Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Hola from Ecuador!

Hello! I´m still alive! I have a great time over here and time flies. I´ve been in and around Quito for 3 days, climbed a non-active volcano there, 4800 m. Made me a little dizzy because it was only my 2nd day in Quito, my body asked for more oxygen. View Larger Map Quito itself was fun for two days (I´ll come back there my last few days). Its public transportation is amazing, like it is in whole Ecuador. You can get everywhere with the bus, wave your hand and jump on the driving bus. The more expensive ($1 per hour) long travel busses even have uber large wide-screen TV´s with horror movies playing at 9 in the morning. I´ve been on the equator at the commercial Mitad del Mundo, where I debunked the trick in a museum where they showed that water flushes in different directions on the northern/southern hemisphere. After Quito I went south to a beautiful farm/hotel near Cotopaxi, a semi-active volcano. I wanted to climb to the top with a guide, but the weather was too bad (snowstorms) so I just went to 5200 m, to the beginning of the glaciers and went down on a mountainbike which was a good ride. View Larger Map From the farm I went on south to the Quilotoa loop. I travelled together with a british guy (32), we waved a car on the panamericana and jumped in the open pick-up truck. That was a fun ride! The people here drive more crazy than in Croatia! It was fucking scary sometimes. Then we went on the bus to a small village in a beautiful mountain area at 3200 m, it was a 4 hour ride over a very bad sandy road through the mountains. There we slept at an ecological farm with self decomposing toilets, but with a great view while taking a dump. I´ve never seen so many stars. There is no light at all here, it´s at 3200 m and there is no moon! From there I made several hikes in the surrounding area, which was amazing!!! The best part was a giant crater lake in an non-active volcano and a cloud forrest at 4000 m! View Larger Map Today I moved from the Quilotoa area to Baños, which is located on the foot of a large ACTIVE volcano, the Tungurahua. View Larger Map It destroyed the area here in 1999 and is increasingly more active in 2007. The road to here was destroyed a few months ago by small eruptions and windows shattered at 8 km from the volcano. It shoots 9 km high ash clouds into the sky. I hope the (real)clouds are gone tomorrow so that I can actually see the volcano and the ash clouds :) That is, in very-short, what I´ve been up to the last 10 days. I´m using a very slow satellite connection here so I really can´t upload any pictures. Well.... How are you guys doing?

7 comments:

Unknown said...

very nice, seen much cocaine yet?

I'm waking up every day at 7:30 sucks balls altho the work is ok. I'm gaining mass experience points (webdesign wise).

I'm the only 1 here with 3d-experience so I'm the unofficial expert of 3d-max.

I'm now working on a project for the design of MTV-Arabia. I'm designing the set (in 3d-max)for the different programs of MTV like top10, world chart express etc.

cybrbeast said...

Great to hear from you, it all sounds awesome!
Doing okay here, but getting back into the rhythm of studying is a bit rough.

BTW, many of the places aren't visible in the Google Maps windows, click on Sat view in the top right corners of them to fix it.

cybrbeast said...

Hmmm, it seems to be working now, edit anyone? Weird.
Anyway the place look really impressive.

ExpendableAsset said...

Hey Annom, good to see you've found your way back on the net. Have you met any interesting locals yet? How's your Spanish working out?

annom said...

I´ve met a very friendly alcoholic in Quito who showed me around for 2 hours. He worked in the US for 4 years so his english was very good. He didn´t steal my money ;)

I also drank some strong local stuff with two english speaking local students. Was fun, I plan to go to a football game with them!

I haven´t seen cocaine yet. It should be easy to find when I want to, but it isn´t everywhere, like it is in Colombia (that´s what other travellers told me). MTV-Arabia sounds pretty interesting!

My spanish is very sucky and I can´t have a real conversation. Sucks! I can ask directions and organize busses etc: basic survival.

-----
I edited the google maps so they show in sat view.

Kamiel said...

looks nice,

I'm bit jealous wanna go on vacation as well :s. These vulcanos look nice. You found any where we can start a nice home base where we can work on the plan for world domination?

My vacation was nice. I bin to rome, perugia, pharma, pissa, florence, bologna, sienna, venice. All where very differed city's the only thing they got in common is that there life the same selfish Italian assholes in it.

School is going fine, i just got the courage to check my osiris to see what the damage is :).

For the rest i'm started to play some foodbal to get my self fit and sexy.

pimp-a-lot bear said...

5200 meters! that´s pretty high!

Have you already eaten some Guinea pig?

Anyway, just passed the remaining exam of my BSc, I'm busy writing some small reports. If all goes well I should have my degree in november.

MSc is fun, it totally feels like the right choice. Selecting electives is pretty hard, there are so many interesting courses!

At the same time I'm working as a teaching assistent, earing 'silly' money. I'm teaching statics at the faculty of industrial design.
some students make really amusing erros, (WAT STAAT DAAR NOU?) and they're performing much better than 2 weeks ago!