Papallacta & Cuicocha

My first field trip with Volcanology!

and it was AWESOME!!!! We were promised that we would go home dirty, and we did. Although, not as dirty as Theo (my professor) would have liked because it hadn't rained recently so there was barely any mud.

If you know me, you'll know I have serious difficulties telling stories in chronological order. But I took notes from my pictures, so hopefully I'll stay in line. If not, there's nothing you can do about it :)

So, I took a taxi to the Olympic Stadium, where we were meeting the big tour buses. Although the stadium is pretty close, I didn't want to risk missing the trip, waiting for a bus to bring me there. So I sucked it up and paid the $3 at 6:40 am. (the next day it was only 2, too bad I didn't know better the first day).

Luckily I got on the same bus as Theo (with the better TV of course), so he had us pick the movies first and of course we watched Que Pasa Anoche? commonly known as The Hangover. I had the pleasure of using the facilities on the bus-very exciting on the curvy mountainous roads with an Ecuadorian man driving. After about 3 hours, we made it to our first stop: the middle of nowhere. We were literally stopped on the side of the road, and then walked through the mist to a spot, like the rest of the way, with a large rock wall. We had a mini lesson in Spanish of which I barely understood a few sentences, dodging cars on one side and being careful not to fall off the cliff with a small waterfall on the other.

My partner Jessica and I didn't really know what we were doing, but we crossed the street with everyone else, and waited to use a hammer to break off a piece of rock. Well, I did more than get a piece of rock. I also broke half the hammer! oops.

We continued down the road, only to find out that we were supposed to have gotten 2 different rocks! we scrambled to find one, but Theo said it wasn't a big deal, he wanted to continue to the next stop. On the way I picked up a big black rock just in case it was the right one, and it ended up being the next one! So at least I got a little bit ahead of the game.

We packed back onto the bus, watched another movie, and arrived at a new place, near a beautiful river. We first climbed up a hill. And not just any hill, one filled with really loose dust so it was realllll interesting. I can only imagine what this would be like if it had been muddy. Well, I can more than imagine. This girl here walked a little bit off to the side, and lost her shoe in the mud. Awesome. 

The next rock we had to get is a green one, and we had to climb down a huge hill to get to the river. These are the types of paths that don't exist. When you're driving or walking somewhere, and you see a really steep hill with lots of plants and prickery things and bugs, you don't go there. Well, not with this class. After a solid few minutes walking down, it started to get buggy. And I mean seriously buggy. I am SO GLAD I took Theo seriously and wore my raincoat even though it was hot and not raining at all, because I zipped it up over my hat, with my sunglasses, and felt a little safe. There were so many bugs. They almost looked like lightening bugs, that sort of cylindrical shape but were a little bigger and all black. and they were EVERYWHERE. people were swatting like crazy, but I just kept looking for the green stone and I FOUND ONE! But, as you can probably guess, I wasn't sure if I actually had the right one. All I heard from my professor was rock near the water, green, roundish. and I found a beautifully round one but it seemed like not many other people did, especially since most of my class didn't make it past the water.

But alas, I will now get 2 or 3 extra points on my report because I found a gem!

More driving/movies/looking at the gorgeous view, and we came to a tiny little town. We walked down a road, past what used to be a soccer field and is now being dug up for rocks and who knows what, plenty of dogs and chickens, and some locals staring at us strangely. We had to walk in between roped off barbed wire, which was a little unnerving, down some more hill, and then came the fun part. I promised myself I would stay close to my professor, because he told us you get the most information and the biggest adventure when you stick with him. Since I also had my camera at the ready, he gave me a task: film everyone crossing the bridge. I had no idea what he meant by this, until I saw it. 

This old, dilapidated bridge was next to a newer, safer one. But of course, everyone except for me taking a video and another student taking pictures, had to run across it. It was really amusing to watch, but I'm part relieved and part sad that I wasn't involved.

After everyone got across (one kid fell right at the end) Theo just took off and sprinted across a field. Odd. We followed, and then we began our hike into the wilderness, legit.

We walked a bit, through wet grassy lands, no big deal. Then we stopped, and Theo pointed to a wall and said. ok we're going up there. We weren't sure if he was serious, because he jokes a lot but he's also crazy. Well guess what: he was serious.

I was the first one behind him, and after I got up 5 feet, it got a little easier, until the ground underneath me started moving a lot, and all the brush above us had been cut away, so everything we pulled at for leverage fell behind us. Theo went to try something all the way to the right and around a corner, and another student tried to reach a tree to the left. In the end, we went all the way to the right, and I had to step on a girl's leg to get up and over a hump in the wall. With my professor cheering me on to hurry up, I made it all the way up. He's pretty good with names-really eager to learn them, andddd I have the same name as his daughter. The pic below is WAY clearer then our first trail. I tried to take pictures but it's hard to capture the wild jungle that it was with a picture.

After we made it to the top, we just went down, but a different way. A much slippery, slope kind of way. Oh by the way, a stray dog had been following us the entire way up, and now was going down. But he kind of got in the way a bit, but still managed to stay with us the whole time we were at this stop.

People were slipping a lot, and Theo was yelling at us in a nice way, and if we took too long he would pull us down. legit. We got to a little brook, and I had someone take a pic of me. The first one I look better in, but of course these 2 crazy Ecuadorian girls who were not dressed at all for this trip completely blocked the water, and I kinda look a little dazed in this one, but that's okay...

I wish I was better at describing things. buttt we had to walk up another dangerous looking hill, and the girl in front of my slipped a bit so I just pushed her up by her butt, and a kid behind me pushed my foot up for me. It's pretty cool helping people out even though you don't know their name, what they look like, or what language they speak. But when they're about to slip down the hill in front of you, you'll do anything you can to boost them up.

Since our professor was now at the back of the group, we weren't too sure where to go, especially since there's no trails. So we kind of just kept walking, until we saw a hugeeeee rock wall, with some pretty chill people climbing it. We walked past them to get out of their way, and waited for our professor to come back. We got a little mini lecture from the other professor that came on the trip with us, and I have to be honest I really don't know what he said, but we found another rock and headed back down a different path, very open but also very muddy. Again-I wouldn't want to walk through that after a big rainfall.

We returned over the safer bridge, and back up the hill which felt a lot steeper and longer after all the traversing in the wild we just went through, and got back on the bus to stop at a waterfall, walking through shallow water, where apparently when there's been more rain you walk through a foot or so of water-that would have been interesting.

It was time to split up: those who wanted to go back to Quito/home on one bus, and those who wanted to get to the Hot Springs on another. Of course I was going to the Hot Springs-there's no way I'm going to miss out on any opportunities here if I can help it!

It cost $7 and I only brought with me my change of clothes, because I didn't want to leave my camera and other things in a basket along with my towel on the side of the pools. We moved around from hot, to hotter, to hottest, with a few splashes of lake water-my own Penguin Plunge! There's part of the lake where Theo challenged us to do a push up in so that we could get our whole body in-I went in 3 times, and there's also a little pool where you can jump into or step down on stairs-I went in about 4 times in there too. The hot parts though are crazy in the other pools, because there's a little waterfall where it comes out and it is STEAMING. Theo had us go into a little cave behind the waterfall, which was cool. When we were in a kiddie pool size one, they were starting to drain the water so that it would soon enough be fresh water, but it started getting reallyyyyyy hot, because as the old water drained, all that was left was fresh hot water, and even the locals started to relocate.

It was a great experience, and I chatted with my professor a lot, along with some other Ecuadorian students who convinced me that however awkward it might be I need to try harder to make Ecuadorian friends! I wish it wasn't so cloudy, because apparently it's beautiful, sitting in a warm pool with the mountains all around you. Although it's probably better that it wasn't and that it was later, because with such high altitude I could have become a serious lobster.

After over an hour of relaxing, we changed and headed back to the bus. I'm really glad I'm a punctual person, otherwise Theo may have left without me. He doesn't do head counts, so you're on your own, and could potentially be left somewhere. It almost happened at a rest stop!

Cuicocha!

Sunday, we were off to Cuicocha, and we started the day with Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. So American but I loved it.

Cuicocha is a beautiful spot, made up of a collapsed volcano that filled with water...I need to read up on it a little bit more but you should check it out because it's gorgeous. It's named after Guinea pigs, because apparently the islands in the middle resemble the little animal (a delicacy here) and there are lots of guinea pigs on the islands! Which is funny to me, since I always had a guinea pig growing up (as a pet, not dinner).

We got off the bus and didn't knowwhat to do-the view was breathtaking. A HUGE lake surrounded by mountains, and we were right in the middle of it. We walked down closer to the water, and put on some pretty sweet life jackets, then clambered into small boat. This all without real direction, I just kind of followed the person in front of me and hoped for the best.

Some more kids got into a second boat, along with Theo. I was upset that I wasn't right next to him as I had been the day before, but I had a seat on the edge so I had the perfect spot for picture taking. 

We went deep into the lake, and slowed down near the edge of one of the islands. I wasn't quite sure what was happening. There was no dock, and if we were going to walk on the land here we would need to wade into some serious water. Theo told us we could dress normally today, so I was not exactly ready to hop on into the water.

Theo's boat came up next to us, and after rocking his boat back and forth to make everyone nervous, he started a mini lesson about the area. There was a chunk of rock missing behind us, which created a "Tsunami" of 15 centimeters. If more rock had fallen, it would have been a much more serious event.

The water here bubbles, because there is a lot of magma deep under the surface. 

The book my professor wrote about Cuicocha says, "The volcano can reactivate at any time. Therefore it appears that tourists are visiting the volcanic caldera of Cuicocha to enjoy the marvelous area in the same way a bird (in order to find some food or a place to rest) is stepping into a crocodile's mouth...

After we learned a bit more (again, I need to read and complete my reports on the field trip before I'll really know what he was saying) we backed up and headed through some reeds in between the two islands, Little Mermaid style. 

We headed back to shore, and received delish warm beverages as a thank you for the boat ride. As I was enjoying it, I figured it was because Ecuadorians probably freeze on that ride, since it was pretty windy. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was delish with or without sugar. Canalaso? I don't know. Oh but a little girl put one on the banister above where I was sitting and it fell onto my back. That was fun.

There was a man playing peter pan style pipes (didn't realize my trip was so Disney themed until now) to compliment some Ecuadorian and some American songs, it was pretty amusing. I can't remember all of them, but he was definitely playing Toto by Africa! I was going to buy his CD, but my favorites were separated by 3 different CDs, $5 each and I didn't think it was worth it. So instead, I made a video. Africa: Pipes style

I went up to check out the mini market stalls-but it was junk compared to Otavalo. Everyone basically had the same thing, and nothing really caught my eye. Except this of course

one of those toys that you squeeze so the figurine dances, they also had spiderman and other random American cartoon characters.

I chatted with some Ecuadorians and Americans from my class, and when the second group of students returned, we loaded back onto the bus...only to get out literally 5 minutes later. We got a little speech about the rocks there, and then had to grab a small one. We got back on, and headed a little over an hour away until we stopped at a small gas station/restaurant. I was going to get a quesadilla, until the girl in front of me did and it was a package of 4 plain rolls of bread. I'm glad I made my own peanut butter and jelly sandwich! I also got a ghetto orange juice that was reallyyy sugary. For some reason the intense desire for Tropicana Orange Juice has settled with me again, and I really want some!

We almost forgot 3 students who had crossed the street to go to a different spot, and then were on our way to begin drawing faults with our nice computer paper and sharpened pencils that were handed out during lunch.

We had climb up through dirt and prickly trees, and draw faults in 5 minutes. I made it all extra beautiful and added extra drawings and labels, only to find out that he wouldn't be collecting this drawing. On our next location, we needed to draw 5 faults and 5 pliegues, which are basically big Us in the rock. I think mine came out pretty well, especially since our professor threw a rock across a highway to show us one of the faults he was talking about when he was explaining them. He's crazy!

Next stop: more drawing, this time a quiz. and none of us knew what we were doing. We had to walk through barbed wire and lots of trash to get to the spot, and then it started raining so we really had to rush! It was the first time I had heard thunder since in Ecuador!

We headed back home after this, and got back much earlier than Saturday. I went into the big mall QuiCentro to look for a place to clean my camera lens-it's filthy and scratched. I was given an address of another place, so i might wait until my host mom can come with me so I don't hand over my camera to a stranger and not really know what will happen to it.

I also found a candy store! and stocked up on my treats, as well as bought white chocolate to make my infamous cookies n creme fudge---tho i'm having serious difficulties figuring that out, because since white chocolate chips are impossible to come by here, I bought bars- but according to the calculations of ounces to grams, I need to buy about 20 bars of chocolate to make up for one and a half bags of chips i would use in the US. sooo i need to think about what i'm going to do.

I thought I knew where I was going on the way home, but I didn't exactly. I called my host mom to let her know I was on my way, and walked a few blocks to another main road where I can take one straight bus home, and started my insane amount of work that night, staying up the latest I have since in Ecuador aside from my very first night.

I hope to do a blog about my life in general here. I know my adventures are exciting, but my day to day life is pretty sweet too, as is my service that I'm just starting to dive in to!

Thanks for reading and comment lots!!!