The Adventures of Sia the Hedgehog

NCRC Cave Rescue Seminar

2009-07-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

Bedford, Indiana June 13-20, 2009

Getting there

Thursday afternoon, June 11th: took the plane to Indianapolis, IN via a stopover in Phoenix, AR. Loved the landscape there! Arrived in Indianapolis around 1.30 am at night and was picked up by a nice caver who drove me all the way to Stalker Elementary School in Bedford, helped me to find a place to put my tent and then even helped put the tent up. By 4.30 am I was ready to go to bed.

Woke up around 10 am and spent the day talking to people, washing ropes and other caving gear in a 10 % bleach solution (yikes!). In the afternoon, I spied on the instructors refreshing their patient packaging skills and later that evening we were allowed to play around on the ropes that had been hung in the Gym of the school and practice our vertical skills.

Seven long days of learning

Saturday morning everyone was welcomed to the seminar by John Punches and Anmar Mirza after which we split up by level. The level 1's were escorted by DJ to the classroom that would be ours for the week and - after some more introductions - we had our first lesson in the more technical aspects of ropes and cave rescue equipment.

After lunch Roy gave us a theoretical introduction into the cave environment followed by a treatise on medical considerations and medical assessment by our MD Steve Mossberg.

The evening was spent by the instructors checking our gear and us doing our Entrance Skills Checkoffs - demonstrating our knowledge of knots and SRT skills. I spent the evening chatting to a bunch of people and having lots of interesting discussions - something that would go on for the remainder of the week.

On Sunday morning we were split up into Squads of 4 or 5 people. I ended up in Squad 2 with Todd, Susan and Andrew and quickly ended up trusting them when we learnt how to package a patient and I got to be the patient! We packaged each other alternately in a SKED and a Ferno and then did some above ground patient movement with the whole group. We escaped the heath outside by having some more classroom time and had patient packaging checkoffs in the evening.

After learning how to pack and transport a patient in a horizontal cave the previous day, on Monday we learned hauling and lowering systems - for the main line as well as for the belay line - that will be used for vertical litter transportation.

In the afternoon, we had a good time practicing what we learned on the rocks and the evening was reserved for checkoffs again followed by more interesting discussions and practicing pickoffs-according-to-NCRC-standards in the Gym.

Tuesday morning started with lectures on hazardous atmospheres, water problems and communications and then in the afternoon we were let loose into a cave - the first one ever for a few of the students! We practiced underground horizontal litter movement packaging a few chosen ones in Ferno or SKED and then dragging them through more or less challenging passages. My team was given a really hard time trying to maneuver me in a Ferno through an extremely narrow passage. I was very glad that people made sure my nose did not scrape the ceiling!

That evening I discovered the Alamo, originally named "Little Alamo" - but later abbreviated to Alamo - after the Spanish Mission turned into a military fort in San Antonio, Texas that held out against the Mexicans long enough to ensure Texas' independence. The NCRC Alamo now is usually located at one of the Texans' - Monty's in our case - RV vehicle and it is the place where people hang out in the evening, drinking beverages, having conversations or playing games and they're usually the last ones to quiet down for the day!

The morning of the next day was spent in the classroom with lectures on the Incident Command System, how to search a cave and psychological considerations of a cave rescue.

In the afternoon, we got to go into a cave again and the six level 1 squads merged into two bigger groups. Both groups dragged a Ferno into the cave to practice hauling and lowering of a packaged patient. Within each groups the different squads alternately had to package and provide a patient, rig and operate the main line or rig and operate the belay line for hauling as well as for lowering.

That evening, Squad 2 (minus Andrew who deserted us and went on a boat tour in a tourist cave with some other guys) did some more rigging and installing the bridals on the litter checkoffs after which the night was concluded at the Alamo.

Friday morning we had to take a test on what we had learnt that week in the classroom lectures. Luckily the test wasn't too hard cause I don't think that anyone had found time to actually open their course book!

In the afternoon, we were supposed to go into a cave again for some mock rescue scenario practices. Unfortunately, a tornado warning was out so it was decided that we would hold our mock Mock Rescue in the Gym - hastily renamed Gym Cave. Level 1 and 2 together went through 8 or so mock rescues in the school thereby getting to know each other a bit better.

After dinner, John Punches and Anmar Mirza went over the rules for the real Mock Rescue the next day and that night everybody went to bed rather early for a change to get some decent sleep in preparation for a potentially long day the next day.

The Mock Rescue

The next day then, all 3 levels were being mixed up and divided into three big groups. I ended up in team 2, which was the team that got the initial accident report and went to the scene first. The level 3 's took the posts in the Incident Command and gave the rest of the level 1 and 2 's their tasks above ground or dispatching them into the cave.

Together with Level 2-er Ethan and co-level 1-er Jim, I was drafted into Comm Team 1. Our task: take enough comm wire and phones into the cave, get as close to the patient as possible and keep Incident Command in the loop of what's going on underground.

The accident had been reported around 8 am that morning and by 10.30 am the Initial Response Team and Comm Team 1 were on their way into the cave looking for patient Jess who was reported to have a broken leg. We would have to get Jess' team mates out of the cave as well; Jonathan who got lost and Mark who got slightly hypothermic. Luckily, neither of her team mates needed to be carried out!

We installed two spools of wire before we ran out of it about 50 m before the Mountain Room - a big chamber where a narrow passage would have to be rigged to get Jess out of the lower river passages - and had to sit tight until one of the other task forces brought us more wire. When another spool of wire arrived we made it all the way down into the river passage below the Mountain Room.

At that point, a call was made for all available hands to go and assist the Evac Team with the evacuation of the patient and I was sent out deeper into the cave and helped with the evacuation until Jess made it to the Mountain Room. After that (and a funnily bruised little finger), I resumed my task with the Comm Team taking the comm wire out of the cave again and taking everything that was left behind out of the cave. We were accompanied by a couple of bats during the process. We finally made it out of the cave by 7 pm, a while after Jess had gotten out.

After that, we went back to the school, had a well-deserved dinner, washed the gear that we had used that day and the day was concluded with a party at the Alamo that lasted until the morning. At 4 am that morning we were treated to a sudden thunder storm and refreshing rain shower, but that wouldn't deter the partygoers.

Unwinding

On Saturday then, the last day of the seminar, we had a review of the Mock Rescue. Instructors seemed pretty pleased with how things had gone and our Comm Team got some nice comments on the rigging, marking and hiding of the comm wire.

Level 1 also got an award for Real Men and Real Women, a steel carabiner that had been pulled apart in a stress test. Jeff got the carabiner without gate because "Real men don't need gates" and I got the gate because "Real women don't need carabiners" ... ;-)

After that, people started taking off to their respective homesteads. I got to say a lot of goodbyes since I stayed until the evening and my plane wouldn't take off until really really early the next morning. I spent a lazy afternoon packing at ease, drying out all my stuff that had gotten wet during the rain storm, sat around with some other people at Monty's RV, found out it was actually my birthday that day and concluded a great week with piza in Bloomington, IN after which Roy drove me to the airport where I barely managed to wake up at 3.30 am to catch my flight to Charlotte (with air hostesses that should get a part in a movie) and then on home ...

A summary of the week

Over 10 days: 104 hours of instruction, 38 hours of sleep, 18 hours at airports and on air planes, 13 hours of fun and relaxation at the Alamo, 9 hours of waiting for sleep to come thanks to the black tea that we were served for dinner and a most excellent week with new friends in Level 1. I wouldn't trade it for anything!

Spring in Belgium and others ...

2009-07-17T15:43:00.000-07:00

Wow, I just realised that it has been a really long time since I've posted anything on this blog!

What have we been up to ...

I still haven't published the desert part of our trip through California with Scott, Caroline and Rachel. We visited Red Rock State Canyon park, spent two amazing days in Death Valley, discovered a great date palm oasis where we had the best date milkshake (or rather ice cream) ever and where I bought a really cute painting of a date palm and then dragged everyone to Speleo-Ed where we attended some interesting talks and visited soil pipe caves.

May then, we spent in Europe. The first week we spent in Belgium catching up with family and friends: Colleen & Andre organised a nice bbq and we even managed to squeeze in two Belgian caves on our only free Sunday that month! ;-)

Then we went on to Scotland where Scott took pity on me since Will had to work and took me on a tour of the Borders and had me pose for him as the fairie queen of elves for his multimedia project on Thomas the Rhymer. We also spent a day in Dunbar visiting the grandparents and the rest of the family, went for an amazing walk in Rosslyn Glen and managed to catch up with a bunch of friends and attended David and Carrol's squeezing in some time with Ralph.

The third week of May, we went caving and canyoning in the Ardeche in France with our fellow Spekulozen. Check here for some pics. After a long night of driving we arrived in Vallons Pont d'Arc and after breakfast immediately took off to do our first canyon, La Haute Borne. The next day, we managed to squeeze in two caves, one rather unexpectedly - the Cote Patieres - and then the one we had actually planned to do, Peyrejal. The third day a small group went kayaking for the day while five of us did another really cool canyon that started off like an above ground meandering cave (Roujanel) and managed to find freshly picked cherries for dessert. Our last day, the whole group went to do the Canyon du Haute Chassezac, another great experience and another day of really amazing weather.

The last week of May then I spent with friends and family, enjoying the great weather, having some quality time with Colleen & Andre and their newborn Callum, almost trashed the car and therefore discovered a bit more of pretty Brabant by cycle and then sadly had to say goodbye to every one again.

Summary of our slightly epic trip visiting California's beauties with Scots Folks - the green part

2009-03-29T21:16:00.000-07:00

(with thanks to that amazing tour operator gone astray as a geologist!)

Saturday March 14: GOLD COUNTRY

Google map of day 1: http://tinyurl.com/da3dp2

Visited Knights Ferry with its covered bridge and had a nice walk. Golden flowers dotting the landscape. Passed by Jamestown and Sonora, briefly discussed the Toppled Table Talus or the how and why of an inverted river valley.

Spent a lot of time in Columbia State Park - a restored / ghost gold mining town. Because they had a special event, the town was populated with rangers dressed up in traditional costumes telling us about life during the Gold Rush in the mid-nineteenth century. We visited the forge, the old schoolhouse, the graveyard (many nationalities there!), a sweets shop, the fire house with two antique human powered fire engines, the gold panning facilities and then went for a walk at the outskirts of the town where we caught sight of a bandit about to rob the stagecoach!

After our visit we went on to our destination for the night, the cosy Hotel Charlotte in Groveland, where we had a delicious evening meal.

Sunday March 15: YOSEMITE - Day 1

Google map for Yosemite day 1 & 2: http://tinyurl.com/a3ufeq

Finally Yosemite ... I was really looking forward to visiting the park and it sure didn't let us down!

After we hit the Park via the Big Oak Flat entrance, we first saw the Bridal Veil Falls tempting us to have a closer look. But our first destination would be the visitors center where we inquired about suitable walks. They recommended the White Mist trail which led us to Vernal Falls and then on to the Nevada Falls. Due to the snowy and icy conditions on the trail we didn't make it to the latter falls though. We did witness some impressive ice fall!

Luckily, since our walk was cut short, we had some time to go and see (and feel the spray of) the Bridal Veil Fall in all its glory and then - driving out of the park to our Bed and Breakfast for the night - had an amazing picture-postcard view over the park from the Tunnel Overlook!

As Moffat custom (established since 2007!) demanded it, that night we had dinner in a great Mexican restaurant in Oakhurst. Something worth mentioning was the cat of the Narrow Gauge Inn (our B&B): it had 6 toes on each of its paws! Apparently it is a mix of a regular house cat with a bobcat.

Monday March 16: YOSEMITE - Day 2

The next morning, we drove back into the park ready for a day-hike along Tenaya Creek and up the mountain between North & Half Dome. We set out from Curry village, walked the northern part of the Mist Trail and then the southern part of the loop around Tenaya Creek.

What started as a chilly day with freezing temperatures in the morning, turned into a sunny spring day along the Creek. We had an amazing view of the mountains mirrored in Mirror Lake (yet another of those picture postcard moments) and started our walk up the mountain with temperatures rising. Luckily a little stream coming down the mountain regularly crossed our path and provided us with some - if only mental - cooling. We made it all the way up to where the trail levelled out again and snowshoes or skies were necessary to continue on the trail.

Some deep bass noises temporarily upset Rachel and Will thinking it was a bear about to come out of its den, but we found out later that it was the sound of a male grouse trying to attract a specimen of the opposite sex ... ;-)

We did see a bear though, and that at the bottom of the valley (from the car - as Rachel had wished for!), crossing a busy street, totally ignoring all the cars driving by and stopping to get a better look!

That evening we drove out of Yosemite by yet another route, passing meadows coloured yellow by an enormous amount of flowers, witnessed a sunset colouring the sky bright blue and orange and spent the night in a Motel 6 in Fresno where we had our first In&Out burger, a truly American (Californian?) experience.

Tuesday March 17: KINGS CANYON

California also happens to be home to some of the largest living trees in the world: the giant sequoias. One of the best places to go and see them is in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park.

We stretched our necks looking at the General Grant tree in Grant Grove and then went for a long walk and some play in the snow. Saw some Chickarees, cute funny rodents that looked remarkably like squirrels, but somewhat smaller and darker. (For a fascinating story involving the sequoia, the cone beetle and the chickaree, read more at http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/science/hartesveldt/chap5.htm)

Driving through the park on Generals Highway, we then had a look at the General Sherman Tree, which is volume-wise the largest living tree in the world, unfortunately had to pass on climbing Moro Rock and then took the winding way down and out of the Park. We had a brief stop over in Mariposa, another town with a rich gold mining history and then went on to Bakersfield where we spent another night in a Motel 6 (not too bad!)

Winter caving in Lilburn

2009-02-27T18:45:00.000-08:00

The plan

After the Lilburn trip got cancelled last weekend due to impending snow storms, Wilbur - who was leading the trip - decided he wanted to give it another try this weekend. Four of the original party of seven were still up for it: Wilbur, Marek, Will & me, the others having to cancel for several reasons.

Getting there

Friday, early afternoon, Will & I took the train to Palo Alto where Will & Marek picked us up and off we went on Highway 85 driving through remarkably green undulating landscapes and onto Highway 152 through the San Joaquin Valley, passing the San Luis Reservoir and having an early dinner in a great taqueria in Los Baños.

With a full stomach we went on to Fresno, where we had a brief stop over at Howard's house to pick up the keys to the cave and to the cabin in Kings Canyon National Park. Howard is one of the old timers of the San Joaquin Valley Grotto. Since he couldn't make it on the trip this weekend, he graciously offered to act as our Fresno HQ, monitoring our activities via radio updates.

Around 21.00 h that evening we arrived at the jeep's destination. What should have been an easy 8 km approach from the Redwood Saddle Trailhead (see map), had turned into a much longer trip (16.8 km to be precise) since some of the roads were still closed after the storms last week.

An epic journey

We parked at the Big Stump parking lot on Highway 180, hiked on the sometimes dangerously icy Highway 180 and Generals Highway for about 6 km, put our newly bought snowshoes on at the "Overlook" and cut down a fairly steep slope to catch up with the secondary Redwood Saddle Road below and finally reached the regular trailhead around 23.40 h.

Even with snowshoes on, our feet would often sink about 30 cm, sometimes even deeper, in the soft and deep snow. This made our progression much more difficult, especially for the person paving the way in the front, constantly scooping up snow. Every hour Marek would establish radio contact with Howard to keep HQ up to date on our progress. The to-be-remembered one-liner that came up in one of those conversations and described our trip very well was "We're not as near Chinquapin as we thought ... This is going to be an all-night epic!". And right he was ...

Although progress was slow and difficult and we didn't have the time to enjoy it properly at the time, we walked through an amazingly beautiful landscape: a forest with giant Redwood trees, virgin snow glistening in the lights of our caving helmets, the occasional animals footprints and no sounds whatsoever, not even of the bears who were probably sleeping it up in their dens thickly covered with snow.

Finally!

At 4.00 h on Saturday morning we arrived in the cabin and - luckily for us - we didn't have to dig out the entrance! Wilbur started the old-fashioned cast iron stove, while Marek got a fire going. Warmed and revived a little, we fetched water, installed the emergency exit ladders, Wilbur dug out the bear (-proof) box, we ate something, had a hot chocolate (thanks for that Wilbur!) and went to bed around 6.00 h.

The next morning (hmm, or rather the same noon) - all being somewhat stiff and tired due to our "epic" walk (and despite the vitamin I for some), we decided to take it easy on the caving and do a course-familiarizing through trip for us newcomers, to be followed by some surveying and checking out leads near the exit. Wilbur spent 45 minutes digging out Meyer entrance, while Will and Marek went to check out the historic Lilburn entrance.

The cave

With more than 27 km in passages, Lilburn is the longest cave in California. It is a complex three-dimensional system dissolved within beautifully banded black and white marble (yes, the cave is formed in marble and not in limestone!) and has several large streams. The cave is managed as a research area and most work in it is conducted and organised by the Cave Research Foundation.

We made it into the cave around 16.00 h and it definitely fulfilled every expectation that might have been raised by all the stories we've heard so far. It is beautiful - especially in the lower stream washed passages near the Meyer entrance where the marble is not covered with mud. And it is a lot of fun, my favourite type of cave, the scrambling up and down one!

After descending the 12 m deep entrance pit with a cable ladder, the cold draft coming from outside fell away and we could start to enjoy a relaxed trip. Marek & Wilbur first made a slight detour passing Telephone Pit to show us a dazzling white flowstone and rimstone formation called the Glacier.

The way on was through a series of narrow canyon passages formed along nearly vertical joints intermixed with the tubular passages of the East Stream. The marble looked magnificent here! We saw beautiful examples of anastomoses (intertwining networks of veins in the marble) and pendants (shape-wise looking a lot like stalactites, but instead of being deposited by water, they have been carved out of the bedrock by water) hanging down from the mother rock.

On our way to the Hex(adendron) Room (originally named for the six passages meeting there until more exploring found that there are actually nine!) we saw the Big Yellow Hungus Thing flowstone-drapery-stalactite decoration and some very nice, bright yellow rimstone cascades and bath-tub-sized pools. From the Hex room, we made a detour to go and see the Enchanted River’s resurgence, the White Rapids, passing one of John Tinsley's sediment collector sites. Then we passed “That Room” with its mountain leather hanging from the ceiling like dead leaves and continued our way down Curl Passage to the emerald pool in the Lake Room.

Climbing up nearly 30 m up to the Upper Old Cave area, we admired the 6 m tall Great White Pillar and, passing a very unpleasant and nearly 40 m deep drop called the Crevice, went on to the 2 By 2 Complex with its twisting, branching passages sparsely decorated with white, orange and red flowstone and cave pearls.

Then it was on to the Bacon Rind Room where we went poking around for leads. The map didn't seem to make too much sense for that area so we concluded that the entire area would have to be resurveyed some other time and proceeded towards the historical entrance passing some nicely-named climbs up like the Ice Cream Cone.

We made it out of the cave by 21.00 h (the hardest part of it all being the walk back to the cabin through the deep and soft snow without snowshoes), had delicious food (fresh veggies, beans, Weiner sausages, mashed potatoes & Ramen noodles accompanied by hot chocolate), Wilbur & Marek did some maintenance in the cabin and went to bed at a decent hour.

Return

On Sunday morning everyone felt refreshed by a good night's sleep, we had breakfast, cleaned up the cabin and started heading back to the car around 11.00 h under a drizzling sky, again keeping regular contact with Howard at HQ. Although we had much more uphill stretches than on the way to the cabin, for some reason the walk seemed to go a bit smoother ... probably because we could walk back in our own footsteps (discovering en passant that we sometimes did ridiculous detours - a testimony to how snow and night time can change your perception of a landscape!) and maybe also because Howard and Janet had invited us for dinner and a hot shower in Fresno that evening and we were all looking forward to that.

Around 16.00 h we were all glad to be back on the Generals Highway, happy to take our snowshoes off and relieved that it had only started to rain more heavily for the very last part of our journey. After another 3.5 km, Marek got a lift from a friendly Hungarian family who dropped him off at Big Stump so that he could come and get us by car.

The worst part of our journey eventually turned out to be the end of it ... having to rearrange bags and be out in the cold rain after we had been in the warm car for a couple of minutes. Luckily the Visitor Center at Grant Grove had a covered porch where we could change clothes and even found heated bathrooms that were still open!

The perfect ending

At 17.45 h we were well on our way to Howard's where we were treated to a delicious chicken & cornbread meal with loads of side dishes. Janet even made us pumpkin pie, the perfect treat after an intense weekend!

Many thanks to:

Howard for the sleepless hours and all the logistic support
Janet for putting up with Howard on Friday night and making us a delicious meal
Wilbur for organising the trip and making me toast on Monday morning
Marek & Wilbur for driving us safely
Will for being my perfect stove
All the guys for not making me pave the snowshoe trail (:-s) (not that I wouldn't have done it ...)

It was a great type 2-kind-of-fun weekend, I think I might come again next time ... ;-)

Pictures

Participants:

Will Heltsley alias Wilbur (trip leader)
Marek Cichanski (Lilburn veteran)
Will Moffat (Lilburn newbie)
Joke Vansweevelt (Lilburn newbie)

Back to Nature!

2009-02-10T16:28:00.000-08:00

Jeej, a new year ... and a new agenda! After years of fiddling with them whenever I saw them in one or the other bookshop, I finally got myself one of those cute Moleskine agendas ... ;-)

After two - sort of - lazy weeks in Philly it was time to get back into action: Will back to work and me back to the museum. And after so much city life both Will and I were very keen to get out into nature again!

The San Francisco Sea Caves

I had my first shot at nature on Friday the 9th. Bruce and Pat wanted to give Brigadoon cave (the one they discovered under the Cliff House on their trip in November and which we tried to map on our unofficial December Sea Caves trip) another try ...

Since it was only going to be low tide around 16.00 h, Bruce and Pat took Beej and me for some touristing in the afternoon. We visited Fort Winfield Scott, Fort Point and had a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the surrounding landscape, all of this spiced up by Bruce's stories (that guy is a walking history book / geological treatise!).

No go for Brigadoon cave though ... Winter storms haven't come around yet, so instead of sand being taken away from the beach, it is deposited there and the cave has been filled up by more than 1 m of sand since November. So *sigh* we played around a bit in the sand, admired all the little critters stuck to the rocks, discovered a big fat stranded yellyfish, had a tour of the Sutro Baths and the little caves in that area and I got to play around with Bruce's camera at sunset. Some pics of the day ...

That evening Will and I went for dinner with Shadia (Will's colleague) and Dan in a German restaurant that served delicious food and had a really good time. Long live the nerdy geeks (or geeky nerds) (or forget about the nerdy part, they're not nerdy at all, it just sounds good ...)!

Whale watching at Point Reyes

To satisfy our craving for nature, Will and I had decided to go to Point Reyes National Seashore, a National Park at only about an hour and a half driving from San Francisco. We were invited to stay at Iris' - one of the cavers we had met at the Lava Beds trip who lives close to the Park and also volunteers there - and her daughter Lauren's place. They have a really nice house in Woodacre, a small town surrounded by thickly forested undulating hills, and the cutest dog you ever seen - Maggy (my apologies to all those dog owners whom I might be stepping on their toes right now).

We cycled to the bus station, put our bikes on one of the Golden Gate Transit buses, got off in San Rafael and then took a nice cycle route to Woodacre. Upon arrival, Iris and Lauren filed us in their car and took us to the park where we visited the antique lighthouse, watched whales in the distance and saw elephant seals with their newly delivered young on one of the beaches.

On Sunday, Frank - another caver - and Kris joined us for a trip on the "Elk trail" parallel to Tomales Bay. Frank has been a volunteer for the Park for more than ten years now; he knows an awful lot (a bit like Bruce, a walking encyclopedia) and entertained us the entire day with stories about animals and other ... We visited Pierce Ranch (now out of use), saw some big herds of Elk (Wapiti dear) and enjoyed the sun and the beautiful landscapes and sights. A great weekend!

Check here for some pictures of the weekend.

Christmas in Philadelphia

2009-01-28T15:17:00.000-08:00

Our dilemma for this winter ... should we go and celebrate Christmas with the family in Europe or with Ross and Rachel in Philadelphia? In the end the decision was not that difficult: Philly it would be - although with a little pain in our heart because we would have loved to see family and friends in Europe!

We took off on Wednesday the 17th of December - after a delay of 3 hours - at SFO, had an uneventful flight to PHL and took the train to downtown Philadelphia where Ross and Rachel picked us up and took us - via a slight detour by "the donkey" - to their home. Both Will and I were very happy to finally be able to visit them, a year almost after they came to see us in Ecuador!

The following days were not so pleasant for me: I had felt a blatter infection rearing its ugly head for a while now and there was no more escaping it ... But a friendly doctor, considerable doses of antibiotics, a lot of sleep, water & tlc got me up and smiling again in a couple of days.

Rachel and Ross introduced us to a bunch of their friends and colleagues (including a tour of Ross' lab), took us to a fun play / musical (Cherry Bomb: the Worst Act in Vaudeville for the Holidays), showed us some of Philly's prettiest sights and streets and dragged us to the Redding Terminal Market where we had our first pretzels (! And no, they're nothing like what you imagine them to be: small, hard and very salty, but the very opposite: freshly made, big, hearty, and slightly soft, to be eaten sweet - with sugar and cinnamon - or salty - with some kind of mustard or cheese dip; absolutely delicious!!!).

The other thing that Rachel introduced both Ross and me into was yoga! I took four beginners classes and really enjoyed the physical exercise, tried a headstand for the first time in about 20 years and - luckily - it wasn't all about new age witchcraft love and peace as I had feared it might be.

Before Christmas we had to go yummy-food-shopping. Gil (Ross' mum)'s Christmas present to Ross and Rachel was a cheque to go and buy Philly's best food, so we went to the farmers market to buy a duck, chestnuts, plenty of fruits and veggies, cheese and other delicacies ...

Christmas Eve was celebrated in the Moffat tradition with Chinese take away food, a visit to the donkey and midnight mass in a beautiful church with a great choir singing. The only deviation from this tradition - mainly instigated by Ross and secretly supported by me - was the opening of 1 Christmas present!

On Christmas Day, Will & I woke up to an abundance of presents brought by Santa (I still can't grasp which chimney he would have used to enter the place!). Subsequently, we could finally open those presents that had been tempting us under the little tree for about a week now! At 14.00 h, the four of us packed the duck and the rest of the food and walked over to John and Siobhan's house to celebrate Christmas with them and Bruce, one of Ross' colleagues. Needless to say we had a great dinner, followed by Siobhan's home made desserts and concluded the evening with the cute movie about a small robot Wall-E.

Our enjoyment of Philly culture further included:

the eating of the traditional Philly cheese steak (tried the three varieties: Cheese Whiz, American cheese and Provolone!),
admiring the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts (beautiful architecture!),
a visit of the huge Philadelphia Museum of Art (amazing sunset that evening),
the intriguing Mütter Museum or College of Physicians with its amazing collection of medical oddities, many of them on "strong water" and
the Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

We spent our last evening in Philly in the company of Andre - who's birthday it was - and Clara having a great time playing cards and other games.

On the 31st, we had to get up painfully early and took a taxi to the airport where the plane had some delay in taking off due to a minor health related accident (one of our fellow passengers fainting ...). Will then went to work while I tried to defeat sleep by going food shopping with Andy & Steph. We had sushi for dinner and tried no stay awake as long as possible playing with Andy & Steph's Christmas present: a WII! A lot of fun, but to no avail ... We did not make it awake into the new year ...

We tried to make up for that the next day though by walking up Mount Davidson. Instead of the fireworks the previous night we were treated to a stunning view over Twin Peaks under a setting sun clouded in thick mist.

Some pictures ...

Early December

2009-01-14T12:11:00.000-08:00

Caving

After our American caving career took off with the trip to the Lava Beds National Monument for Thanksgiving, Will and I went on another trip to a cute, little town surrounded by little lumps of gold and big trees: Volcano. Anyone interested in the trip report can check it out on the Spekul blog; it is written by John Tinsley who was our trip leader (yes, we have official trip leaders in the States!) that day. It was on the 6th of December which is "Sinterklaas" (to be translated by, but not to be confused with "Santa Claus") and one of the caves we visited that day was called - you'll never guess - Santa Claus ... because it happens to have a chimney! We also visited Mushroom Cave and Pearl Cave (very briefly) and had a nice dinner with the other guys @ Giannini's.

Oh and Will and I both got a GPS for Christmas, which arrived a bit earlier on the 5th of December so that we could already start experimenting with it on our Volcano trip ... ;-)

On the 12th (a Friday, so Will couldn't make it ...) Bruce and Pat (aka Pa & Ma Lava Beds) invited me to go sea cave mapping with them, Beej and Rich near the Cliff House and Sutro Baths in Northwestern San Francisco. The tide was extremely low that day, so a good opportunity to map some of the newly discovered sea caves the month before. We mapped one of them, but could not do the other one - baptised Brigadoon, alluding to the story/musica l as well as to its sandy nature - due to the high level of sand. Winter storms should have taken the sands from the San Francisco shores to deposit it more to the South before bringing it back over the Summer, but a lack of storms this year (did anyone say something about climate change?) is filling up all the caves rather than freeing them.

The day after, we went to the SFBC Christmas party, which traditionally involves a pot luck dinner, gift exchange and auction and was not any different this time. Needless to say that we had a great meal involving turkey, ham, some great side dishes and home made beer. We had a lot of fun with the gift exchange game and collected loads of money for the grotto's bank account ... Will² graciously had us stay over at his place that night, gave us a tour of the Stanford campus the day after and introduced us to yummy dim sum.

The museum

The second week of December, I started working as a volunteer in the Hearst Museum for Anthropology and Archaeology. I had come across the museum website by chance and found out they were looking for volunteers, so I applied ... I'm working there three days a week now on three different collections. The museum has more than 3 million artefacts in store spread over four buildings and a lot of that material is still terra incognita ...

There's the North American Archaeological and Ethnographic Map Collection with old USGS (i.e. standard topographical maps from the US Geological Survey, with or without archaeological sites from previous surveys marked on them) and non-standard maps in it (i.e. maps that have been made for certain publications). Jonathan is in charge here and I (and other volunteers) help him with the cataloguing and making the inventory of the maps.

Natasha, who is Collections Manager for North America, needs assistance with the physical inventory of the California archaeological collections which means checking the object's name of record with the physical object, as well as verifying the storage location and archaeological site of the object. It's amazing to see how in geographically separated cultures like those of the Middle East and those of North America people came up with such similar tools!

One day a week, I'm also helping Paolo out. He's actually the only archaeologist working for the museum, the others are all anthropologists - although Natasha has worked as an archaeologist for years. He's in charge of the Archaeological Collection which contains material from all over the world. I got to inventory lithic material from some of the famous French Palaeolithic sites and pottery and stone tools from North Africa, but they have stuff from all over the world that has - in the past - somehow ended up at the museum one or the other way ...

Besides this, I've also been to one of their other storage units where I've helped with the relocation of an amazing collection of audio tapes from the early 20th century containing interviews with native Americans in languages that are now extinct and the unpacking, dusting and relocation of an enormous anthropological collection of basketry from the Far East dating to the first half of the 20th century. A lot to do there!

Other stuff

Before going to Philadelphia, we had a Christmas party at home with the house mates. Andy & Steph got us a real Christmas tree, Hilary & Taylor had the decorations, cats and dogs were dressed up properly, Hilary and Steph as well, we had a yummy meal together and a funny gift exchange in which a home made monster was bestowed upon us!

Picasa webalbum

Thanksgiving with the CRF at the Lava Beds National Monument

2008-12-29T08:55:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 26th of November: Will and I were packing our caving and camping gear for the first time since we've arrived in the States! We were not sure what to take; other country, other habits ... Will H - who spent the night at our place that evening to make logistics easier - luckily gave us some tips.

Next morning - Thanksgiving Day - we took BART to Oakland (across the San Francisco Bay) where Brad picked us up in a rental car. We set off on an ~ 8 hour journey North, almost into Oregon. On the way we got some interesting insights in rocket technology, Mormon life and California geology and had a great view of the snow topped Mount Shasta from a little town called Weed ...

Around 17 h we arrived in the RC (Research Center or was it Recreational Center?! ;-)) and met the already present cavers from as many as 4 caving clubs: SFBC, Diablo, Mother Lode and the Shasta Area Grotto! We made some food and had some delicious chicken with veggies generously shared with us by Frank, Iris and James.

At about 20 h, it was time to go out into the cold and acquaint ourselves with the lava landscape. Will H. took us to Indian Well, the cosily lighted Mushpot Cave which is a developed (as in 'made easily accessible to the public with paved floor and plaques to explain the different features') lava tube and then searching for Lava Brook and / or Thunderbolt caves. We never found them (GPS's!), but stumbled upon Sentinel Cave, one of the larger and very interesting lava tubes with at least four superimposed levels; almost like a real cave!

The next morning Bruce - our trip leader together with Pat - had a serious announcement. This Thanksgiving CRF (Cave Research Foundation) trip marked the 20th anniversary of exploration in the area. To celebrate this event, we had to make sure to keep in mind the most important goal of the day: "YOU MUST HAVE FUN!"; which meant we could do some "course familiarisation" (i.e. be a "tourist") and explore Mammoth Cave, another of the bigger lava tubes with almost 2.5 km in passages. It is probably the only muddy lava tube around here and we were promised tons of mud. It turned out not to be that bad after all thanks to a relatively dry period preceding our visit. Upon request everybody was back around 16 h at the RC to start preparing for the Thanksgiving potluck dinner, which included the traditional turkey, a roast ham and a plethora of side dishes and desserts. It was a great evening and - just like the turkey - we all got really really stuffed!

The following day Will and I took off with Shane - who is the Park Ranger responsible for the caves -, Cyndi and Brad to the Big Nasty. We had been warned thoroughly about the Big Nasty: extremely uneven terrain due to expanded and then collapsed surfaces, snakes - luckily not so much in this time of the year - and prickly bushes all over which force you to crawl on hands and knees to get through. Although somewhat intimidated Will and I decided to go through with it and it proved to be a very good and productive day. An hour and a half walk bushwhacking led by Shane's gps brought us to promising territory and we managed to topograph 16 survey points (which is a good score apparently since you have to measure every station back and forth due to the lava's interference with the natural magnetic field) and still going before we had to go home. (You don't want to be out in the Big Nasty after dark, mountain lions all over!) Back in the RC, Brian took us to the Northeastern corner of the Monument for a visit of the Petroglyphs and in the evening we had another great meal: delicious soup made with turkey stock, an exquisite Oriental Style noodle dish and Italian pasta.

On Sunday morning, Will², Brad an I had to leave to be back in town by the evening, but not before getting to the top of Schonchin Butte. Will & Will, fighting over who would get to be addressed as Will and which one of them had to take on a pseudonym decided to have a contest ... first to the top ... The previous record set by Beej was 10.5 minutes. They managed to get it down to 8.5 minutes. I'll leave you to ask Will and Will who actually won ...

We decided to go back to San Francisco by the scenic route passing through nice landscapes and through the cute little town of Adin where we had an artisanal smoked hamburger sandwich. Further down the road we had some more fun playing around with some stones and around 20 h Brad safely dropped us off again at the Oakland BART station. Pity we couldn't stay longer in Lava Beds ... but it was a great trip to start our US caving career with and we'll be back! ;-)

Find some pictures here and check out Brad's video here (I hope)

Another week went by ...

2008-11-26T13:56:00.000-08:00

Highlights of the past week were the arrival and assembly of our bikes (don't think I've ever had such a good bike as now - apart then from the purple and pink monster that was given to me for my communion when I was twelve ...) and the preliminary arrival of two Christmas presents: a naughty book-with-a-wink about Syrian lingerie and a bread machine! Bread is insanely expensive here and not necessarily that good of a quality, so I'm looking forward to baking my own bread again.

Last Saturday we spent quite some time trying to adjust the dérailleurs of Will's bike and then drove up Persia and down Avalon to the Mc Laren Park where we had a good view over the bay. Check out some pictures from our ride and of the house!

The Sunday - yet another incredible sunny November day with a sun still capable of causing minor sun burn - we had a pancake brunch at the house with Mike, Brendan and Jutta. Good company, yummie food! We dropped Mike and Brendan off at the Glen Park BART station as an excuse for a little walk and then went on a bit further and discovered the beautiful Glen Park Canyon!

Yesterday evening then was the last Tuesday of the month, which meant another SFBC meeting. The annual grotto elections were held with all positions filled unanimously, something unheard of at Spekul ... ;-) No bitter election campaigns, heated discussions or people voting against. It was a painless affair and very quick, no time to get bored! ;-)

We were all looking forward to this month’s program which sounded very promising. Dave DesMarais of NASA Ames gave a very interesting talk about “Exploring Mars for Evidence of Habitable Environments and Life”. The majority of those present seemed already rather well informed about the Mars expeditions, but for me it was an introduction into a whole new world. He mainly talked about the Mars Rovers who were sent there to gather information about the past and present climate and gather evidence on the (past)(non-) presence of water and possibilities for sustaining life on Mars. He showed a cool animation showing the take off of the space shuttle, the landing on Mars (very bumpy with bounces more than a 100 m high, but a cushion of air bags protected the shell that contained the Rover!), the unfolding of the Rovers (think transformers!) and the start of their voyage. Check Wikipedia or YouTube for some more info or a cool animation!

Tomorrow morning we'll leave for our first caving trip to the Lava Beds National Monument. Looking forward to that!

Our wedding: September 20, 2008

2008-11-24T14:44:00.000-08:00

Some pictures taken by our semi-professional photographers!

(I'm pretty sure we had more of those around, but I still need to locate their cd's with pics ...)

Thanks guys!

About a birthday, amazing weather and how to throw the perfect barbecue!

2008-11-17T17:15:00.000-08:00

This Saturday Andy - our house mate - celebrated his 27th birthday. Good weather had been announced so Taylor saw an opportunity there to suggest a barbecue to celebrate the event. All of us did some last minute shopping ... mostly groceries and a lot of booze (as in a big bottle of rum, coke and lime to make Cuba Libre and a (large!) keg of beer!) and ice. But Andy also wanted a special piece of grilling equipment allowing you to shove a can of beer into the chicken's a*!# which indeed makes the grilled chicken very juicy! It was a cool party with lots of sun, very nice people, great food and an introduction for us into beer pong! Check here for a couple of pictures.

Sunday was yet another sunny day (thanks to East wind blowing desert air over SF). Will and I took advantage of it by going for brunch with Lukas, one of Will's geeky friends. In the afternoon we had a visit from Mohammad - who moved last year from Belgium to San Jose a bit to the South of SF - and spent some time with him in our backyard enjoying the sun, ice cream and apple juice. The day was concluded with two episodes of the original Star Wars movies ... Taylor had managed through Craigslist to lay hands upon four or more boxes full of VHS tapes! ;-)

Other notable events of the past week include us hosting our first dinner at the house, discovering the public pool two minutes walking from the house, me attending my first dancing class and registering for City College only to find out after that that I'll have to pay as much here to attend one class for six months as in Belgium for all of my classes for an entire academic year!

Oh yes, and we've met up with the cavers on the other side of the Bay from the Diablo Grotto. They're a nice bunch as well and their meetings are easily reachable by BART and somewhat less formal than those of the SFBC (although I don't mind the formality that much and they seem to have interesting talks at the SFBC meetings; about some kind of Mars research next time!) We've also managed to sign up for the Thanksgiving Lava Beds trip from November 27-30th! Our first appointment with actual "caves"!

The week that the US elected a new president (in a nutshell)

2008-11-07T18:14:00.000-08:00

Last week Will and I did some touristy stuff. Went for a ride with the cable cars and a romantic walk at Embarcadero last Tuesday (at night this time, therefore romantic ... ;-), but also cause we went for pizza after that). Thursday evening we visited SF MOMA, the Museum of Modern Arts. They have an impressive collection of photos, some famous works of art and a very cool Jacob's Ladder in the main hall! On Friday then, we visited the California Academy of Sciences and were sufficiently impressed! Something to write on your to do list for those who plan to visit SF at some point! Check out the caimans and go and have a look at our Picasa webalbum!

Saturday then was the big day. We were finally moving out of the Gaylord Suites and into our new home at Balboa Park (in pouring rain! Something apparently rather exceptional for here ...). Our housemates: Hilary & Taylor, Stephany & Andy and Oscar; the cats: Goose & Cin Jin; the dog: Chinook. You can check out the street view with Google Maps, it's the brown house, somewhat hidden by the car and the tree, with stairs going up to the front door and with the blue house on the left.

Saturday evening we were invited to Jeff's (one of Will's colleagues) BD party. I really enjoyed that party: great food, great people and a very relaxed atmosphere! The only drawback was the wading through the puddles to get to Jeff's place. California's definitely not used to dealing with rain!

The Sunday Will and I set a record! We spent almost the entire day in IKEA looking for a bed & mattress, (computer)table & chair, bookshelves and minor items. Came back with heavy bags and were treated to a bbq by our housemates! ;-) That was very cool!

Monday was dangerously-leaning-out-of-the-window room cleaning day

Tuesday - apart from being that historic day when the US elected their first African American president (what a relief ...) - Ikea delivered our furniture and we went to the SFCB's vertical practice (including bbq and lots of yummy desserts!) Check out a very cool pic of Hilary celebrating Obama's vistory (and some others)!

Wednesday UPS finally brought our stuff that came from Belgium after messing up the previous day and - o joy - that evening we slept for the first time in - eeuh - more than a month in our own bed! :-)

And yesterday evening we went to a concert of Natacha Atlas. Despite rumours about her being notorious for cancelling concerts she did show up, and did so in style and accompanied by great musicians! Both Will and I enjoyed the concert a lot!

Meet the cavers!

2008-10-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

Tuesday evening, Will and I met the local cavers and they seem to be a nice bunch!

Unlike our cosy weekly meetings with Spekul, SFCB (San Francisco Bay Chapter Grotto) members only meet every fourth Tuesday of the month. Admittedly, they seem to live much more geographically separated. For us, getting to the meeting took us an hour and 20 minutes by public transport!

We met them first at a pre-meeting dinner in a hamburger restaurant. Arriving at the restaurant we saw a huge table of young guys sitting all together, while none of the other folks looked, behaved or were present in numbers that would suit a thriving caving club. After some debating (we felt a bit intimidated, especially because there were no seats left around the table) we did go in and ask the group if they were the cavers. They turned out to be a football team ... Pfwieuw ...

The cavers we found hidden in a more secluded area of the restaurant and as in Europe, they turned out to be of all ages, some of them looking somewhat gruffy, an estimated 42 % of them female and all of them rather welcoming and very talkative ... ;-) Many people of the club seem to be (rather distinguished) geologists or other scientists, so we might learn a lot.

The meeting went well, although very different from what I'm used to at Spekul; so much more formal, but with a kind a humour that felt very familiar ... ;-) I've tried to sign up for a caving weekend for 7-11/11,- that is - if they have an opening ... They seem to have limits on how many people can go on a trip and also seem to insist on having a trip leader, a job which not too many people seem to want or can take upon them ... (first impressions ...) Will wouldn't be able to come that weekend since he "volunteered" to go to work that Saturday; they'll have a "hack day" at Metaweb or something the like ...

Yesterday, Will and I had a fun and very relaxed evening. We met after work to take a ride on the cable cars, went to Embarcadero - which luckily wasn't as touristy as during the day - paid another little visit to our friends the sea lions, had a nice view of the lights of SF, went to a book store and took the cable car back getting of at a small Italian restaurant where we had a late dinner.

Tonight we plan to visit the SF MOMA (Museum of Modern Arts, they're open almost until 21.00 h on Thursdays) and on Friday we'll give the California Academy of Sciences another try. Hope there won't be such a crowd on a weekday as last Sunday. On Saturday then, we'll finally be moving out of the Gaylord suites and into the house at Balboa Park! Looking forward to that!

Some pictures

2008-10-30T14:20:00.000-07:00

Sea lions at Pier 39. Check the web for more SF pics.

And here you can find some pictures (with a little explanation) of my trip to France and Spain with Dirk in August.

Mission accomplished!

2008-10-23T14:49:00.000-07:00

Our first weekend in SF was pretty laid back. We had gotten an invitation from one of Will's colleagues to a(n unofficial) house warming party / barbecue in North Berkeley. We took BART there (Bay Area Regional Transport); brr ... it was a trip under the bay, something like the channel tunnel, but then in an area where earthquakes do happen more regularly. Met a couple of Will's colleagues (again) and had a good time discussing scary movies. We got a lift back into town over the East Bay bridge and had a spectacular view of downtown SF by night!

The Sunday we met up with Mike Love (finally got to meet the person behind the name) and Brendan for brunch in the Mission. The Mission is supposedly SF's coolest district with a lot of Latino influences and - especially around 24th street - a very relaxed atmosphere. I liked it instantly coming out of the BART station the first time I set foot there.

Monday afternoon, we went to Balboa Park again. We had asked Taylor, the leaseholder, if we could visit again, because after visiting more houses and meeting more nice people our decision-to-take had become more difficult. Taylor was very nice about it, even offered to bribe us into moving there with 25 year old scotch ... ;-) After another nice encounter with all the house mates we decided to move in; both Will and I have a very good feeling about it. Our future house mates will be Taylor, Hillary, Andy, Stephanie and Oscar. And I am especially very happy about the fact that they have cats in the house (one of them listening to the very cool name of cin jin), there's also a friendly dog and especially Taylor seems to be into gardening ... ;-)

Now, I urgently want to get rid of the last traces of being sick and in the weekend we Will start exploring SF with the city pass (think cable cars, museums, Aquarium of the Bay and even a bay cruise) that we got as a wedding present!

Sia's off for her next adventure ...

2008-10-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

We've finally arrived! After months of not knowing whether one day we'd end up in sunny San Francisco or not, we're here ...

The flight over was not so pleasant for me. A splitting headache made me take an aspirin which in turn made me totally nauseous. Will was forced to play "pakezel" (pack mule) again. He carried all the big bags from Powell station to the Gaylord suites, which we will call sort-of-home until the 24th of October.

To prevent us falling asleep immediately after arrival we walked to the embarcadero. On our walk - in the middle of town - we spotted a bird of prey who had just caught something and was eating it with a lot of appetite. Just hope it wasn't a small hedgehog ...

Wednesday, we tried to get Will a Social Security Number (for which we'll have to wait about a month - that is, if they don't forget about it ...), we opened a bank account, bought the best porridge / granola ever, filled our fridge with all sorts of organic fruits, and got me a phone ... ;-) Just in case, we can be reached now at +1 415 6230294 (mobile).

Yesterday then, we went house hunting. Managed to get two appointments, one just one block away from the sea, the other in town near Balboa park. The "two rooms for a couple (or one who needs space)" near the sea couldn't seduce us, but the sea itself was beautiful with all the fog hanging around. The other house (Looking for awesome roomate(s) to join a happy home), we really liked, especially the people there. Curious to know where we'll end up ...
Today and tomorrow, we'll try to get some other appointments.

You'd be surprised what can happen underground

2008-07-31T07:48:00.000-07:00

Caving in Spain

Sistema del Alto Tejuelo, Sala del Embudo, not far from survey point 18 ...

15/07/2008

Exploring underground for the third day in a row in the Spanish Sistema del alto tejuelo, life took a turn ...

Waiting at survey point 18 in the Sala del embudo for the rest of the team to finish a survey, I was briefly abducted by Will and led to a small niche adorned with stalactites, moonmilk and little candles. He wrapped me in a safety blanket to keep me warm and asked me to marry him!
I also received a token for the shower at the camp site ... ;-)

Op 15 Juli, onze derde ondergrondse exploratiedag in de Canto, heeft Will mij op zeer suspicieuze manier meegetroond naar een kleine nis met schone concreties en moonmilk en kleine kaarsjes ... Ik wist niet goed wat denken (hij heeft me ingepakt in een reddingsdeken!), maar om een lang verhaal kort te houden ... ik heb een douchejeton gekregen en een officieel huwelijksaanzoek!

De plek is gemarkeerd door een papiertje uit een topoboekje en is te vinden in de buurt van topopunt 18, Sala del embudo, op een diepte van ongeveer - 350 m!

PS: for the record, I said yes / ik heb ja gezegd ...

Semana Santa - 1

2008-07-04T06:20:00.000-07:00

MOFFAT INVASION

Tuesday, March 18, 17.30 h: Will and I take the bus to Quito Airport to pick up our long-expected guests: Mr and Mrs Scott and Caroline Moffat and Mr and Mizz Ross and Rachel Anderson-Moffat!

A taxi ride through a quickly darkening city takes us to Amazonas 639, where our newly arrived party has to climb 5 floors before they will be treated to a selection of exotic fruits, soup and bread. Luckily they haven’t been in Quito long enough to be affected by sorocho or altitude sickness and they make it up the stairs without a problem.

DISCOVERY OF QUITO

The next morning, every one got up rather early and after breakfast we started our tour through Quito.

From Parque Ejido we went on to Parque Alameda, where Ross, Rachel, Will and me held a race to the top of a little tower. Ross and Rachel did remarkably well considering Quito’s 2800 m above sea level. Still no signs of sorocho ...

We bought some fruit from a she-vendor in the park, Will showed the clan the two ugly space ships in the middle of town and then we paid a visit to the Basilica del Voto Nacional where we admired the paintings inside and the gargoyles in the shape of turtles, armadillos, buffalos, etc. on the outside.

Hereafter, we walked on to the old town, where we were treated to a fanfare on the Plaza de la Independencia, saw some more beautiful churches and the Palacio del Gobierno, went to the Plaza San Francisco, eyed the Virgen de Quito from far and tried a variety of jugos (mora, guanabana, naranjilla, zanahoria, naranja and guava).

Then we took the Trolley back to La Mariscal, had a typical almuerzo (no chicken feet though!) and went fruit and towel shopping in the Mercado Santa Clara. We even got the yapa from one of the fruit vendors; she gave us a chirimoya for free!

After a refreshing nap, we decided to walk to Guapulo where you have a great view over the valley bordering Quito. Coming back, we had a flowery tea in a nicely decorated bar in La Mariscal, dinner at home and an early night.

More Semana Santa pics

Sins! ... and our first visit to the White City

2008-06-23T05:31:00.000-07:00

On the weekend of the 15^th and 16^th of March, Will, Veerle (our new recently-moved-in interested-in-caving Belgian house-mate) and I went to Ibarra, a city just three hours by bus away from Quito.

After a first reconnaissance trip through town (and what a town ... with a very pleasant atmosphere, beautiful squares and churches and of course a volcano nearby!), we had almuerzo in a small place in the company of an elderly woman who - just like my grandmother - kept on telling us we had to eat well! In the afternoon, we planned to visit a museum, but all of Ibarra’s museums as well as its tourist office appear to be closed in the weekends ... (so much for being a tourist destination for your compatriots! :-s) So, we couldn’t do much else to do than go for an ice cream in Ecuador’s oldest and most renowned ice salon ;-), take a nap, explore Ibarra’s outskirts on foot, witness a wedding at night and then go for pizza!

On Sunday, we saw everyone in town running around with small bouquets made out of strips of stem of a type of palm tree. We correctly supposed that people took these “palms” to church to be blessed, because - after all - it was Palm Sunday. Their bouquets did look a bit funny, but hey, in Belgium we even use buxus buxus to replace palm leaves ...

It was only after we had read some posters in church that we found out that with the usual type of palm (wanted for its wax and the manufacture of jewelry, but especially to be used on Palm Sunday, when their leaves decorate churches and bless people’s houses) going extinct, the parrots that live and nest only in this type of tree go extinct as well (read more and more, in Spanish though!).

Read here for a cool article on the new 7 deadly sins. These were frequently mentioned (and interpreted to the advantage of both palm and parrot) on El noticiero (the news) that week preceding Palm Sunday. Probably just in case people needed extra arguments to replace their palm leaves by an alternative ...

That Sunday, Will and I actually wanted to visit Cayambe (famous for it’s cheese and biscuits), but stranded in Otavalo, where I (oops, deadly sin??) went shopping and where we had a delicious fruit salad (greed!)!

Some pictures

Of butterflies, orchids and Hummingbirds ...

2008-06-11T07:31:00.000-07:00

Will and I finally made it to Mindo on the weekend of March 8-9th. Mindo is a small, cute village in a subtropical cloudforested area (just on the other side of the Pichincha volcano, but yet a two hour drive ...).

At several occasions proven-to-be-unreliable-or-out-of-date Footprints and Lonely Planets made us go on a quest for the bus station ... Finally arrived there, we bumped into Marion, the Austrian girl we met at the language school during our first weeks in Quito. She had been working as a volunteer with children in Mindo and that weekend, she took her mum, sister and aunt - who came over for a holiday - to visit her scheme.

After settling into a pretty wooden and yet inexpensive cabin / guesthouse with shared bathroom, we visited one of the mariposarios, a butterfly garden where they breed different types of butterflies to - later - release again in nature; went to the orquideario, a private garden full of orchids of a guy who collected at least 200 different species and saw a lot of hummingbirds (quinde in Quichua).

On the Sunday, we went for a long walk in a nearby protected forest. A so-called tarabita - a metal carriage moving over a steel tyrolienne - took us to the other side of the valley where several routes led us to a multitude of waterfalls (santuario de las cascades it was called!). We saw at least six of them and eventually cooled our feet in one of the streams (brrr). Will went for a run in the jungle and before returning back to Quito, we concluded a nice, relaxed weekend with mango and a piza at the local bakery!

Check out our Mindo Picasa webalbum

In March:

2008-05-29T07:48:00.000-07:00

Will and I continued our discovery of Quito by visiting Parque Alameda, which had been under restoration ever since we arrived and before and had finally opened again. On another day, later that month, we went back to the park at lunchtime for a romantic boat ride … ;-)

We visited the Mitad del Mundo or the Middle of the Earth, a moderately interesting, very touristy museum site on the equator. But it’s hard to justify living in Quito for 7 months and then not know what other people are talking about. People go there to stand with one foot in the southern and the other in the northern hemisphere, but the site is actually misplaced - at about 240 meters south of the true equator - and should rather be promoted as a museum site commemorating the scientific expeditions (an interesting exhibition on that topic can be visited on the site as well) that took place to locate the equator than anything else ...

Will and I went to (the end of) a demonstration, the Marcha por la Paz (a peace march). The funny thing is that people with very differing viewpoints took part in the march:

some to say that they´re ready to go to war with Colombia,

others wanting a diplomatic solution to the conflict,

some against the FARC,

some pro,

a delegation that was protesting foreign military bases or any other foreign involvement and

others (the majority I think) just for peace ...

Funny was that we met the owner of the hostal we were staying at in Canoa again, a Dutch guy who is also a reporter for the Dutch International Radio.

March is also the month when one exceptionally clear morning - after an extremely chilly night - we were treated to a spectacular view of snow covered (something my Spanish teacher’s old grandmother had never witnessed in her entire life) volcanoes surrounding Quito and a view of the volcanoes that were more than 30 kms away from the city ... amazing!

Raging rivers in southern Ecuador: an extended weekend in Loja and Vilcabamba

2008-05-26T01:48:00.000-07:00

Somewhere the beginning of February, Will suddenly realised that his weekends in

Ecuador

were numbered … Hereupon, we made our wish list of places-to-visit (see Google map), I asked two days off from work and we booked a flight to the South (which saved us a crazy bus ride of at least 14 hours).

We left Wednesday afternoon, the 20^th of February, and a couple of hours later we were already exploring the town of Loja. Both of us liked it immediately: a pleasant buzz, friendly people, nice streets, a cool city gate and - for Will - computer stores that sell the good stuff … ;-)

Thursday

On Thursday, we continued our discovery of town and around. We walked up one of the hills to visit two enigmatic towers and found out that Loja - with no particularly high hills, at least not according to Ecuadorian standards - is planning to install a télépherique here?!

In the afternoon, we took the bus to Vilcabamba, a town an hour to the South of Loja known as the Valley of Eternal Youth and for its peace and quiet which is - isn't it ironic - usually full of tourists. We checked in into one of the local hostals, which - at a time of abundant precipitation - had only muddy water available for a shower since the rains had washed away the pipes leading to the water treatment station. We booked ourselves a guide for a two day trek in the nearby Podocarpus National Park, met two nice American people on their extended six-month honeymoon through South America and exchanged stories with them over dinner.

Friday

Next day, we took off with Jose as our guide and a horse to carry our bags and to ... ... ... (a not so clear explanation, but we’d find out soon enough!) The weather was beautiful, the landscape as well: high mountains deeply cut by rivers and overgrown with cloudforest.

After three hours of walking, we found out why the horse had to come ... The trail we were following was cut by some rivers. Normally, these can easily be crossed on foot, jumping from stone to stone, but because of the unrelenting rainfall of the previous weeks, the small streams had grown into raging rivers. We had to cross the river on the back of the horse (scary as hell!). Check out the video we took of Jose crossing ... Luckily - thanks to the horse that didn't like the crossing and tried to take off - Will found a tree that had fallen across the river and crossed it that way. At the second river, we declared defeat and took an alternative route.

In the afternoon, we arrived in the mountain hut, where we prepared a delicious lunch and had some great horchata, a typical herbal thee. Will and I then took off and went down to the river, where we discovered a huge, normally non-existent waterfall. When we came back Jose had marinated the pork that we would have for dinner and was just starting a fire to grill it. We had a hot shower (how decadent!), a beautiful sunset, enjoyed our meal and at night - for the first time - had a great view of the stars.

Saturday

The next day, Will ran to the top of the mountain while I went with Jose to have a look at a 400 (?!) year old podocarpus, the eponym three of the park and only native Ecuadorian pine tree. After that, we started our walk back to civilisation, taking a different route to avoid the rivers. Back on more horizontal soil, I had my first real horseride! Back in Vilcabamba, we took a (full!) bus back to Loja, right in time before another rainstorm burst loose.

Sunday

A truly lazy Sunday! We spent the morning on the squares of Loja, bought some fruit on the market (mango season at the coast was over, but had just started in the southern lower sierra), were treated to a fanfare and the raising of the flags (one or other regional holiday), ran into the American couple again and took the bus to the not-so-interesting-but-ice cream-selling town of Catamayo to get to the airport and then back to Quito.

More pictures ...

February …

2008-05-22T06:06:00.000-07:00

… month that I

started dancing classes

took a subscription to the fitness annex swimming pool annex jacuzzi annex saunas at the Hilton Colon (sounds fancy, doesn’t it … well, it is!)

discovered the possibilities of web 2.0

ate my first real brown coconut (as opposed to the green coco that I had in Canoa during our New Year’s holiday)

Will and I continued our exploration of Quito by walking one Saturday to Guapulo on the eastern outskirts of Quito (great view over the valley behind Quito and beautiful church) and taking part in the Cyclopaseo through Quito.

The Cyclopaseo is a two-weekly event when a 30 km stretch of Quito - including Amazonas - is made car free and flooded by cyclists. A nice way to get to know the city better!

On the 17^th of February, together with Piet, Lieve and some other Belgians, we went to climb the Illinizas Norte volcano. Piet and Lieve picked us up at 4.30 h in the morning, which was extremely painful due to Karla’s birthday party that had ended just few hours earlier …

Leaving Quito in the dark, we arrived at the parking at the break of day. We had a great view over the beautiful landscape, but - unfortunately - the surrounding volcanoes were clouded again …

After climbing a couple of hours, first through a high altitude forest and then through lower bushes, the slope became very steep and the higher we came, the more snow started to come down. Arrived at the mountain hut, we had a short break and then tried to go on. Snow, however, made the mountain rather dangerous and instead of going to the top, we decided to go and visit the lake between the two volcanoes. Pretty from far (the lake), but not a place where I would swim!

Excursus: The Illinizas is a twin volcano, the Southern one has a permanent snow cover, but Northern one - normally - no snow whatsoever … Yet another sign of climate gone astray! More proof of this we would get in the middle of March when on a glorious morning, mist had cleared up, thus granting us a view of at least 40 km into the distance, and all the mountains and volcanoes surrounding Quito were covered in snow!

Similar to our experience when climbing the Pichincha volcano, I felt nauseous climbing up and Will when going back down … we might just not be suitable for high altitude sports … :-(

Check our Picasa webalbum for more pics

Carnival in subtropical Puerto Quito: some pics

2008-05-22T05:50:00.000-07:00

Take a look at our Picasa webalbum!

Carnival in Puerto Quito

2008-04-26T19:17:00.000-07:00

(It took Joke 3 months of prodding to make me write this post)

Carnival is a big deal in South America (think Rio de Janeiro) but we celebrated Ecuadorian-style: playing twister with 100 other people in a bus full of smoke, careering around bends with hundred meter drops to one side. Faith is strong in Ecuador as drivers clearly believe in an afterlife (the kind that doesn't involve hot fires and pointy objects). The road was paved but that's a mixed blessing since the bus can build up speed. Whenever we stopped in a small village to pick up new passengers (and play twister) the children would throw water balloons at us. Unfortunately not enough to put out the fire and after 4 hours of torture the bus breathed its last. Thankfully the next bus was slightly less 'dañando'.

When you have to start the Wikipedia page yourself for the town you're visiting then you know you're travelling a little off the beaten track. Puerto Quito, between the coast and Quito, is surrounded by jungle, banana plantations and has it's own party beach beside the river. The carnival celebrations are pretty intense with thousands of people throwing water and paint at each other. Joke proved to be an attractive target much to her displeasure ;-)

All in all it was a fun, adventurous long weekend with our Ecuadorian friends but we were glad to get back safe to Quito, our stomachs were still 'celebrating' carnival for a few more days.

And thou shalt know that my name is the lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee …

2008-04-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

Since January, Ecuador has certainly had its share of Mother Nature’s and other people’s wrath. It started with a volcano, went on with floods in February and then in March, there was the political issue of Colombia killing FARC rebels in Ecuadorian territory, thus violating their sovereignty, with a major diplomatic crisis as a result. The end of March, a hole was bestowed upon Quito … more than 80 m deep and with a diameter of about 70 m. Something a caver should be happy with, but if that hole almost took away part of the highway and has been dug out in rather loose soil, that’s scary ...

Around the middle of January Mama Tungurahua, the volcano near Baños, became very active again. We already heard her in action at the beginning of November, but now she was spitting lava! Will - not satisfied with the display of possible fierceness we had had in November - convinced me to go to Baños again the weekend of 19 and 20^th of January. Unfortunately, the three months of bad weather had already started and clouds kept the volcano veiled. We did hear some impressive rumbling and had a bit of a strange encounter with a peasant carrying - as they all do - a machete ... It was a quiet weekend that ended on the Sunday evening with a film “Que tan lejos”, an award winning Ecuadorian creation.

Some more pictures ...

Apart from the volcano and partly because of the rain, January passed by quite unnoticed … Work wasn’t so much fun, Will and I continued our discovery of Quito by going one Sunday to the Parque Metropolitana and another for a long walk to the centro historico, discovering some beautiful cathedrals and a gigantic market and had a fruit tasting evening at the South American Explorers club: achiotillo, cacao, narajilla, pitajaya, babaco, chicle, … to name but a few of the fruits – forgot the names of the others … ;-)

On the 26^th of January we had own, personal, "alternative" Burn's Night supper. I probably shouldn't mention it, cause it is totally haraam for any self-respecting Scot, but we had pasta with sausages that were addressed by Will as the haggis. On the bright side of this, Kai and Karla learned something about scottish culture and we had a very good evening! Oh yes, and instead of whiskey we had Cuba Libre ;-)

Que viva Web 2.0!

2008-03-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0

After a not so great period at work in January, when one of my projects got cancelled “for the time being …"(the final decision still doesn’t seem to be taken), things improved greatly at work.

Because she wanted to keep her supporters informed of the proceedings and decisions taken within the mesa 7 of the Asamblea Constituyente, Helga asked me to set her up with a Riseup mailing list. Servers at Riseup were down, however, so I needed to come up with a different solution. In the end, we decided on a Google Group and the constant stream of emails that has been coming since then testifies to both the good intentions of - at least some - politicians and the fact that Google can be used without too many difficulties by non geeks ;-) (referring to me as well as to Helga)

Mid February, mentioning again to Annabel that we really ought to update the No Bases website, I heard from her that some semi volunteer/programmers were working in this and would present their proposal one of the following days. (Communication could be better here at the office!) However, a month further now, we still didn’t get any proposal from the specialists …

I don’t remember how it came up, but the No Bases Network for a long time has had the plan to start with a database on all known foreign military bases. After playing a bit with the Google Groups, I was quite curious to find out what else Google could do for you once one was in the possession of a Google account …

Btw, I won’t deny Will’s influence in totally - although with some reserve - converting me to Google … ;-)

So, I started to experiment with Google Spreadsheets. They just had released a very cool feature that allows you to produce questionnaires, which you can send out by email and when people fill them out, the entries will automatically appear in your spreadsheet! A very cool feature, but unfortunately still in its “kid’s shoes”, with the necessary bugs that remain to be resolved ...

My search for another application that would allow me to collect data via on-line forms led me to Dabble DB. Which is really, really great!! I’m a total convert! You can get an account for free as long as you register your data under the Creative Commons license, which is just perfect for the No Bases Network. And the cool thing is that they make it dead-simple to embed the whole questionnaire in your website - or blog: check out my test on siathehedgehog - and visitors to your site can search the database without the need for an account.

I ended up making three questionnaires with Dabble DB. Unfortunately they’re not on-line yet, because I don’t have access to the current No Bases website and the people from the Network need to make some decisions first on which way exactly they want to go with their to-be-renewed website …

Something else positive about all this geeky stuff is that I got into contact with one of the people of the Network - totally by chance cause I didn’t know he was part of the red (communication …). I contacted Wilbert, a Dutch guy, because the Transnational Institute he’s working for made a great database - although smaller in scope than what we were thinking of - and it would have been a shame not to incorporate those data … He proved to be very enthusiastic about the idea of on-line gathering of data and on top of that he also had been thinking about restructuring the website and had similar ideas as me, which provided me with the proverbial “green light” to go on with my experiments. It’s nice if your work is appreciated!

February 14^th, a rose was awaiting every employee at ACJ …

Will, Karla and Kai’s office had a very nice smell that day as well. The floristeria on the ground floor must have started working at 4 or so in the morning, preparing hundreds - if not thousands - of roses to be sold that day and the stairs going up were full of flowers.

Valentine’s day is a big thing in Latin America!

After the questionnaires, I moved on to make another Google Group and set up a blog. When my Google Reader (another great thing! Sorry to spam you with all these links …) one day came up with an article on yet another new feature: Google Sites, I started thinking of making the new website myself ... The Network seems to have money available to pay people to make and maintain a website, but why waste so much money if you can make an easily maintainable interactive website yourself.

So, I bought my own domain name (hedgehogdilemma – Sia obviously became a rather important part of our lives ...) and started experimenting with both Google Pages and Google Sites, again all for free. Very cool!

And apart from all of this, I would like to experiment a bit with Google Earth … There are some cool mash-ups possible these days, i.e. combining Google Earth with other types of data. Hope to find some time for that once the whole decision-making process is over and the new website is coming along all right …

Mangoseason

2008-03-14T10:56:00.000-07:00

From Beans to Cocoa

December is the month for parties and I for one will have known so. Will decided that it was time to go to work again, took off for San Francisco, and missed out on a lot of the fun ...

December actually started on the 30th of November with the Fiesta del Chocolate. Together with Kai and Karla, I went to the restaurant where Leo (one of our friends) was working to learn how to prepare chocolate. The restaurant is located in a somewhat higher part of town and has a great view over the Panecillo - a small rounded hill that dominates the old town topped by the huge statue of the Virgen de Quito, which at Christmas time was decorated with a gigantic nascimiento scene (Joseph, Maria, the crib, the three wise men and something vaguely looking like a Christmas tree) keeping the Virgen company.

The chocolate of course attracted many people - from ACJ, but also two American sisters, one of whom was volunteering in a project near Cuenca and had the cutest (singing) Spanish accent ever ...

Leo first had us taste the fresh cocoa beans. They come in a bunch out of a calebas-type of fruit and look a bit like litchees, a bean surrounded by white flesh, with a delicious taste. After eating the flesh, you put the nuts to dry - from a couple of days to some weeks, depending on the climate. When they´re dry, you fry them, take the peel off and then grind the nuts. The cocoa powder then is made into chocolate by adding some oil, water and milk powder according to taste. When the chocolate was ready, we had it served with banana, apple and cookies, hmmm ...

Many happy people that evening!

Fiestas de Quito

Another reason for celebration are the Fiestas de Quito. This fiesta, to commemorate Quito´s foundation day, officially takes place on the sixth of December. No mandarins and speculaas for me this year, though, and since everyone was having the day off, I spent the morning reading and totally forgot to go to my Spanish class, poor Mayra …

In the evening of the sixth, traditionally, a huge parade marches through Amazonas; right underneath our window! Representatives from all over the country take part in the parade, performing traditional dances, driving vehicles around with huge foam representations of historical figures, typical animals or people in customary clothing. The local school girls from the oldest schools in Quito dress up like angels, the alumni dance around in traditional Spanish costumes and extremely large persons personifying old myths spit fire …

But Quiteños wouldn’t be Quiteños if they wouldn’t celebrate for a whole week ... All over town you can see artists performing music or other arts and chivas - a type of open bus with a band on the roof playing the traditional Quito song “La Chulla Quiteño” - are continually driving around. You can hire an entire chiva with a group of friends or buy a ticket to a “communal” bus. It goes without saying that people drink a lot these days and especially on the chivas. Canelazo, on the basis of cinnamon, mixed with loads of pure alcohol is THE drink of the fiestas.

One of the high points of the fiestas is the Corrida de Toros, in which internationally renowned bull fighters are invited to show off their prowess in the arena. Many Quiteños are very proud of this practice and some people even invited me to go to one of the fights. I politely refused ...

Christmas

Will and I spent the holiest evening of the year with the family: María, Adriano, Kai and Karla. María made a very nice (traditional style!) stuffed turkey with different types of delicious salads and we had a great pie for desert.

In my family it always seems to be the older generation who is most eager for Christmas presents, and here it didn’t prove to be any different … María was very excited after dinner to move on to the Christmas tree, where a lot of present were awaiting us all. We had a lot of fun distributing them by means of dice and Will and I both ended up getting a very fluffy and warm scarve and hat.

For the first time in my life I went to a REAL midnight mass, i.e. at midnight! As is custom here, María took her little Jesús to mass to be blessed. I have to confess that I had difficulties staying awake ... and mass turned out not to be that different from a European mass, except then for the language and a clapping and dancing priest (well, that last one is maybe just a bit exaggerated ...)

On Christmas day, we went to Pappallacta with its many balnearios. That was great! We first spent a couple of hours in the hot baths, had a nice turkey sandwich and after this went on a walk in an enchanted forest - or that is at least what it looked like, with its rather small trees with moss hanging all over them, a very wet and mossy forest floor and mist all over. (The more down-to-earth name for such a forest is - I believe - "high altitude humid forest".)

New Year´s

Our New Year was spent in Canoa, a small quiet town at the Pacific coast, together with the family and Helena and Jadira. A drive by the 80 year old Adriano took us there. Apart from one incident, I was quite relaxed and having fun with Karla and Helena - sitting in the back of the pick up truck with inflatable mattresses under our bottoms and against our back. Will and Kai, however, who were sitting inside the car and had a good view forwards were not so much at ease … All of us insisted that on the way home we’d have another driver. It took María a lot of effort to persuade Adriano to let her drive, without having his pride affected too much …

We all had a very good and lazy time at the coast (think sea, sun, palm trees, cute old fishing boats, hammocks, …). I sort of re-discovered the sea, overcame my fear for water and I can assure you that it was worth it! I never enjoyed the sea so much before! The water temperature must have been at least 25 degrees and the waves were very nice and not too scary. We experimented a bit with surf boards for children - it´s far from the real stuff, but good fun.

We ate lots of fish and had a lot of food in general and - eventually - ended up in a very nice hostal with "camping", where we ended up sleeping in open air (being somewhat attacked by mosquitoes). The camping experience was one of María´s dreams-come-true, she never had done that before. Quite remarkable actually, a 50 and 80 year old going camping and actually enjoying it!

And we had a real fresh ripe coconut for the first time and mango with lime, salt and pepper. I also introduced Will to the concept of the yapa (that little extra you get for your money). It turns out that people here are apparently flattered if an extranjero tries to get the yapa from them: totally amazed that we would have such knowledge of their culture! So far, they've treated me well, often almost doubling the amount of jugo or ice cream ;-)

On New Year´s Eve, we lit a stack of wood on the beach and watched the firework in the distance. "Local" tradition requires that you make your own giant painted doll/puppet and that you set it on fire at midnight - thus burning all the bad spirits that might have been haunting you over the past year. Twelve strikes before midnight, you should also start eating grapes, one each second and with each grape make a wish for the coming year ... Ever tried putting 12 grapes in your mouth at once??

Test

2008-03-12T09:03:00.000-07:00

More work

2008-02-13T12:54:00.000-08:00

The week after our Cuyabeno trip, I continued with language lessons and took my second - and probably last ever - salsa class. Then Will left for two weeks and a half to the States and that’s when computer, camera and money got stolen.

Work ... finally

On the same day that everything got stolen, I had a meeting with Wilfried from Broederlijk Delen and some people from ACJ Officina Nacional. There, it was decided that instead of working with the kids in ACJ Sur, I would be helping them out with two projects at the Oficina Nacional. One of the projects is YMCA Tours, the travel agency of ACJ and the other is No Bases Network, a worldwide network against military bases whose “headquarters” are stationed for two years is in Quito (since April 2007). Both of them need to change their websites and that’s where they can use my help.

Projects

For YMCA Tours I’ve mainly been revising the English part of their website, something that is really necessary if they want to be taken seriously by the international market and came up with some ideas of how to address that international market.

The work for the No Bases Network is a bit more diverse. Apart from putting articles on the website and checking their mailing list, I needed to find a way to make videos available on the web. It was quite an interesting search and I learned a lot more about different kinds of technologies, but in the end it proved to be a good thing to have a geeky boyfriend, with a good computer and a good internet connection at the house ;-) At work, it is virtually impossible to even convert the movies, let alone to upload them to the web!

Helga, the Directora Internacional of ACJ is since last year also involved in the new Asamblea Constituyente. Since the members of her group want to keep people informed about the progress they are making, I got to set up a Google Group for her. Something else really cool I discovered recently, are the forms you can send out to fill Google Spreadsheets with data that other people provide. Obviously, Will’s geeky-ness is rubbing off on me … ;-)

So, on the 4^th of December, after being here for about a month and a half, I eventually could start working.

Work related fun

On Saturday the 15^th of December, I went to ACJ Sur again together with Karla. To celebrate the almost finishing of the ACJ campaign against violent toys, they had organised some kind of festival called D’Arte Paz, where some drama and dance groups performed.

The plays of course tried to convey a message, which came down to something like “try to preserve the earth for your children”, while the dance and music was just very cheerful and nice to watch – especially the girl doing the Bolivian dance … (now we understand the role of dance in Bolivian society, that’s how you find yourself a husband! Check You-Tube)

The Friday after that, on the 21^st of December, we had our ACJ Amigo Secreto-annex-Christmas party. This is where the names of all the participants are shuffeled in the hat and you get to buy a present for the person whose name you drew. Every day of the week preceding the party, you bring little presents (like candy). My poor amigo secreto had to do it with children’s glasses and a red-coloured hedgehog type of fruit / nut).

I thought we’d have a small party at the office, but no … After a lot of guess work to find out who’s your amigo secreto and each of us opening our presents, the festivities moved on ... To Helga’s place in Tumbaco, a district about half an hour to the northwest of Quito, some 400 m lower and, hence, with a warmer climate.

The oficina nacional provided a gigantic turkey, the crew from ACJ Sur was in charge of the salads and Cesol (ACJ’s micro credit program) brought dessert – ice cream. Once there, we got a tour in the beautiful garden, enjoyed oranges straight from the tree, played football and handball, prices for winning and losing teams of each of the four matches were distributed, we prepared the salads and fresh jugo and then finally started eating. After dinner, when most people were already gone, we had some tea and chocolate and I got another tour in the garden from Helga’s husband, showing me all the herbs and giving me a lot of them to make tea of. They even have a pepper tree!

The next weekend then, on the 23^rd of December was the final day of the no violent toys campaign Mambru no va a la guerra, after a children’s song Mambru va a la guerra. Will and I went there and met up with Leo and Pato and the girls and with Lili and Belen. We got to demonstrate our animal-and-flower-making-abilities with the balloons, but unfortunately, I only remembered three types of animals :-(

On the way home, we visited a concours in nascimentos (nativity scenes). The winning creation was made of metal, where the artist had made a moving maquette of Quito, including Pichincha, TeleferiQo and the Panecillo.

Highlight

That was December workwise. Apart from the Fiesta des Ensaladas one noon at work, where we had loads of delicious food (each of us brought an ingredient), January has been pretty calm with one major highlight.

On the 15^thof January, Patty, the directora nacional of ACJ invited me to go with her to the ACJ filial in Santo Domingo. I was picked up by a taxi early in the morning, and two hours and a half later, we were deposited in warm and semi-tropical Santo Domingo, halfway from the Sierra to the coast. On our way, Patty gave me a summary of the history of the town as well as of the activities of the filial.

The people of the filial were very nice and open. They gave me a tour of the park in which the filial is housed and I got to taste the home grown guava, fruta de pan - a kind of nuts from a big fruit that fell from the tree, splashed open, was gathered by us, boiled and then eaten - and delicious mango juice.

Then Geoffrey, the gardener-and-more of the park / filial, took me by motor bike to a CRA (Centro de recréación y aprendisaje), where I met a very engaged and engaging group of mums all conspiring in favour of the education of their children. Back at the filial, I talked with one of the volunteers in charge of the canastas comunales, where the food is bought in large quantities which makes it a lot cheaper and then redistributed among the participants. After that, Geoffrey took me to a mercado in the centre of town where I bought a gigantic guanabana (a big fruit, looking a bit like a giant litchee on the outside, with many pits and white flesh on the inside, slightly pear flavoured, but much more subtle and tasty; you can make delicious jugos out of it!), we went to a hill nearby from which you had a great overview of the city and when it was time to go, both Patty and me got a couple of mangos as a present.

Conclusion of the day: I met some great people, ate very well and learned a lot, as well about ACJ itself as about plants (thanks to Geoffrey).

Setback

At the end of January, Evelyn, my only remaining colleague of YMCA Tours (since Ivan left at the beginning of January for a very interesting UN project in the Ibarra region) resigned. She was being employed with three month contracts and had found a fixed job elsewhere. At the moment it is a bit uncertain whether ACJ will continue with the project or just cancel it. The decision was to be taken this week - but as should be expected from any self-respecting Latin American culture ngo - the meeting has been postponed …

Google Map of places to visit in Ecuador

2008-02-09T18:58:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Recount of our days in Cuyabeno

2008-01-28T07:23:00.000-08:00

After the tombola at ACJ Sur, Will and I took off for a 5-day jungle trip to the Reserva Producción Faunística Cuyabeno.

On Monday the 19^th of November, we took the plane to Lago Agrio, a small oil town in the jungle, where we were picked up - together with some other passengers - by our guide and a driver. A three hour drive through nice landscapes, all the way along the Trans Ecuadorian Oil Pipeline, took us to La Puente, which is basically a bridge with some houses nearby, but also the main entry point into the jungle.

Our co-travellers were Wilmar the guide, Nina the blond Swiss girl, Mimi, an older lady who’s been to Ecuador a couple of times, and a nice German couple (Martin and …) that also booked their trip via Kai and Karla.

From the bridge we started paddling; for every two people there was a canoe with captain aka local guide. Our captain, who later turned out to be the native guide for the whole group, was an older woman called Aurora. She’s from the Siona people and seemed to have been working as a guide for at least 10 years. On the contrary to what I expected she spoke perfect Spanish, really a shame that our Spanish wasn’t that great at the time.

We paddled a couple of hours, enjoying the sounds of the jungle - from time to time interrupted by passing motor canoes -, colourful birds and butterflies flying by, a herd of monkeys crossing the river by means of some overhanging trees - the mothers with the little ones on their back or clinging to their belly -, and we saw our first anaconda.

After our jungle trip, I had a talk with Pedro (Maria-the-landlady’s brother) about anacondas and boas. He’s been in the army and spent quite some time deep in the jungle training for God knows what. He told me that on his trips he saw quite some snakes surpassing 7 m in length and that when they had killed one of them - I guess with guns, cause how else would you kill such a monster -, they needed 24 man to carry it and when they skinned it and folded the hide double, that it reached their hips … I do want to stress that these trips went deep into the jungle, while ours was only a couple of hours away from civilisation. ;-)

So on about Cuyabeno. The first day, we paddled to El Tigre, where we spent the night in tents. After we managed to distract him from an apparently interesting conversation with blond Swiss girl, Wilmar, our guide, took us on a night trip in the rainforest, which was quite spooky. In the jungle, you have to be prepared for anything, watching out for poisonous snakes, scary spiders or konga ants with an extremely painful bite. Or that’s maybe what they say to make it more exciting for tourists, but I have to say that it’s an impressive environment and that you feel quite vulnerable at first - not knowing it.

We saw all kinds of interesting spiders, in diverse colours and with the strangest shapes, cute centipedes coiling up in a ball if you drop them, foggy frogs and their spawn neatly wrapped around the branches of a plant and lots of ants carrying leaves to their nest. Our walk ended rather abruptly after an unexpected encounter with a XXIV that Wilmar almost collided with. The XXIV (lance-de-fer?) is a small snake (maybe 40 cm long) and it got this name because - apparently - it takes you only 24 hours to die if you get bitten and cannot get the antidote in time. It was sleeping on a protruding branch and Wilmar almost ran into it with his face …

Day 2

The next morning, more people arrived: a German girl called Lea and two Quiteños on their honeymoon. We kayaked on for an hour or three until the river came out into a bigger river. Shortly after that a motor canoe picked us up and - with the kayaks being towed behind the motor canoe - we were brought to the Magic River Lodge where we would spend the coming three nights. That evening, we went for another stroll near the lodge to give the newcomers also a chance to experience the jungle at night. I guess it’s because near the lodge there are much more people, but the walk wasn’t as exiting as the night before and we didn’t come across that many animals. Or maybe I started feeling more at ease in the jungle …

Day 3

On the third day, we went to the Laguna Grande by motor canoe. This lagoon is rather huge, full of drowned trees and apparently replete with life. It is an ideal place for birdwatching, you will find caymans near its banks, it contains piranhas and all sort of other fish and at times you see pink and grey sweet water dolphins jumping out of the water. The latter are nearly blind since the water is not transparant, but dark brown because of all the organic detritus. The rainforest around the lake and various islands in it, are bursting with life as well, birds, monkeys, sloths, tapirs … I found it pretty hard to imagine, but the lake is only temporary, which of course explains the drowned trees, and turns into a gigantic muddy puddle in the dry season. We were so lucky as to see and experience it in the rainy season.

So, our boatsman dropped us on one of the shores of the lake and we went hiking. The first part of the walk was in a “dry” part of the rainforest. We were enlightened about the medicinal or other qualities of many plants, tasted several kinds of fruit, learned how to make bracelets out of the fibers of a kind of palm tree and our native guide cut some branches with large longitudinal leaves, - en passant - weaved a backpack out of one of the branches, which she gave to me, and made a jungle crown for one of the other girls she, really cool!

The second part of the trip was less fun for some of us … It started with the Bog of Eternal Stench, a very marchy peace of jungle, where many of us - despite the boots we were wearing - got black muddy wet feet, don’t ask about leaches! On top of that it started raining … ;-) I was actually quite enjoying myself, although I have to admit that - after four hours of walking, when it seemed that the guide had lost his way and the two guides, Wilmar and Aurora, were disagreeing over which way we had to go - I got a bit worried myself. But soon afterwards, we heard the motor canoe in the distance that came to pick us up.

After a late, but filling lunch, we went piranha fishing. This activity involves finding a good spot, putting some fresh meat on your hook (apparently they like chicken), dropping the hook into the water and then splashing around quite violently to make the piranhas think that a stinkey turkey fell of his branch … I could feel them biting, but had no luck. Each time I lifted my fishing line, which you have to do really quickly, I found that they took off with part of the meat.

Afterwards, we went back to the Laguna Grande to witness a beautiful sunset and swim in the water of the Amazon. I conquered my fear for water and jumped in as well; it is after all quite a unique experience to swim in the (waters that will end up in the) great Amazon River! Someone urgently needed to make a phone call, which was indeed possible if you clambered into one of the trees in the lake, but only that one! Defying the ants, our guide climbed in and managed to send a text message. In the mean time, we took some pictures that would make a great advertisement for the local mobile phone companies! To conclude the evening, we went cayman hunting, but no luck either; we didn’t even see their eyes looming out of the water …

Day 4

On the fourth day, we went for a visit to Aurora’s village in the jungle, where we learnt how to prepare “pan de yucca”. That was something I really enjoyed! Before going, Aurora “prepared” us. She had brought a kind of fruit that looks a bit like a hedgehog on the outside with lots of little fruits of a very bright red colour on the inside. You can eat the fruits, use them to colour food or your hair and you can also paint with them, which is what Aurora did. She painted the symbol of a sjamana on my face, Will became a butterfly and the others were decorated with a gecko, water strider, star or barbecue. On our walk to the village, Ariana again showed us lots of plants and how to use them. I saw for instance a cacao plant, she showed us a tree with whose bark people used to make clothes, she made us taste a couple of plants, lemon ants, grubs eating their way out of a type of coconut (coco-flavoured when raw and with a taste of bacon if you barbecue them) and a leaf that makes your tongue blue.

In the Siona community, we went to the house of our boatsman and it was his wife, who had been one of the kayak captains, who thaught us. First thing is to get the yucca out of the ground. This involves cutting down the tree and then asking a strong man to pull the roots out of the ground. The roots are the actual yucca that you use for cooking and need to be peeled, which seems quite straightforward if you have a machete and know how to handle it. Then you have to grate the yucca, a rather labor intensive process requiring a lot muscle power. These days, the grating is done with a metal grating board, but in the past they used the stem of the spiny palmtree for this! After the grating, the yucca needs to be devoided of its juice. This is done by means of a type of elongated mat that is made out of the bark of a tree. To avoid too much mess, you put some banana leaves on the floor, the “mat” on top of this, the wet grated yucca on the mat, you fold the mat, hang one end on a stick near the ceiling and then start coiling and wringing it. The juice is usually used for the preparation of a typical fish dish, while the - now dry - lumps of yucca need to be seeved to make the yucca more like some kind of flour. And that’s what you make the bread with. You just spread it out evenly on a round ceramic bowl above the fire, turn the bread to bake the other side as well and then eat it with fish or jam, yummy …

Back from our visit to the village and a brief stop-over at another bigger Siona community, Wilmar took Will and me fishing again and this time we got lucky. Rather out of the blue, a catfish landed on Will’s head and we managed to catch that piranha, the poor creature … I guess it must have been eaten by the others after we threw it back in the river.

That night, we went in search of caymans again and this time we managed to spot a couple, although they didn’t look that impressive … two red eyes in the light of our lamps, disappearing under the water if you came too close. The best time to see them is in the dry season when the river is much smaller and they huddle together in the wet parts. The guides usually manage to catch one or two for everyone to pose with …

That night I cut Will’s hair by candle light!

Day 5

On our last day, we were supposed to go birdwatching, but since our guide overslept, we were a bit too late to see that many animals. Instead, we got a lesson in being captain of the paddle canoe. After breakfast, we took off by motor canoe, back to La Puente and then by bus to Lago Agrio, where we had some time to explore the town, bought some Cofán artesanias (arrows for Kai and Karla’s office) and went for dinner with Mimi and Lea. The next day, after a quiet morning, we took the plane back to Quito.

Quest for work

2008-01-28T06:22:00.000-08:00

Where was I last …

I haven’t updated our blog properly ever since we went to Baños, the weekend of November 3^rd and 4^th. What happened next …

In terms of work, there wasn’t much going on in November or December. After a reunion with ACJ Sur – on which I insisted – I got a couple of dates out of them when I would have to “work”. What I thought would finally be the activities with children for which I had come, turned out to be capacitacion (training) to prepare for the festivities that would take place on the 23^rd of December. On that date, the town of Quito would have activities going on on all its major squares to celebrate Christmas and ACJ had planned some activities in collaboration with them to celebrate the end of their campaign against violent toys (Mambru no va a la guerra!).

So, the Saturday after our Baños weekend, I went to ACJ´s Filal Sur in the South of Quito where I learned how to make animals and flowers with these thin, long balloons and how to paint children’s faces (although only two children were present to try our skills on, Natalia and Milli, daughters of Leo and Pato who usually play football with us on Sundays). We had a lot of fun, but it was then that I started wondering where all those children were that I was supposed to work with and what exactly they’re doing in the Filial Sur …

The week afterwards, we heard from Elba that they would organise a tombola at the daycare centre of ACJ Sur on the 17^th of November. Both Will and I went to have a look that day. I discovered a couple of buildings of which I didn’t know they also belonged to the filial and a monton of parents and children.

The atmosphere was great, children were playing football (2 to 3 year olds, quite funny to see) and performing their dances, they had invited a (semi-)professional group to perform some traditional Quichua dances and there was all sorts of typical Ecuadorian food to be eaten, like guatita (prepared with cuero - literally “leather”, being intestines), which is actually quite yummy if you don’t think too much about what you’re eating, and llapingachos. Together with Diego, who is one of the regular volunteers for ACJ, we helped to prepare the llapingachos - mashed potatoes in the shape of a hamburger with cheese inside.

We bought some tickets for the lottery as well and became proud winners of a pair of children’s socks, which we gave away, and a sort of tupperware pot with children’s glasses in it, which I gave as a (joke-)present to my amigo secreto in the week leading up to our Amigo Secreto Christmas Party at work. The tupperware pot prooved to be quite useful in the house.

Adventures in the rainforset

2008-01-16T17:22:00.000-08:00

Check out our Cuyabeno webalbum!

Ain´t no sunshine ...

2007-12-17T17:13:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

it´s been a while ... and so far not much has come of the English resume that I have kept on promising ... Well, that is to say, I had written about two pages worth of our Ecuadorian exploits, but then on December 3rd, the Chilean-Ecuadorian girl that had been living in our place for about three weeks decided differently on my blogpost-under-construction. She took of with computer, camera and money, along with of course all my files and the pictures that I took the weekend before in Tena and Misahualli ...

Tena and Misahualli are two jungle towns at the edge of the Oriente, alias the “selva”, better known to Europeans as the rainforest. Early Saturday morning, 1st of December, a busride that made me feel rather uncomfortable took Hannes and me to Tena where we met up with Chris. Chris, being the English guy, 18, but you´d give him 24, and Hannes, our somewhat more-silent-than-Chris (and that is an understatement, cause Chris really talks a lot!!) German friend, the ones we met in our language school with whom we spent the great weekend in Banios. Maybe I should add here that we like Chris a lot, just in case he reads this blog; Will even adopted him as "my other boyfriend" ;-) Anyways, it was a great and very relaxing weekend with a lot of warm rain and loads of monkeys. Misahualli is a very small town that -every time a bus arrives - is invaded by a school of squirl monkeys and I managed to get some great pictures and films, that unfortunately got lost forever …

For those interested, you´ll find Chris´ account of our weekend in Banios underneath my entry. And once Will gets back home (that is - if he decides not to take the NASA´s offer to go to space with them for an undefined period of time) - he´s on his way home from San Fransisco right now - I´ll put some pictures on the blog from our jungle trip to Cuyabeno (19^th to 23^rd of November).

Besides the trip to Cuyabeno and hell bursting loose after that girl took off with everything, things have been rather quiet here …

Crime seems to pay off in Ecuador ...

For two weeks now, I have been trying to press charges against the girl, because we do have her name and I think she´ll try to do the same thing in other people´s places. This is how it works when you´re in Ecuador … I warn you, it´s a very boring, not-ever-ending story …

When going to the police, you can´t press charges for theft if you don´t have purchase proofs of whatever got stolen! So off you go to a notary where you have to declare on oath that beforementioned stolen property was indeed your property. Unfortunately enough you need to provide them with serial numbers, which of course you didn´t think of brining along.

So the quest for serial numbers begins … Once in possession of the serial numbers, another visit to the notary proofs quite useless, cause the next day (December 6^th) will be the Fiestas de Quito and no person right in his mind here will want to work …

So, you try again two days later … But don´t dare to show up at 16.30 h, cause people stop working at 17.00 h and will not move! “Come back after the weekend!” …

Monday morning, 8.20 h, another try … a cedula and a colour copy of my international passport don´t suffice to identify myself … I might have gone through the trouble of falsifying all this - to never get either computer, camera or money back …

So, we´re Tuesday now … a week and a day after the facts … after half an hour of waiting for the computer to finally be functioning - or was it the secretary who needed to finished her nails and personal phone calls first - we (Maria the Landlady and I) can finally declare on oath that aforementioned good were rightly mine. For a signature I would have to come back later, since the notary “is visiting a relative in the hospital ...”

Tuesday afternoon … another try at the fiscalia to press charges, but no – too late again, it´s already 16.00 h. Finally, on Wednesday morning, I manage to press charges and think that I´m finally done with the whole story, until the nice lady behind the desk tells me that I can come back on Friday to go to the actual police! Apparently, it takes two days for the files to go up one floor …

Decided to do what I was resolved to do, Friday, first thing in the morning I go to the fiscalia again, this time accompanied by both Maria and Adriano, where they tell me to come back next Wednesday … which will be two weeks and two days after the facts!!

Conclusion of this story and of a brief summary of the Ecuadorian judicial system that Karla – who happens to be a lawyer – gave me: it really pays off to be a criminal here!!

Routine sets in

Back to the daily routine … Weekends, if spent in Quito usually include a football game with Kai and Karla and their friends at Parque Carolina, a huge park in the middle of town where you can ride little boats, visit the serpentario, join a public fitness session on Sunday morning and eat ceviche de chochos and other more greasy things. I thought that by now I´d be used to the height (2800 m), but sprints still wear me out and I just can´t keep running like I would in Belgium, nothing to do about it … On the more cold and rainy days, like yesterday and the day before, a good film is also an option. 1.5 $ for a decent copy, English spoken with Spanish subtitles … and I thought we were renting the movies!

During the week, I´m still taking spanish courses from 9.00 to 13.00. I got to the more advanced level of grammar, but due to a lack of studying I guess, my speaking doesn´t reflect that advanced level – at least not in my opinion. And the subjuntivo, which like in French you have in the presente, 3 preteritos and 2 futuros doesn´t make talking more straightforward …

ACJ

Since last week I also started working in the afternoon. Instead of putting me with the kids in ACJ Sur, they thought it might be better to put me on two projects in the Oficina Nacional. So, I´ll be assisting Annabel, who works for the No Bases network, and Yvan, managing YMCA Tours, to update their websites. My main task so far has been to watch several movies - documentaries - on the consequences on local or national level (ecological disasters, diseases due to testing of chemical and other weapons, people expropriated from their land and houses or altogether bannished from their island of origin, fishermen not allowed to fish any more, foreign investors exploiting locals with approval of the local government or - in the past - entire populations that have been massacrated) of mainly US, but also Great Britain, France and Italy for example, policy to expand its global military reach.

If you´d like to visit the website of ACJ, check at http://www.acjecuador.org/, or for YMCA Tours, see http://www.ymcatours.org/, and for No Bases, see http://www.no-bases.net/.

And here I end my update for now, you´ll find Chris´ account of our Baños weekend and a bit on our climb of the Pichincha below …

Kisses to all of you!

5^th noviembre.

Chris´account

ok so i guess you guys will need an update, because ive been a bit antisocial for the last couple of weeks. so, here goes.

Righty then my lovelys, well I spent one day on my own, in the internet cafe mostly, and south american exploreres, before heading home to find a girl named jen form canada, and hannes from germany had arrived. they both are awsome, and we spent the next few days exploring quito together, at least when i didnt have a headache. Turns out jen is on the same scheme as me, so as i write im preparing an email for her. We discovered a bar that plays nothing but classic rock where the barman dance and make amazing cocktails, so a few nights were spent there. we began getting friendly with the other people who we would meet during the break in our lessons in the morning, and we all decided as a group to climb the nearby volcanoe Ruca Pichincha. The group consisted of me, jen, hannes, Will and Joke (from belgium), Merrill from the states, Richard from austria. it was an amazing climb, and a lot of fun, everybody seemed to gel really well, and that night we all went out for dinner in an all-you-can-eat restaurant, exactly what we needed after surviving on only bread and bananas on the mountain! Turns out im the youngest of the group by six years, but everybody assumed i was about 24, which was nice! on a non bragging note, its really really nice to be treated as an equal and im really enjoying their company. i feel like im making some quite amazing friends. its really strange how interesting other people are. for example, richard, 37, designs computer systems for airports, but because he finds that boring, also is a freelance journalist, as well as being one of the main organisers of live elctronic music in austria! and also a legend! will and joke are from belgium, and are ace cavers!!! very biyarre, but really quite awsome!

Anways, the last week we spent hanging out after lessons, and trying to plan a trip for all of us at the weekend. I spent a couple of lunchtimes at will and jokes house, and a few afternoons chilling in la mariscal, the main tourist area. Me and joke tried to visit the big museum, but it was shut, so we settled for a craft market instead! Jen left on monday, but it soon transpired that we would be meeting again when we all went to banos for the weekend. I spent a couple of nights out with John Paul for ireland and richard in the salstequeas. We had settled on bans after much indecision, whether to take an organised tour or not, where to go ect? we settled on banios because of its reputation as a great party town, with loads of opportunities for outdoor activities. With the weekend decided, all that remained was for me to buy a guitar, which had been my aim for ages! i dragged hannes around for about 3 hours, before settling on a 34 size steel sting, with a nice waterproof case, always useful in the jungle! it took me and hannes another half hour to find a cash point. from which to dispense money to pay the rasta guitar shop man! that night, we threw a dinner party in the hostel for will and joke, and hannes and a new girl, marion from austria cooked an amazing meal, we had an Ecuadorian guest for the evening, which was a great excuse to try out some Spanish. sadly, i didn't take this opportunity because i was embarrassed!!! Next day, we finished lessons, and headed off to banos, all very excited! On the way, we passed cotopaxi, the tallest active volcanoe in the world, and it was amazing. cotopaxi is a perfect cone, and as we watched it, dissapeared into the clouds, set alight by the setting sun. as night fell, we continued on to baons. as we neared our destination, we began to see what appeared to stars in the sky, which was strange seeing as the sky was overcast, and a little rain was falling. it was only when we arrived in banos we realised that the lights in the sky wer ein fact on top of huge hills, encircling the town. after checking imn to the hostal, we headed out to eat. thus begins the most surreal night in the world. We had decided on a nice quiet meal, and then bed, but after meeting some more gringos in the restaurant, we decided to go for a last drink before bed. this turned into a number of drinks, which then became salsa! after balgging our way into he club for free, we danced the salsa, and when ready to go home at about 1.30, we went to say goodbye to our new found frinds. however, the suggestion was made to go and visit the waterfall in banos, and one thing after another, it transpired that we all ended up in our underwear, in the waterfall at 2 in the morning! after splashing about for a bit, John Paul and I happened to notice a group of Ecuadorian kids around a car, playing salsa and drinking. undeterred by our nakedness, we headed over for some more salsa! remember that at this point i was soaking wet, and wearing white boxers. On the way over, we begged the security guard of the neaby hot baths that give banos its name to let us in to warm up, but he refused. it was up to the salsa to raise our body temperatures! turned out the people we met had spent time in england, which was pretty cool, but again not a great thing for the spanish! Just as we were about to slink home, lo and behold the gate of the hot baths swung open, and we plunged into the scalding water! it was amazing, so hot it was impossible to move. Richard and Will jumped in without a whimper, but I have to admit i screamed like a woman the whole way, and then ran for the slightly cooler baths! we head home, soaking wet about 3, for some much needed sleep. The next day, after breakfast, we head up the hill for a hike. However, once at the top, we caught sight of the volcano near banos, which has been erupting pretty frequently! with that in mind, we set out along another trail, heading straight for it, so we could get a better view. Along the way, as i stopped to zip off my shorts, we noticed for the first time a low rumble in the distance, like and airplane landing. after scouring the skies for said plane, our eyes settled on the plume of smoke emergin fro the cone of the volcano. It was only bloody erupting in formt of our eyes. Earger to see more, we hurried to the summit fo the climb, only to find the volcano had been obscured by the cloud. Our patience and hard work was rewarded however, for on the way back down, we got some great photos of the summit, as you will see. The landscape surrounding banos was stunning and warranted many pictures. We had heard ab out huge waterfalls you could swim in around the next valley, so we struck out for these, only to find that our long and sweaty walk was not to be ended with a cool dip, but instead with a hair raising ride in the back of a locals pick up back to banos, which was fine by me! That night, Jen came to meet us form the scheme, so i gave her a good grilling about what was what, and was pleasantly suprised! We had a chilled night, drinking beer in one of the local parks, and then headed home for some sleep. The nxt day we went canyoning, which was amazing, there were some huge jumps, and awsome abseil sections, the biggest being 35 meters. We found a way to climb behing one of the waterfall,s and it was an amazing experience, and one hell of a lot of fun! the pictures will appear soon, it takes a long time to upload, and jen has all the photos in the canyon on her camera. After canyoning, we lunched on fresh fish from an restaurant overlooking a fish farm, hich was delicious, then headed back to banos for the bus home. As the rain began to fall that night, we became increasingly concerned where our bus had gone. It transpired that the rain had washed away a large section of the road, and it took ages to get it clear. We finially got back to quito at 2 this morning, so today has been very lazy. After classes, i lunched at will and jokes, then joke and I headed to the immigration office to sort out our visas. Having no luck, we walked home in the rain, and now im writting this! The next time i write ill have been at the volunteer project, so wish me luck people!

Much love chrisxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Some pictographic evidence of our exploits in Baños, a small town at the foot of the smoking Tungurahua volcano

2007-11-16T17:24:00.000-08:00

Hot baths make happy people ...

Click here for more pics

UPDATE: read John Paul's description of this weekend.

Over feesten en een stad aan de voet van een vulkaan

2007-11-11T13:59:00.000-08:00

Weekend drie in het zuidelijk halfrond

Na andermaal een intense week vol spaanse les en leuke avondjes uit was het hoog tijd om de stad eens echt te ontvluchten. Onze uitstap van het vorige weekend naar de Pichincha was goed geweest, maar zowel bij Will en mij als bij onze medestudenten begon het te kriebelen om wat meer van Ecuador te ontdekken.

De afspraak was vrijdagavond om 17.00; bestemming: Baños ... Als bij toeval kwamen we met z’n allen op dezelfde Trole (één van de drie milieuvriendelijke buslijnen in Quito, rijdt op electriciteit) terecht. Richard, Johnpaul (Ier) Hannes en Marion (nog een Oostenrijkse, Ecuador zit er vol mee!) van de Tutamanda hostal en Will en ik vanop Amazonas. Jen was ondertussen naar de Oriente vetrokken om te gaan werken, maar we hadden haar gemaild en met wat chance zouden we haar ook in Baños zien.

De busrit viel zeer goed mee, enkel Johnpaul leek zich niet helemaal op zijn gemak te voelen. Ecuadoraanse chauffeurs hebben namelijk de neiging om – zoals in veel Arabische landen – te pas en te onpas alle andere voertuigen voorbij te steken, en dit liefst op een bergop! Ondanks het relatief slechte weer was het ons toch gegund om onderweg een blik te werpen op de Cotopaxi. De meest beklommen berg van Ecuador, met besneeuwde top, met perfect conische vorm, ... gigantisch, imposant, een monster!! De top van de Cotopaxi is de plek die het verst verwijderd is van het middelpunt van de aarde en staat derhalve op het verlanglijstje van heel veel bergbeklimmers.

Ons hostal in Baños was ook de moeite. Gerund door een Engelsman getrouwd met een Ecuadoraanse, met een mooi binnenpleintje, papegaaien (waaronder één gemene), hangmatten, lekker ruikende bloemen en een schildpad. Gelukkig hadden we op voorhand kamers gereserveerd, want 1-4 november is een verlengd weekend in Ecuador en iedereen was op vakantie – ofwel aan de kust ofwel in Baños!

Het was me de week wel! Op 31 oktober wordt hier de “dia de las brujas” oftewel Halloween gevierd. Ondanks het verbod van de president om dit heidense ritueel te vieren (31 oktober is namelijk de “dag van de vlag” – of zoiets) liepen de straten vol met afschrikwekkende figuren. Als kers op de taart hing er ook een fantastische dikke mist in het stad! Met ons ondertussen vertrouwde kliekje zijn we nog eens de mohitos gaan uittesten in een bar waar interessante muziek gespeeld werd – door reizigers meegebrachte obscure europese jaren ’80 nummers.

1 en 2 november zijn hier net zoals in Europa “dia de todos los santos” en “dia de los diffuntos”. Vooral Allerzielen is hier zeer belangrijk! Traditioneel wordt er colada morada klaargemaakt (een drankje op basis van een soort zetmeel gemengd met piña, mora, frutilla, ... en heel veel kruiden zoals kaneel en kruidnagel, hmmm) en de guagua’s de pan (zeg: ; zoete broodjes in de vorm van een kindje – het woord “guagua” is een Quichua woord voor “kind” en is hier helemaal in het spaans opgenomen). Deze worden dan meegenomen naar het kerkhof, samen met het favorite eten van de – recentelijk – overledenen en daar gemeenschappelijk opgegeten.

Doch dit geheel terzijde ...

Vrijdagavond, aangekomen in Baños, zijn we dus lekker gaan eten in Casa Hood. Kennis gemaakt met twee Duitse meisjes en nog een schot die vrijwilligerswerk doen in een klein dorpje in de buurt van Otavalo en daarna op zwier gegaan ... Ttz: Hannes en ik zijn gaan wandelen wegens een dringende nood aan rust en natuur en de anderen zijn op zwier gegaan!

Rond een uur of twee ’s nachts waren Hannes en ik aangekomen op het hotel, maar er was nog geen spoor van de anderen ... De bliksem die al uren aan het dreigen en die de veelbelovende contouren van de bergen rondom Baños oplichtte, kwam dichter en dichter bij. Hannes en ik gingen een kijkje nemen vanop het dak van het hotel en toen zagen we in de verte een grote waterval van minstens 60 m hoog. We besloten een kijkje te gaan nemen. Groot was onze verbazing toen we aankwamen aan de waterval en onze vrienden daar toch in een ietwat compromitterende situatie aantroffen: kletsnat en in hun ondergoed (sommigen zelfs in het wit)! De alcohol en het dansen had de temperatuur doen stijgen en ze hadden allen nood aan afkoeling onder de koude waterval. Hannes had gelukkig zijn camera mee ;-)

Na zo’n koude douche moest er weer gedansd worden! Een aantal Ecuadoranen waren wat verder in een auto salsa muziek aan het spelen en aan het dansen en onze bende ging vrolijk (in nat ondergoed!) meedoen. Nadien slaagden we er in om de wachter van het warmwaterbad naast de waterval over te halen om ons binnen te laten (om 3 uur ’s nachts!). Heerlijk warm water, opgewarmd door de Tungurahua vulkaan!

De volgende ochtend – afspraak om 9 – zijn we gaan wandelen. De bedoeling was op tot aan de top van de berg te wandelen, de Cruz Roja, maar een zijpad lonkte en een wandeling tot aan een bellavista boven de stad gunde ons eveneens een blik op de Tungurahua vulkaan. Onze nieuwsgierigheid was gewekt en we besloten verder te wandelen. Gerommel in de verte wekte de indruk dat er ergens dichtbij een vliegtuig aan het landen was, maar we moesten constateren dat het hier om gerommel van de vulkaan ging. Zeer imponerend! De rookwolken die boven uit de krater kwamen deden er ook geen twijfel over bestaat dat dit beest uiterst actief is.

Na uiteindelijk toch bij de Cruz Roja gepasseerd te zijn en een vergeefse zoektocht naar watervallen om in af te koelen, slaagden we erin om een lift te krijgen in de achterbak van een camionette. Dat was onze leukste taxirit in Ecuador totnogtoe, in het gezelschap van een zeer grappig en vriendelijk indigenes koppel en van een trotse jongen die die dag een aantal smakelijk uitziende forellen had gevangen.

Die avond moesten we afscheid nemen van Johnpaul die de dag erop naar de Galapagos zou vertrekken om daar engelse les te geven, maar tot grote vreugde van iedereen – en Chris in het bijzonder – was Jen aangekomen in Baños!

Zondag was onze canyontocht. Met een aantal lokale gidsen die nog in Frankrijk speleo en canyoning gedaan hadden en waarvan er één mij griezelig veel aan Rudi deed denken. Het was duidelijk dat we in goede handen waren. De tocht erheen was zeer plezant; mooie landschappen om te bewonderen op de tonen van Manu Chau. En – volgens goede Spekultraditie – werden we na onze ‘inspanningen’ beloond met een lekkere maaltijd. Iemand heeft het lumineuze idee gehad om aan de monding van de canyon een ‘visboerderij’ (fish farm) op te starten met daarnaast een klein restaurantje alwaar je geBBQde vis kon krijgen ... hmmm

Het enige minpunt aan het weekend was de regen die begon na onze terugkomst van het canyonen. Doordat de steile hellingen van de Andes overal ontbost zijn, wil er bij regenweer wel eens een aardverschuiving plaatsvinden. En dat is wat ook nu gebeurde. Wegens problemen in de pas naar Baños toe waren de bussen drie uur te laat. Maar ondanks nog een uur file in de bergop naar de pas toe slaagden we erin om toch maar twee uur later dan gepland in Quito aan te komen. Leve de Ecuadoraanse busschauffeurs?!

Weekend in Quito

2007-11-11T13:54:00.000-08:00

Laattijdig verslag van weekend twee in Quito

Het leven in Quito

Ondertussen zijn we nu al twee weken in het land. De Spaanse lessen lopen goed, het internet geraakt hopelijk vannacht weer aan de praat en we hebben onze huisgenoten al wat beter leren kennen. Kai en Karla zijn zeer sympathiek en vooral Karla is super grappig. Mevrouw moeder Maria kookt ’s middags vaak voor hun omdat ze constant hard aan het werken zijn en wij mogen wel eens mee eten. Maria kan zeer goed koken! Zo zijn we er ondertussen achter gekomen dat rauwe, groene vijgen hier een delicatesse zijn, als ze tenminste op de juiste manier klaargemaakt worden. Wanneer mijn Spaans wat beter is ga ik het recept nog eens vragen.

Wij hebben hier in huis ook al een poging gedaan om ons territorium af te bakenen en hebben een tajine klaargemaakt voor Elba (van ACJ) en Maria. Het is hier echter niet evident om aan kruiden te komen. Verse kruiden verkopen ze op allerhande markten in het stad in overvloed, maar stomme kruiden uit pakjes zoals curry of paprika vind je enkel in de grotere, meer gespecialiseerde supermarkt.

Het fruit is hier trouwens fantastisch ... Ze hebben hier zoveel keuze ... Minstens vijf soorten bananen, met verschillende smaken en anders klaar te maken. Ze weten het ook zeer mooi uit te stallen. Zaterdag (27/10) zijn Will en ik naar de Santa Clara markthal geweest. Op de benedenverdiep bevinden zich tientallen kleurrijke groente- en fruitkraampjes met zeer mooi gestapelde koopwaar. Er zijn ook allerhande stalletjes die warme maaltijden of verse sapjes verkopen. Zo passeerden we onder andere een kraam waar ze onderdelen van compleet gefrituurde varkens verkopen en hebben we eens een jugo van alfalfa gemengd met wortelsap uitgeprobeerd (niet slecht!).

Na de tajine op zaterdagavond heeft Elba ons trouwens meegenomen naar een salsa-bar, Mayo 68 - verwijzend naar de linkse activisten die hier in het verleden naar het schijnt vergaderden. Ik heb me goed geamuseerd! De mojitos zijn wel niet wat ze in Leuven in Villa Ernesto zijn, maar de mensen waren vrolijk en de muziek meeslepend. Ik ben quasi de dansvloer opgesleept en heb me dan maar aan een dans gewaagd. Het voetenwerk van mijn danspartner was echter intimiderend snel. Tijd dus om eens naar de salsa lessen te gaan die ons via de Spaanse les aangeboden worden!

De Pichincha vulkaan

Voor zondagochtend (28/10) hadden we met een aantal mensen van de Spaanse les afgesproken om de Pichincha te beklimmen. Om 8.00 AM stonden we allen paraat aan de TeleferiQo, de kabellift die ons van een hoogte van zo’n 2900 m naar 4100 m zou brengen: Chris - UK (een andere dan onze huisgenoot), Jen - Canada, Richard - Oostenrijk, Merril - USA, Hannes - Duitsland, Will en ik. Na een uurtje wachten (mijn gids had het namelijk mis wat betreft de openingsuren van de TeleferiQo) mochten we eindelijk in de lift stappen, en omhoog gingen we, weg van de vervuiling van de stad! Het uitzicht over de stad is vrij imposant. Quito is een hele grote stad die in een langgerekte vallei ligt, dus zo ver als het zicht reikt kan je de stad onder je zien liggen. Ons doel van die dag was echter de Rucu Pichincha ... één van de twee toppen (Rucu en Guagua, zeg: "wawa"). Het werd echter een afvalrace. Hannes werd als eerste geveld door een tekort aan lucht en besloot wijselijk om terug te keren. De volgende die we kwijt geraakten was Merril die zeer enthousiast met een “rotvaart” in zijn eentje de berg opstoof. De rest deed het iets langzamer aan, voornamelijk omdat ze af en toe wachtten op mij. Ik had namelijk nogal last van de hoogte: tekort aan adem, slappe, trillende spieren en een duizelig gevoel in m’n hoofd.

Het zicht boven op de Pichincha was zeer mooi en we hadden heel veel geluk met het weer. In plaats van regen of de eeuwige mist die hier in de lokale winter (nu dus!) ’s namiddags continu rond de bergen hangt, kregen we een zicht over uitgestrekte groene valleien met een patchwork van velden onder een stralende zon. Op onze tocht zagen we in de verte horizontale rijen van rechthoekige uitsparingen in de grond. Een lokale berggids dacht dat het hier om geologische plooien ging! We waren echter totaal niet onder de indruk van zijn uitleg, maar de velden of terrassen zijn nog steeds een raadsel voor ons. Hoe hoger we leken te komen, hoe groter de bloemen leken te worden en hoe weelderiger de vegetatie.

Uiteindelijk heb ik zo’n 120 m onder de top moeten opgeven. Ondanks verschillende pogingen om toch verder te gaan ging het niet. De vier overgeblevenen (Will, Jen, Chris en Richard) zijn verder naar de top gegaan, terwijl ik iets lager de vogeltjes en planten en lieveheersbeestjes mocht bestuderen. De terugweg was een “walk in the park”. Het was opvallend hoeveel beter je opeens kon ademen door stomweg een tiental meter te dalen. Getuige van de verandering in lucht(druk) waren ook onze waterflesjes die – éénmaal beneden – helemaal ingedeukt waren.

De avond werd - in goed gezelschap - besloten in Mongo’s, een Mongools (?!) restaurant waar je zelf de ingredienten van je maaltijd kiest die de kok dan op een gigantische bakplaat klaarmaakt.

A wet Sunday afternoon in Quito

2007-11-11T12:08:00.001-08:00

I played football for the first time in years today. I was never a great footballer but the combination of a 15 year hiatus and 2800m of altitude didn't make me any better. Luckily nobody was taking football too seriously and one of the opposition was only 7 years old. (In fact I nearly concussed her with a bad pass).

Now it's the afternoon, which means that it's raining. So now we're watching telenovelas, drinking fruit juice and reading blogs.

John Paul, one of our friends in the Galapagos has written some excellent posts on his blog:

Nobody wears shorts in Quito...and if you do, you look like a complete and utter Stupid Gringo....from America.
...
Such a nice hostel, lovely staff, lovely patio, lovely dining area, fabulous pizza restaurant to ease the transition from western dining to occasional vomiting.

Things to do before you die

2007-11-05T05:04:00.000-08:00

See a volcano:

The massive clouds of smoke billowing out of the mountain are pretty cool to watch, but even more impressive is the constant rumbling sound. It's like listening to aircraft as they land and turn on their air-brakes.

We also met some cool (and crazy) volunteers, showered in a waterfall at 2am, joined a salsa street party and then persuaded a guard to let us into the famous thermal baths at 3am. Other highlights included a scary truck ride, going Canyoning, eating BBQed trout and waiting an extra 4 hours for our bus. (The road had been washed away, apparently this happens when it rains).

Good weekend :-)

Een plek!

2007-11-01T11:53:00.000-07:00

Na de bijeenkomst op ACJ (20/10) kregen we van Lili te horen dat de moeder van een vriendin van haar nog een kamer ter beschikking had. We vroegen of we misschien eens konden gaan zien en dat kon zelfs nog diezelfde avond. Ons plan was om - indien mogelijk - maandagavond ten laatste te verhuizen ... De vrouw des huizes leek op het eerste zicht zeer sympathiek en het huis eveneens. De kamer zelf is vrij mini, maar het bed groot genoeg voor twee ;-) en we hebben een private douche uit natuursteen (!) met warm water (zowaar!). De keuken en zitkamer zijn voor gemeenschappelijk gebruik en er is een terras met twee hangmatten ;-). Op de koop toe is de ligging zeer centraal (Avenida Amazonas) wat voor Will zeker interessant is met het oog op een werkplek en een goede internetverbinding. We wilden ons echter niet direct gewonnen geven en zijn toch nog op zoek gegaan naar iets anders. De prijzen en locaties vielen echter tegen en na een tweede bezoekje en nog iets van de prijs afgekregen te hebben hebben we dan maar besloten om de familie Valareza als huisgenoten aan te nemen.

De “familie” bestaat ogenschijnlijk uit twee man, Maria en Adriano respectievelijk 50 en 80, maar vooral die 80 zou je hem niet geven. Er woont hier ook nog een Engelsman (Chris) tijdelijk in en de dochter (Karla) die getrouwd is met een Duitser (Kai) woont niet veraf.

Kai en Karla hebben recentelijk hun eigen bedrijfje opgestart, hoe kan het ook anders, in de toeristische sector. Ze beschikken over een ruim kantoor onder het appartement waar we wonen, met internet connectie en een lege bureau ... ;-) Will heeft ondertussen dus eveneens een plek gevonden om te werken, beter dan hij ooit had kunnen denken!

Quito in pictures ...

2007-10-30T19:00:00.001-07:00

e.g. the view from our window ...

More pictures ...

De toekomstige collega’s ...

2007-10-27T14:20:00.000-07:00

Op zaterdag 20/10 waren Will en ik uitgenodigd in filiaal Quito Sur. Er zou die dag een bijeenkomst plaatsvinden van de verschillende werkgroepen die deel uitmaken van ACJ, maar vrij onafhankelijk werken.

Een klein woordje uitleg (grove omschrijving) over ACJ misschien ... ACJ staat voor "Accion Cristiania de Jovenes”. Het is een organisatie die gegroeid is uit de YMCA en zich inzet voor rechten van jongeren. In Ecuador is zo’n 60 % van de bevolking jonger dan 20, maar jongeren worden hier niet bezien als diegenen die aan de toekomst moeten bouwen en er wordt zeer weinig in hun opleiding geïnvesteerd. ACJ probeert mensen hiervan bewust te maken, zowel de jongeren als de ouderen, en zelf actief veranderingen teweeg te brengen. Ze hebben hun hoofdkantoor in Quito op de Avenida Patria en filialen in Quito Zuid, Santo Domingo en nog twee andere steden. Ik heb de indruk dat ze voornamelijk draaien op - veelal lokale - vrijwillige krachten en dat er slechts een tiental betaalde mensen werken.

In de voormiddag werden we samen met Eilert, een Noor die werkt voor Karibu, een onafhankelijke Noorse foundation, rondgeleid in de barrios van Quito. We bezochten hier onder andere het huis van een vrouw die samen met vier andere vrijwilligers al 18 jaar door de week de armste kinderen uit de buurt / regio opvangt en hen van eten voorziet. De opvang gebeurt op privé-locatie en ACJ komt tussen voor de inrichting en infrastructuur en het speelgoed voor de kinderen, maar eigenlijk is er een grote nood aan een soort gemeenschapscentrum. De staat voorziet enkel een minimale bijdrage om te voorzien in het eten van de kinderen. We bezochten eveneens een gebouw dat dienst zou kunnen doen als opvang- en gemeenschapscentrum, maar hiervoor zijn nog onderhandelingen bezig en de lokale autoriteiten lijken niet echt geïnteresseerd in de problematiek. Klein, maar opvallend detail aan dit bezoek was het enorme huis van de priester in de buurt. De katholieke kerk blijkt in Ecuador nog vrij veel macht en bezittingen te hebben, maar of deze ook ten goede van de armen komen ...

ACJ was ook van plan om in deze buurt een centrum op te starten. Er was al een stuk grond gekocht of ter beschikking gesteld (deze hele dag kregen we uitleg in het Spaans, dus het is zeer goed mogelijk dat ik hier en daar iets mis verstaan heb) en men was begonnen met het afgraven van het terrein om er een gebouw op te zetten. Spijtig genoeg zijn deze graafwerken zeer amateuristisch gebeurd en werd het terrein vervolgens te gevaarlijk bevonden om nog op te bouwen ...

Een busrit in de gietende regen bracht ons dan terug naar ACJ Sur waar we lekker eten voorgeschoteld kregen en nadien konden kennismaken met de verschillende werkgroepen: communicatie, politiek, toneel, Y´s(wise)-men en de vaste krachten zoals Elba die al 7 jaar voor ACJ werkt en Henry die directeur is van ACJ Sur. De mensen waren allemaal zeer sympathiek, de meesten van hen vrijwilligers die zich in hun vrije tijd voor ACJ inzetten. Zo zijn er Leo en haar dochtertje en Lili (een advocate die ook een directrice is bij ACJ) van de “politieke vleugel”. Geen zorgen, het gaat hier eerder om de politiek en het gedachtengoed die intern gehanteerd worden dan over andere politici. Verder waren er nog Santiago en nog twee andere grappige kerels wiens naam ik vergeten ben van de toneelgroep, de oudere dames en heren van de “wise-men” en een mengeling van studenten en oudere mensen die instaan voor de communicatie.

Na een soort meditatie-sessie (de “C” in ACJ mag dan wel voor “cristiania” staan, maar gelukkig mogen we dit met een korrel zout nemen; Henry is trouwens een groot voorstander van het boeddhisme ;-)) zaten de mensen per werkgroep samen om hun doelstellingen en redenen van bestaan eens onder de loep te nemen, waarna ze zich aan de andere groepen voorstelden. De vergadering eindigde een beetje op z’n spekuliaans waarbij er data afgesproken werden voor bepaalde activiteiten die de komende maanden op het programma staan en waarbij iedereen zich voor één of meerdere activiteiten engageerde. Op het programma in december staan onder andere “caravanas” waarbij de mensen in stoet door de straten passeren en bij de mensen thuis binnen lopen om eten binnen te gooien. Ik ben zeer benieuwd wat ik mij daar precies bij mag voorstellen ...

Zoektocht ...

2007-10-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

Week 1 was een week van zoeken: spaanse les, een plek om te wonen en de toekomstige collega’s ... Al zeg ik het zelf - en achteraf bekeken - we hebben dat niet slecht gedaan!

Spaanse les

Onze derde dag in Ecuador zaten we al achter de schoolbanken en de lessen hebben echt wel hun nut. Voor Will is het momenteel voornamelijk nog een opfrissing van wat hij al wist, maar voor mij betekenden de twee lessen op donderdag en vrijdag van onze eerste week een enorme vooruitgang vergeleken met wat ik deze zomer met onze Spaanse vrienden van Secja kon spreken! Dé uitleg die iedereen hier van Will te horen krijgt om te verklaren waarom ik de taal zo snel opscharrel: “there’s one thing you need to know about Joke: she’s belgian ...” ;-) En ik kan niet anders dan toegeven dat daar heel erg veel waarheid in zit. Het spreken hapert nog wel, al geraak ik al een heel eind met mijn kennis van het Frans, maar het is ongelofelijk hoeveel meer ik van de conversaties hier versta en dit enkel na (ondertussen) vier lessen en een weekend intensieve onderdompeling in de taal!

Een plek?

Onze zoektocht naar een huis ... Vanuit België hadden we reeds een aanbieding gekregen van Elba - een toekomstige collega en gastvrouw / huisgenoot van mijn Belgische voorgangster bij ACJ - om bij haar te logeren. Op donderdag (18/10) hadden we een afspraak om de kamer eens te bezichtigen. We hadden afgesproken om 17.00 bij Elba thuis, maar wegens een niet zo nauwkeurige toeristische kaart van Quito en het voor taxichauffeurs relatief onbekende karakter van de straat die Elba’s straat (qua drukte en omvang vergelijkbaar met een Belgische autostrade) kruist, kwamen we dus rijkelijk laat; en dat bij een Ecuadoraanse die - in tegenstelling tot alle anderen - punctueel is.

Het stratensysteem van Quito ...

Het komt er op neer dat de mensen hier zelf niet zo goed doorhebben hoe hun stad nu ineen steekt. Oorspronkelijk zijn er gewoon namen aan de straten geven. Omdat er geen huisnummers waren wordt een specifiek adres aangeduid door het vermelden van de straatnaam, de naam van de dichtstbijzijnde straat die de straat kruist en de naam van het gebouw (of tegenwoordig de huisnummers). Daarna zijn er twee pogingen geweest om de structuur van de stad iets overzichtelijker te maken door het nummeren van straten en door er een noord of zuid-richting aan te geven. We zijn er totnogtoe echter nog niet in geslaagd om uit te vissen waarom een straat nu S of N is en waar nu precies die nummering op slaagt of waar hun nulpunt zich bevind, ...

Tumbaco

Soit, de kamer bij Elba en Emilia thuis bleek dus niet geschikt voor twee personen, maar ze heeft ons wel een lekkere pasta voorgeschoteld en we werden ook meteen uitgenodigd om in het weekend mee te gaan naar Tumbaco, iets ten noorden van Quito, waar een duitse vriendin van haar woont. Ons eerste gedacht was dat Tumbaco in de jungle zou liggen. We waren gewaarschuwd dat we zeker geen muggencreme mochten vergeten en Elba wist ons ook te vertellen dat het huis van Tina nogal afgelegen en in de natuur lag. Spijtig genoeg bleek dit niet helemaal het geval te zijn. Tumbaco is eerder een klein stadje of misschien zelfs nog een stukje Quito. Tina’s huis (ze woont hier met haar man en twee kinderen) was wel fantastisch: leuke keuken en grote kamers, met veel hout, natuur rondom en zelfs met een (niet-gevuld) zwembad in de tuin. Ah, en we hebben de koningskolibri kunnen bewonderen, zo’n klein vogeltje dat zo snel met z’n vleugels wappert dat het stil lijkt te hangen met een heel erg lange staart. En ook hier werden we op een lekkere pasta onthaald ;-).

Dag 1 en 2 in het zuidelijk halfrond

2007-10-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

Na een week gevuld met afscheidsfeestjes stapten Will en ik op maandagavond 15 oktober eindelijk op het vliegtuig richting Quito. Een aantal tussenstops en zo’n 18 uur later kwamen we eindelijk aan op onze bestemming.

Het vliegveld van Amsterdam was vrij imposant … Na de landing had het vliegtuig nog een tiental minuten nodig (taxi-en aan minstens 70 km per uur!) om tot aan het hoofdgebouw te geraken. Van car-parks in en rond een luchthaven had ik al gehoord, maar op de luchthaven van Amsterdam zijn er heuse vliegtuig parkings. Ondanks de omvang van het hoofdgebouw - je hebt een kaart nodig om je weg hier te vinden! - is er niet genoeg plaats aan de terminals er rondom om alle vliegtuigen onder te brengen! De tweede halte was de in duisternis gehulde luchthaven van Bonaire op de Nederlandse Antillen. Hier mochten we zowaar even uit het vliegtuig. Het tropisch warme weer rook naar exotische stranden en koraalriffen, maar jammer genoeg zat er geen uitstapje in. De volgende tussenstop bracht ons naar het zuiden van Ecuador in Guayaquil waarna we weer noordwaards vlogen richting Quito. Het landschap rondom Quito is naar het schijnt een fantastisch zicht vanuit het vliegtuig. De stad ligt namelijk in een smalle, langgerekte vallei met hoge bergen er omheen, maar jammer genoeg zaten we in het midden van het vliegtuig met weinig hoop om zelf maar een glimps van bergen op te vangen …

Na onze aankomst - 8.30 ‘s ochtends lokale tijd - namen we dan een taxi naar ons Hostal Puerta del Sol in de oude stad (la ciudad antigua) dat voor een week onze thuis zou zijn. Na een douche waren we weer wat meer mens en konden we op zoek gaan naar eten en - uiteraard - internet. Het mag gezegd worden, de oude stad, met haar koloniale gebouwen uit de 16e, 17e en 18e eeuw en de vele kerken en een aantal knappe plaza’s is absoluut de moeite! En vanaf dag één konden we ook ervaren wat het weer voor de komende dagen, weken?, maanden zou zijn … ‘s ochtends een aangenaam zonnetje (zonnecreme is aangeraden!) en rond de middag een opkomende bewolking die uitmond in regen, donder en bliksem en soms zelfs hagel … We zijn hier blijkbaar aangekomen in de lokale winter, en dat na een slechte zomer in Europa en terwijl we dachten om eens een winter over te slaan … Maar met wat geluk wordt het weer na november beter en over de zonnige voormiddagen mogen we ook absoluut niet klagen!

Een zoektocht naar huisvesting en spaanse lessen zat er voor dinsdag wegens jetlag niet meer in, maar woensdag zijn we onze jacht gestart in de South American Explorers club. De SAE heeft een eigen “clubhuis” in downtown Quito (La Mariscal alias Gringolandia) met uitgebreide “bibliotheek” met heel veel informatie en weetjes over Zuid-Amerika en over Ecuador en Quito in het bijzonder die je kan consulteren. Ze organiseren ook activiteiten zoals kwizzen, kooklessen, joga-avonden, danslessen en lezingen ...

De rest van de dag hebben we besteed aan het bezoeken van een aantal talenscholen. Een aantal hiervan zijn gehuisvest in prachtige huizen met tuin in de rustigere stadsdelen. Zeer aanlokkelijk allemaal, maar uiteraard hangt hier ook een prijskaartje aan vast ... Onze keuze viel uiteindelijk op de San Cristobal Colon, ons laatste bezoek van die dag. Het is niet helemaal duidelijk of de directeur van de school, onze moeheid of de concurrerende prijs de doorslag heeft gegeven voor onze beslissing. Alleszins, voor 4 $ per uur 1 op 1 les kunnen we niet sukkelen en Will en ik zijn totnogtoe zeer tevreden over onze leraressen.

De avond hebben we dan al quizzend doorgebracht met een aantal andere SAE-ers. Hier hebben we beiden een gemengd gevoel aan overgehouden. De kwis zelf was leuk en de mensen vielen ook zeer goed mee, maar toch voelden we ons een beetje op koloniaal territorium ... Brits-Amerikaans terrein in het hartje van Ecuador, bizar ...

Arrived in Quito

2007-10-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

We just arrived in Quito. We found our hostel, food and internet access so I'm feeling almost at home :-)

Next step, learn Spanish and find a place to live.

Just about to leave ...

2007-10-15T01:54:00.000-07:00

We're leaving for Ecuador in a few hours.

Here's the route:

View Larger Map