge.

The mirador comes into view. A couple of tree-trunk benches, a tiny tiki-hut style shelter. A seemingly unnecessary wooden railing suggest that visitors not stray over the hundred meter cliff’s edge.

A leather-skinned grandfather sits on tree-trunk bench number one, starting straight ahead. He has a couch-pillow dog that yaps at me, pulling on the leash, as I slow to a walk in front of the wooden railing. We’re joined by a third new friend – a mountain-biker (based on his outfit – spandex shorts, a neon gortex jacket, and Oakleys) snapping a quick tiki-hut-selfie with an iPad mini.

I don’t think I ever stop moving. I walk along the railing, looking out over the valley spread below. Humanity dwindles exponentially outward from the singularity of Quito until the towering snowcaps of Cayambe and Antisana put an end to life entirely. You shall not pass.

The ledge is steep and I wonder how sturdy the ground is under my feet. How high have I come? I feel like I was just down there – I was. How easy it would be to go tumbling back down.

But I can’t stop moving. While there may be time for the occasional detour and mirador, there’s still – I hope – a point to all of this movement.  Staring down these blinding-white volcanic summits, there’s nothing quite like it. But, I didn’t come this high just for the view.

I spot a trail to the left. In a few seconds, I disappear among the tall, silver trunks and I’m alone again.