Yet another landmark in my life. I'm a landmark person, what can I say. I remember being in 1st grade and celebrating the 100th day and everyone brought in 100 things of food like cheerios, goldfish, mochi crunch, or something like that. It was good. Alas, I did not have any fun trail mix today, although Lolo and I did manage to create a pretty kick-ass trail mix a few weeks ago, if I do say so myself.
It's started raining again, which is good, except that it only rains on days when I look at my raincoat and decide to leave it at home. Today I got lucky and stayed dry, last week I looked like I had decided to take a shower with my clothes on. Oh goody. But things are still dry and still lacking luz. I saw on the news tonight that apparently Hugo Chavez just told the people of Venezuela that 3 min is sufficient time to bathe (1 min for soap, 1 min for shampoo, 1 min for rinse). I'm sure he's very popular right now.
Only 3 weeks of classes left and Nene comes in 2.5!! Very excited, although I have tons of work to do between now and then. Certainly the next half of this study abroad adventure is going to go SUPER fast since I'll be traveling during most of it. Still, 100 cheerios might be nice too :)
Showing posts with label rain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rain. Show all posts
Monday, November 23, 2009
Friday, November 06, 2009
Sin electricidad
35% of Ecuador´s energy comes from hydroelectric energy (the rest is mostly petróleo) from one energy station in the south by Cuenca. It is now the rainy season, usually starting in Octubre, and despite my original posts about crazy Quito storms, it hasn´t really rained since. Due to this lack off rainfall, the country is cutting back on its energy usages until it rains again. Hence, scheduled regional power cuts have begun. They usually tell you ahead of time and they only last for a few hours in each area, although these cuttings are nation-wide. This isn´t a new thing, apparently it´s been going on for the past 15 years or so. In any case, I woke up to no electricity (had fried bread for breakfast, which was interesting, because we couldn´t use our toaster) and now there´s no energy on campus (although they have generators to keep most of the university running). It´s not really that much of a problem, just sort of a hassle. The biggest problem, however, are the roads. In case you didn´t know, Ecuadorians only follow road rules when it´s convenient. Now imagine this semi-anarchist system lacking traffic lights. Yeah, things just got a bit crazier. Oh well, it´s just another one of those "sooo Ecua" moments.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Papallacta
I have discovered that I have the most insane man ever (Theofilos Toulkeridis, aka Theo) as my volcanology teacher. Yesterday, we took a trip to Papallacta, in the Eastern region of Ecuador (towards the Amazon, from Quito). Once again I found myself on a multi-hour bus ride at 630am on a Saturday morning (I gladly slept in today).
Our first stop was a quarry, seemingly, in the middle of nowhere on the side of a random road. Of course, as soon as we got off the bus and grouped up and starting talking about what rocks we were to collect, it started raining. Big drops too, not just little drizzles. By the time we had collected our designated 3 rocks [granite, basalt, and natural asphalt], we were all soaked.
Second stop to collect clay shale involved stopping at the side of another random road then climbing up a hill made of clay bits. Combine this with rain and you have pretty squishy ground. Result: very muddy and wet students.
Stop number three was our best example of Theo’s insanity. Again, stop on a random street where we walk a block, go through seemingly someone’s field, over a barbed wire fence, then over a super rickety bridge. Then, all 60-70 of us RUN across this bridge (complete with holes and super creaky and breaking wood at some parts) to cross the river. Shall we say intense?
Then we go marching up into the hills, without any trail, I should mention. We hike for a short period of time through some vegetation, mud, and water. At this point, we’ve done the caterpillar thing and the front of the group was stopped in this small gorge. Theo says “ok, we’re going to keep going” and of course we assume farther up the gorge. Instead, Theo jumps into the bushes on the side of the hill and starts to just climb up the wall of the gorge. We think he’s kidding, but he’s not. So up we all go. In case you’ve never done it, climbing up the side of a heavily vegetated, also pretty steep hill, in the rain and mud, is ridiculous. For a good part of the climb there wasn’t stable ground or holds (roots, branches, etc). As I was at the end of the line (literally 2nd to last) the ground had all been smoothed down or the vegetation had been ripped out making it an especially adventurous climb for us.
When we finally made it to the top of the hill, we found out that we were just going down the other side, which was mostly just sliding and holding onto bamboo and trees as you just kind of went down with gravity. At the bottom, we then jumped back and forth across a river/walked straight through it. We then came out, please pay attention here, at the exact same gorge we just climbed out of. Insane? I think so.
We then came out of the gorge, back the way we came in, and took a right, walked through a wide path that had become entirely mud after 60 people walked through it. This, followed by tromping through the forest and we ended up at a huge rock face. This was actually very cool as Theo explained how the Andes were formed and other geology things. We collected another rock [Andasita] and made our way back out through the mud back to the bus.
We were all super dirty and tired but this was not our last stop! We drove to another random spot, got off the bus, trekked straight through a river, up along it through the forest and came to a small waterfall (we didn’t have time to go all the way up to the larger waterfall) where we collected two more rocks [quartz and a metamorphic rock].
We finished off the day with an awesome trip to the natural hot springs in Papallacta. Sitting in the wonderfully warm baths after spending all day muddy, cold, and wet, was the best way to wrap it all up.
Although it was a crazy day and at points frustrating, challenging, and exhausting (I now have a splinter/thorn in my finger that won’t come out, makes typing a pain—haha! that’s a pun!), I had a GREAT time. I love hiking more than anything, and I think mud and rain just make it even more fun. Although it was hard to go in such a large group, I had fun hanging out with everyone in my class and just being out in general. I came home, showered (took all my clothes and shoes into the shower with me because they were so dirty) and promptly fell asleep by 1030 on a Saturday night.
Another gringo amigo, Chris, and I in front of the forest we hiked through
Our first stop was a quarry, seemingly, in the middle of nowhere on the side of a random road. Of course, as soon as we got off the bus and grouped up and starting talking about what rocks we were to collect, it started raining. Big drops too, not just little drizzles. By the time we had collected our designated 3 rocks [granite, basalt, and natural asphalt], we were all soaked.
Second stop to collect clay shale involved stopping at the side of another random road then climbing up a hill made of clay bits. Combine this with rain and you have pretty squishy ground. Result: very muddy and wet students.
Stop number three was our best example of Theo’s insanity. Again, stop on a random street where we walk a block, go through seemingly someone’s field, over a barbed wire fence, then over a super rickety bridge. Then, all 60-70 of us RUN across this bridge (complete with holes and super creaky and breaking wood at some parts) to cross the river. Shall we say intense?
Then we go marching up into the hills, without any trail, I should mention. We hike for a short period of time through some vegetation, mud, and water. At this point, we’ve done the caterpillar thing and the front of the group was stopped in this small gorge. Theo says “ok, we’re going to keep going” and of course we assume farther up the gorge. Instead, Theo jumps into the bushes on the side of the hill and starts to just climb up the wall of the gorge. We think he’s kidding, but he’s not. So up we all go. In case you’ve never done it, climbing up the side of a heavily vegetated, also pretty steep hill, in the rain and mud, is ridiculous. For a good part of the climb there wasn’t stable ground or holds (roots, branches, etc). As I was at the end of the line (literally 2nd to last) the ground had all been smoothed down or the vegetation had been ripped out making it an especially adventurous climb for us.
When we finally made it to the top of the hill, we found out that we were just going down the other side, which was mostly just sliding and holding onto bamboo and trees as you just kind of went down with gravity. At the bottom, we then jumped back and forth across a river/walked straight through it. We then came out, please pay attention here, at the exact same gorge we just climbed out of. Insane? I think so.
We then came out of the gorge, back the way we came in, and took a right, walked through a wide path that had become entirely mud after 60 people walked through it. This, followed by tromping through the forest and we ended up at a huge rock face. This was actually very cool as Theo explained how the Andes were formed and other geology things. We collected another rock [Andasita] and made our way back out through the mud back to the bus.
We were all super dirty and tired but this was not our last stop! We drove to another random spot, got off the bus, trekked straight through a river, up along it through the forest and came to a small waterfall (we didn’t have time to go all the way up to the larger waterfall) where we collected two more rocks [quartz and a metamorphic rock].
We finished off the day with an awesome trip to the natural hot springs in Papallacta. Sitting in the wonderfully warm baths after spending all day muddy, cold, and wet, was the best way to wrap it all up.
Although it was a crazy day and at points frustrating, challenging, and exhausting (I now have a splinter/thorn in my finger that won’t come out, makes typing a pain—haha! that’s a pun!), I had a GREAT time. I love hiking more than anything, and I think mud and rain just make it even more fun. Although it was hard to go in such a large group, I had fun hanging out with everyone in my class and just being out in general. I came home, showered (took all my clothes and shoes into the shower with me because they were so dirty) and promptly fell asleep by 1030 on a Saturday night.
Another gringo amigo, Chris, and I in front of the forest we hiked throughThursday, September 17, 2009
Lluvia y cumpleanos
It’s not the rain that’ll get you, but the water on the streets. You know in the movies when people are standing on the side of the road and a car comes by and BOOM goes through a giant puddle and a tidal wave basically engulfs the person standing on the side of the road? Well, luckily for me, I remembered this image and was careful to skirt the side of the road on my way homer today. Today was our first taste of Quito downpour, although I’m sure that once the rainy season hits we’ll be quite used to it. Being in a dry valley between two mountains, Quito doesn’t get much rain suring the summer, and Cumbaya is pretty dry too (rain shadow effect and whatnot). Today however, it was difficult to hear in my last class over the sounds of the raindrops hitting the building. It was pretty intense.
The rainclouds have ominously been looming over us the past few days so it’s finally opened up and let it all out. I, of course, looked at my rain coat this morning, thought “I should bring that, it’s probably going to rain today” and promptly left it in my closet.
Traversing the rivers aka crossing the roads today was quite an adventure as I attempted to not drown or get soaked by the cars passing by (as well as the usual attempt at not getting hit by cars in general, but that’s basically anytime you’re near a street here). I spent the extra $0.25 to take a second bus home instead of walking the 6 blocks back. Normally it wouldn’t have bothered me (yay not freezing cold rain!) but I had all my books blah blah blah.
The other night we had either fog or really low clouds. I think it was fog after an afternoon downpour (not nearly as large compared to today). It was really cool to look out and have kinda that creepy misty feeling overlooking my neighborhood and nearby Quito. The city looked, dare I say it, calm?
The rain is a nice change of pace and just something different. Plus it makes the traffic slow down sorta.
us hiding in the bathroom very sneakily...
(L-R: Lolo/Lauren, Annie, Tina. Jordan's body, Tova, Sari)
In other news, we celebrated Gabe's birthday on Monday by hiding in his bathroom. We sneakily went over to his house after school and met his madre there. It was pretty fun to jump out at him and everything. For his birthday, Lauren and I raided SuperMaxi aka greatest store ever (just a regular supermarket, but those are so much fun) and bought him good ole Oreos and a box of milk (Ecuadorians are mad crazy about their boxed milk). And a very interesting magazine appropriately named "Muy Interesante" (Very Interesting). It had an article about zombies. We had to get it.
It's nice to just get together and do some basic things from home. Gabe's birthday wasn't anything special, but it was something we would do back in the states and every once in a while it's nice to escape the Ecuador craziness and just do something habitual and familiar, like sing happy birthday, blow out a candle, and ambush your friends in their own home.
The suprise birthday party :)
The rainclouds have ominously been looming over us the past few days so it’s finally opened up and let it all out. I, of course, looked at my rain coat this morning, thought “I should bring that, it’s probably going to rain today” and promptly left it in my closet.
Traversing the rivers aka crossing the roads today was quite an adventure as I attempted to not drown or get soaked by the cars passing by (as well as the usual attempt at not getting hit by cars in general, but that’s basically anytime you’re near a street here). I spent the extra $0.25 to take a second bus home instead of walking the 6 blocks back. Normally it wouldn’t have bothered me (yay not freezing cold rain!) but I had all my books blah blah blah.
The other night we had either fog or really low clouds. I think it was fog after an afternoon downpour (not nearly as large compared to today). It was really cool to look out and have kinda that creepy misty feeling overlooking my neighborhood and nearby Quito. The city looked, dare I say it, calm?
The rain is a nice change of pace and just something different. Plus it makes the traffic slow down sorta.
us hiding in the bathroom very sneakily...(L-R: Lolo/Lauren, Annie, Tina. Jordan's body, Tova, Sari)
It's nice to just get together and do some basic things from home. Gabe's birthday wasn't anything special, but it was something we would do back in the states and every once in a while it's nice to escape the Ecuador craziness and just do something habitual and familiar, like sing happy birthday, blow out a candle, and ambush your friends in their own home.
The suprise birthday party :)Clockwise around the table: Me, Alyson, Tova, Annie, Lolo, Gabe, Jordan, Sari
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