The Highest I've Ever Been

(altitude wise, that is)

As long as we were in Riobamba, we had to visit Chimbarazo, a dormant volcano whose peak is at 6,310 m. In fact, Ecuadorians like to claim that it is even taller than Mt. Everest because if you measure from the center of the Earth, the bulge around the equator makes it about 2 km taller than Everest.

Anyways, on Friday afternoon we took a bus to the first base camp at 4,800 m. On the ride up, we saw wild vicuna!

From the first camp hiked up to the main base camp and refuge at 5,000 m, where there was snow on the ground. There were a number of people (including Ecuadorians, Germans, French, Welsh, Americans, and Bolivians) at the refuge that night, but most of them were leaving at 10 pm in order to climb to the summit and reach it about sunrise. We were no where as intense (or skilled in climbing, much of the route is technical). Nonetheless, we were able to go for a bit of a hike that afternoon, probably up to about 5,300 m. We returned to the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. The clouds were below us, so it looked like we were in a plane, and the colors were just amazing.

The next morning, we took the Whymper hike up to 5,400 m. It was rather steep and a bit difficult to climb with the snow being hard, so it’s a good thing that Stu didn’t tell us until afterwards that people have died on that exact hike. Also, according to October’s National Geographic, if you exceed 4,500m, you will probably die. (Of course, that is probably referring to traveling straight from sea level.) Nonetheless, we reached our goal, the ridge at 17,716 ft above sea level. By far the highest I’ve ever been and quite possibly the highest I will ever hike.

Camelid Conference

Yesterday, we returned from the World Camelid Congress in Riobamba. Yes, it was indeed an international conference. We realized this when the student price per person was $50, an outrageous amount for Ecuador. Plus, speakers came from Ecuador, the United States, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Italy, Argentina, and more.

In case you are not certain, camelids include llamas, alpacas, and their relatives. The conference included judging of both llamas and alpacas and also had some vicunas on display. Vicunas are quite rare and exist almost solely in the wild, but their wool is one of the most prized in the world. There were also talks and workshops. I went to one of Stu’s talks about alpacas and conservation, as well as a couple of workshops on natural dying and tanning.

As far as the judging went, I only watched one full round, but Stu had two alpacas competing in it. Ramiro and Raoul were in charge of the alpacas, and it was fun to see them dressed up. In fact, we didn’t even recognize Ramiro at first. Happily, Stu won both first and second place in that category. We cheered pretty excitedly!

There was tons of food and artesian shops, too. I tried llama meat, which is fairly tough but also rather tasty. And of course, I couldn’t pass up an ice cream cone for 25 cents. (Mora (i.e. blackberry) is definitely my favorite flavor.) I also bought some alpaca wool scarves, which are amazingly warm, though also decently expensive.

I must admit that I'm rather amused that I even attended the world camelid congress.

(Also, just for reference, the top picture is an alpaca, while the lower one is a llama.)

Crashing Through the Forest

We just returned from another week at La Libertad.

This week was a bit more intensive as far as working on Elizabeth and Tim’s transect project. On Tuesday, we hiked to Plot A, which was made last term and did two mammal sign transects with Don Jose, a local of Colipato, the closest town. We found bear sign, agouti holes, deer sign, and what may have been tapir tracks, but he wasn’t certain.

We then had to make another quadrant. However, our new location was at the top of a steep trail, which rises 600m. We hiked up on Thursday and split into two groups. Coral, Alex, and I went one direction, attempting to make a 100-m side. This part was actually kind of fun. The vegetation was quite mossy, and many times, you were standing on branches and moss 10 feet above the ground, hoping that it would support your wait. We became pretty good at climbing around in such a matrix. Also, two Glowing Puffleg Hummingbirds came within a couple of meters of us and flitted around for a minute. That was awesome!

During lunch, it began to rain. This was good because all of Ecuador is very dry right now, and the dam which provides both water and electricity to Cuenca is at a 20 year low. However, Coral and I then had to make another side through denser vegetation of ferns which were laden with rain. Soon, our legs were soaked. Also, the cloud cover greatly reduced the visibility, so that we could barely see in front of us. Then, after 40 m, our side ran off a cliff. We had already climbed down things which we weren’t entirely certain of how we would climb back up, but we were not about to try climbing down a cliff, especially with bad visibility, so we ended up cold, wet, tired, and without a complete side. And of course, a hike back down to camp was left.

We then returned on Friday. I was so tired from the day before. In fact, all of us were. So although we got some more work down, the quadrant is still not complete. Oh well.

In other news from the week, we heard that half of Rumi Loma burned down. As I mentioned earlier, it has been quite dry. Thus, when Rumi Loma sparked, it continued to burn for three days. Amazingly enough, only one of our cabins burned down, and the kitchen is fine, too. Our plan is still to return to Rumi Loma and see the damage ourselves.

Cajas National Park (in which we take epic photos)

Yeah, that’s a picture of me sitting on a rock on the edge of a cliff above an amazing landscape. It was pretty epic.

Anyways, we’ve been looking forward to Cajas National Park for quite awhile, especially since our visit to the coast when our bus drove through Cajas.

As far as background, Cajas is just outside of Cuenca and has quite high elevations. For example, the starting point for our hike was 4,154 m above sea level. That’s roughly 13,700 ft. The environment is paramo, but much of it falls into the category of superparamo, which unlike Rumi Loma is not dominated by grass. In fact, much of the hike was quite rocky, and some of it even involved walking across fairly narrow ridges. Additionally, a number of the rocky slopes were quite steep, as in only 10 degrees from vertical.

Anyways, Cajas is just beautiful, and I loved seeing the superparamo and be able to compare it to the paramo which I know. Plus, we hiked up to the second highest peak in Cajas: 4,410m (14,500 ft). I’m just glad that I didn’t get altitude sickness up there (especially considering that I had been at sea level only 5 days before). At the peak, we took tons of photos. It was just amazing.

Viva Cuenca

The celebration of Cuenca days was quite fun, though we also missed a fair amount, since we had two papers to write.

Anyways, the first highlight was the craft markets. There were artesians from Cuenca as well as Argentina, Peru, Colombia and Spain. I loved just looking at everything that they had. There were just so many that I discovered new things every day.

Monday afternoon we went to the burro race having no idea what to expect. It ended up being a huge deal with tons of people completely circling the track. We were right on the corner and Coral was worried that the donkeys might be going too fast to make the turn and run into us. She needn't have worried. The donkeys weren't going that fast, and it turned out that they weren't the main highlight. Instead, their riders were wearing all sorts of costumes: clown, priest, drag. It was hilarious to watch, especially when we weren't expecting it!

Another highlight had to be the fireworks on Monday night. We had been warned that they were a bit extreme, but we thought it had been hyped up... until we saw them. First, there were the globos, which are similar to the tissue paper hot air balloons that I made in 6th grade, except that they used actually flames to carry them into the sky until they were almost indistinguishable from the stars. Then, there was the vaca loca, which was probably the highlight of the evening. It's a paper mache cow with fireworks attached. One guy runs around carrying the vaca loca over his head once it's lit. Basically, he runs at the crowd while shooting fireworks are shooting of it. We definitely got charged as streams of sparks were exploding from the horns. Of course, after this is a sort of tower that is also covered in fireworks, but most of these are attached to pinwheels so that they are going off in crazy directions, though of course, always towards the crowd. There was a lot of crouching and huddling in fear.

Tuesday was the actually holiday, and I went to one parade of dancers. It was nice to watch the traditional dances, and the girls' skirts were marvelous for spinning!

Oh yeah, there was lots of food for Cuenca days, most of it fried. I finally tried cuy (guinea pig). It was okay, but nothing that I would seek out.

Basically, Cuenca days were a great time to wander about town, find new places, and have fun experiences! Though I'll probably be fine if I never have fireworks shooting directly at me again.

Isla de la Plata

Thursday was the highlight of our trip to the coast. We visited Isla de la Plata aka the Poor Man’s Galapagos. It shares a number of species with the Galapagos, though it is much closer to the mainland. In fact, the island’s history is much different. It broke off from the mainland tens of thousands of years ago, while the Galapagos are volcanic in origin. This creates much different evolutionary history of plants and animals on each.

On our hike across the island (we took the escalera path), we first came across blue-footed boobies! It was so cool to see them in the wild again. We learned that the blueness of their feet corresponds to their age. The older ones have bluer feet because they’ve eaten more sardines.

Next, we saw Nazga (or masked) boobies. It was interesting to see them so close to blue-footed boobies. Also, while we were watching them, a tropic bird flew overhead. The tropic bird has a long distinctive tail and is so beautiful.

Frigatebirds were next. Sadly, only a couple of males had their guller sacks inflated. Nevertheless, it was amazing to have hundreds of frigates flying over my head.

Then, we saw red-footed boobies. Yes, three species of boobies in one day on one island! It was incredible. There even were some babies which looked like giant white puff balls in the nest.

We thought we were done and had seen a lot, but then on the way back to the shore, we saw three quite small hummingbirds, the smallest hummingbirds on earth! That was a great way to end our hike.

When we returned to the boat, we traveled a bit down the coast of the island and then got to snorkel. We saw a number of beautiful colorful fish, including a parrot fish. Also, there was some alive puff coral and a starfish. However, the water was decently chilly, so we didn’t stay in for too long.

Agua Blanca

And so we return to stories from the coast...

On our Wednesday at the coast, we visited Agua Blanca, a small community within the National Park. Its name comes from the fact that the river dried up during an El Nino one year, so there is now just sand in the riverbed. Our guide, Eddie, lived there and took us on a hike through the dry forest into lower elevation cloud forest.

The hike started at 6:45am in Agua Blanca, which is completely surrounded by dry forest. It was odd to see such a different ecosystem, since where we spend our time receives so much rain. Also, it was now the dry season, so all of the leaves had fallen from the trees, though I had trouble picturing them with leaves, since the ground was like the desert. One species of tree, the ceiba has evolved to have chlorophyll in its trunk, so that it can still photosynthesize during the dry season. It was rather awesome to see these giant green tree trunks.

There were also tons of birds. Every time we saw one, we’d stop and look through our binoculars and then identify it with Eddie’s book. It was great!

The transition from dry to cloud forest was incredible. One minute, everything is brown and dry, and then, the ground is muddy and the plants are green. We saw a number of tagua trees. Tagua, also known as vegetable ivory, is used for all sorts of crafts in Ecuador, so we were already familiar with it from artesian markets.

The most exciting part was at the top of the mountain, we heard howler monkeys! We hiked down in a new direction for a bit, but sadly didn’t see them, though we did hear them once more. After hiking for a bit, Eddie suddenly stopped me and pointed straight up. There was a howler on the branch directly above me! Actually, there were a total of three howlers: a male and two females. We watched them for half an hour before deciding that we really need to continue on with our hike.

When we returned, we got to swim in a sulfur pool. It was fun and relaxing to be in the water. We were told that the water had healing properties and would be great for our hair. (Actually, all of our hair was awful and didn’t get better until we returned to Cuenca and could shampoo it. It felt like it was turning into dreadlocks. We could pull it straight out and it would stay!) Also, we were instructed to take mud from the bottom of the pool, rub it all over our skin and sit out. It was rather hilarious being covered in mud. Such a spa day!

Trick or Treat

Halloween coincides with Viva Cuenca here. Like Guayaquil and Quito, Cuenca’s independence day (November 3) is a national holiday. Of course, since we are in Cuenca, the celebrations start early, and this weekend, they’re in full swing.

In the afternoon, Jesse, Elizabeth, and I explored some of the craft markets. Artisans come from all over, not just Ecuador, but also Colombia, Argentina and even Spain. So far, I haven’t had to go to the bank to get more money, but after these expansive, I think I may have to visit the bank soon. My most exciting purchase: forks! I’ve had my eye out for an interesting fork since arriving, of course, but had yet to find any worth even inquiring about price. However, at one of the more expensive markets, a glass worker had some beautiful beaded pickle forks. There was no way that I could turn them down.

That evening, Jesse, Elizabeth, Alex and I joined our neighbor Ana Luisa in going to a performance at Cuenca’s cemetery. The performance used monologues, dance and music at various stops throughout the cemetery to tell the story of a poet who committed suicide in Cuenca. Each of us carried a lit candle, and the moon was nearly full, so it was rather perfect for Halloween.

When we returned home, we had originally planned to dressing up, but then decided that it was too late. Plus, most of the fun was in planning the costumes, rather than wearing them. (I was going to be a Shining Sunbeam. One of my favorite hummingbirds in Ecuador, where there are more than 150 species of hummers.) We still had our trick-or-treating fest with each person given out some sort of sweet. I made truffles as my gift. Then, Elizabeth gave out granadillas (a type of passionfruit) with jack-o-lantern faces drawn on them. Coral had bought popcorn balls, and Jesse got wawa-pan, a type of bread specific to this time of year and decorated by children. It was a lot of sugar! We also carved a pineapple, and drew a face on a melon, which looked like a pumpkin. When we bought the melon, we thought it was a pumpkin. It looked just like one! Funnily enough, the first time we tried to by squash, it ended up being a 6-inch wide cucumber! Who knew that squash or cucumber (sort of like cheese or font) would end up being a game for us?