Descent into the Crater of Guagua Pichincha

Legends say that thousands of years ago two of the greatest warriors of the Andes, Cotopaxi and Chimborazo, fell in love with the beautiful Tungurahua. For many years they battled constantly through violent eruptions and seismic activity until Chimborazo proved to be the strongest warrior. He won the heart of Tungurahua, married her and together they had Guagua Pichincha (guagua means child in quechua). It is said that when the Guagua cries his mother wakes up to see what is wrong with him. 

Back in 1999 the Guagua Pichincha became active; it covered our city with of ashes many times over the following years. And a couple of months after its activity started the Tungurahua also became active and has been ever since. 

The beginning of our climb up to the Guagua Pichincha

The Guagua Pichincha, is part of a large volcanic complex that lies approximately 10km west from Quito's city center. The Guagua, the highest peak of the complex is an old stratovolcano that is currently active. The summit is 4,784 meters high, but that was not where we were headed. We started our walk at about 4,000 meters and instead of taking the easy way up through the dirt road, we climbed through the mountain side. We climbed up for a couple of hours until we reached a fork where you can either go to the right and arrive at the Refugio at 4,500 meters, that is the path you should take if you are attempting to reach the summit. However, we weren't going to the summit, so we turned left through a path that takes you to approximately 4,600 meters. This path reaches the rim of the Caldera and it is a popular spot for people who want to see the inside of the volcano. 

The Caldera is approximately 6 km wide and shaped as a horseshoe, as one of its walls collapsed after one of its eruptions more than 50,000 years ago. Inside you can easily spot an old lava dome that remains from the 1660 eruption. This was the last major eruption, it lasted 12 hours and left Quito covered in 30cm of ash. Near the dome there is a large crater created in the 1981 eruption and besides that one a smaller crater that was left from its latest eruption in 2002. Inside you can also see a very active fumarole that has a constant stream of water vapor and other gasses coming out of it. Our plan for this trip was to reach this fumarole. The climb down into the volcano was not exactly easy, in fact what started out as a a pleasant walk up a mountain turned into one of the hardest climbs of the year for me. 

The inner walls of the volcano are steep, sharp and scary looking. They are a mix of large stable rocks with smaller loose rocks and a very fine and slippery sand-pebble mix. Not only was it scary and hard, it took us almost 4 hours to climb down the 600 meters needed to reach the fumarole. Once we reached our final destination it was 2 in the afternoon and I felt completely worn out. I had fallen a couple of times so I was a bit bruised, I was covered in dirt, and my enthusiasm was pretty much gone. I might have even shed a tear or two. And the worst part was knowing that I still had to climb back out of the volcano. 

Usually our climbs up the mountains are "easy" because you climb to the summit and once you are up there and tired all you have to do is walk back down, and walking down a mountain takes a lot less effort than climbing up. This time we climbed up a mountain, down into a crater, back up to the top and back down to the bus. The truth is I felt like giving up more than once. But in cases like these, you can't  give up, it is not an option, you have to continue because you can't stay inside of a volcano for ever, and no one is going to send a helicopter to pick you up unless you are gravely injured. So you have to put all your fear, all your insecurities, and all the pain in your muscles aside. You have to put all that in the back of your head and find a way to keep on going. 

In the end it is worth it. It pushes you out of your comfort zone. It breaks you down. But after it you are left with the satisfaction of knowing that you made it. 

standing on the rim of the caldera

The inner part of the caldera, you can see a larger crater from the 1981 explosion and right next to it a smaller crater from 2002

Climbing down the inner walls of the Volcano

This is what the walls of the caldera look like from the fumarole...the red line is the route we took to reach the craters

Standing right next to the fumarole, probably not the safest or smartest thing to do

Climbing back up the steep and unstable walls of the Volcano

The beautifully sharp peaks that form the walls of the volcano's caldera

The 1999 eruption that darkened our day, covered us with ashes and filled us with fear. I did not take this picture. 

Chuquiragua flowers, found only above 2,600 meters and endemic to Ecuador

Wonderful Cities: Shanghai

I landed in Shanghai on a saturday night, tired, after two days of traveling, to find a city that was not exactly what i had pictured. 

     Instead of the incessant rivers of people crowding the streets I found wide spaces with less people than I thought there would be. The modern city I had heard of was only half there, mixed among older buildings, temples, two floor highways and small alleys. 

     I also learned that the sun set early in the night, at around 6pm, but it also rose early the next day, giving the city dwellers approximately 12 hours of sunlight. In the mornings, as the sun came up, elderly people came out of their apartments and filled parks and plazas. I saw them everywhere doing tai-chi, practicing their instruments, walking and stretching out. 

     As the day goes by in Shanghai, the city starts to wake up; bicycles and motorcycles crowd every intersection and fill every available parking space on the sidewalks. None of these vehicles seemed new, in fact many seemed rusty and held together by magical forces. Some of them were so loaded with boxes and sacks of fruit and vegetables, that I wondered how their riders managed to keep their balance. 

     There were less cars than I expected. 

     The city is huge, and from its highest easily accessible viewpoint, at 474 meters, on the 100th floor of the Shanghai World Financial Center, I could see the city expanding endlessly in every direction. 

Shanghai is believed to have a population of 23million people, but rumors say that it can grow up to 40million during certain times of the year if you count chinese tourists and the illegal immigrants that come from the countryside looking for an opportunity of making it in the city. However you don't really see them on the streets. I believe that this city was planned so that all its inhabitants could get by smoothly without it feeling too crowded, because of this everything seems vast and sort of desolate for such a large city. 

     However the people are there and although the streets are wide, the living and working spaces are small. People's lives pour out into the sidewalks. They hang their clothes to dry out on the streets; sometimes on trees, sometimes on clothes racks placed in the middle of the sidewalks and sometimes even on light posts. In some areas of the cities people's work also happens on the streets, and so you find tailors with their old sewing machines fixing clothes outside of their shops and restaurants cooking right out of their doors. 

     Shanghai is a city of contrasts where rich mix with poor, modern urban locals with countryside immigrants, modern offices in skyscrapers with older residential buildings, atheists with believers; ultimately the old and the new. 

Back to the Mountains

A couple of months have passes since the last time that I climbed a mountain. My original plans were to keep on going to the mountains (and exercising in general) until we began a new mountain season, but plans usually fail and instead I ended up going to parties, barbecues and dinners. I can't complain, it's been a fun summer, but as the summer ends its time to go back to the mountain, more or less.

So the on sunday I got back together with my mountain climbing group, Zona Verde, and we went to the Ilaló. The Ilaló is a small mountain (3,194mt) right between two valleys: Tumbaco and los Chillos. We went up the less frequented route that starts in los Chillos. The climb was pretty easy, not too steep, sunny and it went through a lovely forest. Our first stop was the second highest "peak", also known as the Cumbre de la Cruz. At its top there is a big metal cross which you can see in the pictures and which you can climb up to if you dare. I doubt it is a normal activity to climb up the cross, there aren't any stairs, just the structure that the actual cross is made out of. So if you are careful and you want a great view, climbing up is lots of fun. 

 The cross, the climbing up the cross and the view from the center of the cross

 After a quick stop at the cross we continued to the highest point of the Cerro Ilaló. After that we came back down towards a town called Tingo where we had lunch and then we headed back to quito.

It was a great summer day although maybe too sunny and very dry. You can actually see what the summer has done to the mountains around Quito. If you look at the picture that I took from the top of the cross you can see a dark black area on the left side. That is what is left from one of the summer fires. However, even with the sun, heat and dust it was a great first mountain for the season.  New ones will come in the following weeks, after I come back from my summer vacation in Turkey!

The Cerro Ilaló

VPS #3

I climbed to the top of a mountain and came back down and you were still not there.

VPS # 2

my whole existence asks for love, yet the world doesn't know how to give it

the end of a season

Lake Cuicocha

This season of mountain climbing has come to its end. It feels a bit weird, I had gotten used to getting out of the city and getting away from everything every weekend. I guess I will miss it a lot, but I know I will start again with lots of energy in September. The last two mountains I climbed were the Cotacachi and the Morurco. Cotacachi is a mountain, also known as María Cotacachi de las nieves, which is believed to be Imbabura's lover. It was a lovely walk to the top with a great view of the Cuicocha lake. I didn't actually get up to the highest peak on this climb because I am still terrified of rock climbing, and Cotacachi is known for its vertiginous falls and crumbling rocks. Maybe next time I will dare to go up. This time I stayed with the safer walk up to the second highest peak. It wasn't terribly difficult, but it wasn't easy either. First of all we had to walk through snow for about 20 minutes, which was pretty fun. And then we had to walk up ice, which is a bit scarier because it's so slippery. It was incredibly cold up on our peak so we didn't stay there for too long. It was definitely a lovely mountain.

Getting closer to Cotacachi's peak (not the ones in the picture)

Walking on ice

Then last weekend we went to the Morurco. This is a small mountain on the south side of the Cotopaxi. Now, Cotopaxi is one of the most beautiful mountains around here; I'm so glad I get to see it almost daily from my city. It is also a harder mountain. The whole area surrounding Cotopaxi is made mainly of arenales. My best translation for arenales would be sand fields, even though they are not made of the type of sand you find at the beach; here the earth is very loose and made up of volcanic ash and small rocks, its difficult to walk through and even harder to climb up. On our trip to the Morurco we didn't actually climb the mountain, we just walked all the way around it. It was a beautiful walk, very different from the other mountains we have done. The colors of the earth were spectacular and there was almost no vegetation so all we saw was rocks and more rocks in many different colors. Since the Morurco is right by the Cotopaxi we also got a very close view of the mountain and its glaciers for a moment, then it got a bit cloudy and cold and we didn't get to see much more. 

Cotopaxi and Morurco

I call the Morurco a small mountain because compared to the Cotopaxi it looks relatively small, however the highest point we reached in this mountain was 4,750 meters high and its highest peak is 4,900 meters. This however seems nothing compared to Cotopaxi's 5,897 meters. It was a great walk to close the mountain climbing season. I can't wait for the next one to begin. 

Cotopaxi

The Illinizas 

Walking through the arenal 

cotopaxi

not a good idea

Its probably not a good idea to try to climb a 4,935 meter mountain when you've been sick the day before. Its also probably not a good idea to go to the beach, down to 0 meters above sea level, the week before you attempt to climb the mountain. And it is definitely not a good idea to do absolutely no sort of physical activity while you are at the beach for the weekend the week before climbing the mountain.
That said, however, it is ok to still try to climb the mountain, even if you only make it half way to the top. Luckily for us, mountains don't move around and the mountain will probably still be there in the future if you cant to attempt to climb it again.
The mountain I am talking about is the Sincholahua, I was supposed to climb it on sunday, but for all the reasons stated above I only got halfway there. It was a nice experience though. We reached a point called la Piramide (the pyramid) and well by that point my brother and I weren't fit enough to continue with the rest of the group. So instead of hiking all the way op to the top of the mountain we just stayed there, had some lunch and went back done to where the bus was waiting. Although I was a bit disappointed in not making it to the top, staying behind with my brother was great. I don't see him too often since we don't live in the same country. We don't talk too often because we are usually busy, so it was great to have a whole free day with him.

:)

Maybe in the future I will think about climbing Sincholagua again. Its a tough climb, its quite steep and very long. The rest of the group did the whole walk, up to the top and back down, in approximately 12 hours. So who knows, maybe next time.

Wonderful Cities: Napoli

Napoli, or Naples, is a vibrant city. One moment it is chaotic and energetic and the next it seems like all of its dwellers have fallen under a lethargic spell. When I went there back in 2009 I fell in love with it completely. Maybe it was the fact that I had been a year away from home, and amidst the order and perfection that I found in Europe, Napoli reminded me of the messy cities in South America. It made feel like I had found something I knew very well on the other side of the world.

Rucu Pichincha

Its only tuesday and it feels like its been a really long time since I climbed Rucu Pichincha on sunday. What can I say...it's been a busy week...or a busy monday and tuesday.

I spent most of last week getting psychologically ready for Rucu Pichincha. This is a mountain that everyone who was grown up in quito knows about, we live right below it. Rucu stands 4,660 meters tall, like a king. It is a volcano, but it hasn't been really active in thousands of years. Its son, Guagua Pichincha (quichua for baby pichincha), however did give us a scare back in 1999, covering our streets with ashes for days a couple of times during the year.

Climbing up to the top of Rucu Pichincha doesn't have to be hard. In fact its so close to Quito that it has become a normal place for national and international tourists to go to. And because of that there are easy ways to get up there, including a cable car and a pretty easy path that gets to the top.

Of course we didn't take the easy route. I am not even capable of imagining our guide Jaime ever taking any easy route anywhere. Instead we started out just outside of Quito through the Quebrada de Rumipamba. Where we started we must have been at 2,950 meters, which means that to get to the top of the mountain we climbed up around 1,700 meters. Now that I think about it, that is a lot of climbing, in fact it took us 7 hours to reach the top of the volcano.

We started out here because its quite scenic. The first hour and a half was a really steep climb through very lush vegetation. During this part of the hike I felt like a real explorer. Since its not such a frequented route you really have to push yourself through the forest, pushing aside branches and holding on to whatever you can get a hold of. By the end of the first half hour my hands and arms were covered in scratches and cuts...I guess my skin is just not tough enough. When we finally got out of the forest we started walking through the usual pajonal. I actually like this type of landscape better because you don't have to wrestle against feisty and thorny bushes, and you get to appreciate the scenery a lot more.

At this point we took a short detour to a smaller peak called Cundur Huachana (also known as the Quebrada de los Condores). This peak is 4,100 meters tall and it has a beautiful view of the valley and part of the city below.

We continued on our way, we were supposed to reach a small "cave" where we would meet another group of people who had taken the easier route starting at the Teleférico (the cable car). Once we met up with them we stopped to rest and gather our energy. At that point the whole group would split again. There were two options, you could either go up the Arenal or rock climbing through the Paso de la Muerte (it could be translated into the path of death).

Now the Arenal is much less scary, but it is a bit annoying to climb up that way. Its a desolate area with extremely loose soil so for every step you take you feel like you are falling back 2 steps. Its really much more fun to go down that way than up. However, the Paso de la Muerte is incredibly scary. You start out by climbing on a very rocky side for about an hour. Then you reach the actual Paso de la Muerte which is a short maybe 4 meters long path which is maybe 70 cm wide. And its rocky. And all you have are steep falls on each side. Its a famous spot for rock climbers, you do have to be very careful. I guess most people go across or climb it with ropes. We didn't because as I told you before Jaime is a fan of doing things the harder way. A couple of people have actually died here, but I didn't know about this until after I had crossed, and I am glad because if not I would have freaked out.

Now I can say I have crossed and survived. And I am so glad I decided to go this way and not through the Arenal. In previous posts I have written about my fear of rock climbing, so this was definitely a big step for me. The truth is I was terrified most of the time, but hey I made it across and I am proud of myself.

:D!

After the Paso de la Muerte I thought we would be pretty much close to the peak, but we still had an hour or an hour and a half of climbing to do to get there. So we climbed some more.

After actually getting to the top we had some food, rested for a bit and we started coming down. This time we took the easy way down through the Arenal and then through the path that takes you down to the Teleférico and then we took the cable car to Quito. It was a great day and a great climb.

Taita Imbabura

Legends say that Taita Manuel Imbabura is a wise man who lives in the volcano. Every morning he would wake up early to make sure that everyone did their job. He made sure the river flowed in the right direction, that the wind didn't stop for too long to speak with the mountain trees and that every man and woman were doing their work. People respected his wisdom and feared being punished by the volcano, so they all performed their roles. When Manuel Imbabura was young he would go out at night for peaceful walks. During one of these walks he came upon Maria Isabel Cotacachi and fell in love with her. He visited her often and she fell in love with him and married him. The smaller nearby mountains Yanaurco and Cotacachi are considered their children. 

Taita Imbabura is the king of steep walks. Climbing up felt like being on a step master for 4 hours at more than 4000 meters above sea level with 2 liters of water on my back. However, by now, I do feel a bit more used to climbing mountains and my legs don't hurt as much as the first time.

We left Quito at 5 in the morning and headed towards Otavalo. We went past Otavalo and through a small town called la Esperanza. It was 9:15am when we got off the bus and started climbing. From the very beginning the climb was steep and it only got steeper as we went and I am pretty sure our guide, Jaime, was guiding us at a pretty fast pace. We got to the second highest peak after 3 1/2 hours, or maybe 4. I forgot to look at the time when we made it to the top, I guess I was too concentrated on actually making it there.

The first hour or two were really beautiful because we hadn't gone into the clouds that were covering the higher peaks. From there you could see the valleys down below and even a lake, which I think might have been el Lago San Pablo. I'm not really sure though. Once we got higher up we went into the clouds that were covering the peak. The trail got steeper and rocks started appearing. The final part of the mountain was mostly easy rock climbing. Its too bad there was so much fog, we couldn't really see what surrounded us. Occasionally the fog would clear enough for us to see the shapes of rocky peaks in the distance, and by distance I really mean 10-25 meters.

It was a really enjoyable climb, however the hike back down was a little bit harder and left my knees and ankles a bit sore.

Fear of rocks

Sometimes it doesn't help that I don't have too much free time. Of course, work is part of the issue. I wake up go to work, get home do my Mandarin homework, go to class and come back at night a bit tired and then I busy myself with random things like chatting with friends, reading the news, eating, talking to my parents, etc. If I could I would multiply my hours so that apart from all that I could paint, write, sew and do all sorts of projects that I have in my mind. But then the good thing about being busy is that I don't have too much time to get bored.

However, I wish I had written this post earlier in the week when my thoughts were still fresh. Now I can't even remember what I wanted to say about the weekend.

Last weekend I attempted to climb up my second mountain; this time the Chiles Volcano in the frontier with Colombia. Since this mountain is a bit far from Quito we left on saturday morning towards the north of the country. That day we went just a little bit past a small town called El Angel, which is in the andean paramo. We stayed at the Hosteria Polylepis and it was beautiful. If you don't know what the paramo is like well let me describe it. Its usually very cold and high up in the mountains, but you can only find it between the tropics. Its very humid and it rains a lot all year long. There are different types of paramos and the one we went to is famous for its frailejones. Frailejones are a whole family of plants that grow only in Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. They look like a bunch of fuzzy bunny ears stuck together, and where we went there were tons of these plants everywhere.

That first night at the Hosteria Polylepis we went out for a walk to a nearby waterfall. It was a short muddy walk, but absolutely beautiful. Luckily the place we stayed at rents rubber boots, if not our mountain shoes would have been completely wet the next day and I can't imagine it being fun to climb up a mountain with wet shoes.

After our walk we had trout for dinner and then we went on a night walk with torches before going to sleep. On sunday we woke up around 4:30 am because we still had more or less 2 hours of road to get to the volcano. We might have gotten a bit lost, and the road might have been a bit longer than we expected, but in the end we got to the Chiles and started climbing at 10am.

The climb was a lot easier than the one at the Pasochoa, however we were a bit higher up in altitude. The Pasochoa's peak is at 4199mt above sea level and for the Chiles we started climbing at 4100mt because the highest peak reaches 4720mt.

The hike up started up pretty easily, we went through the pajonal and the frailejones. Then the scenery changed and it was a very wet floor with a thick type of grass...I really don't know how to describe it. Either way it didn't last too long, after a couple of minutes the rocks starting appearing until in the end it was all rock.

Now I know rocks don't seem too scary, but they are, at least to me they are. The climb did get pretty steep at times and the problem with these rocks was that they weren't really set into the mountain, so they kept on falling apart or rolling away and so it was a bit tense most of the time. However I enjoyed it, maybe its masochism...or who knows what because there were a couple of moments when I was pretty scared. But maybe that's just me being silly.

I think I climbed up to 4700 meters...only to the bottom of the second highest peak, and that was it. I chickened out. The truth is the final part of the path, the part that went to the highest peak, looked pretty scary. It was raining and slippery and well I am scared of rocks and heights.

But it was still a very enjoyable climb, and I don't feel bad about not making it to the top. I still got the same rush the next day where all I wanted to do was climb another mountain. So that's what I plan to do, in two days I will be climbing the Imbabura!!!

Wonderful Cities: Paris

I had the chance go to go Paris back in 2008. It was Christmas when I went...and although I've heard Paris is beautiful in the summer, but I have to say it is quite impressive and calm in the winter. Sadly I was only there for 5 days. During that time I pretty much covered most of the touristic sites but I know that if I had stayed there a bit longer I would have gotten a better feel of the actual city...I guess I'll have to go back some day. 

My first mountain

On sunday I climbed my first mountain. Its a little bit embarrassing to admit to it since I have lived in Ecuador pretty much all my life, and this is a country that people from all over the world come to just to climb mountains. But at least now I can say that I've climbed a mountain. The truth is I've been to many mountains here, but this is the first time that I climb all the way to the top.

The whole experience was a lot more difficult that I thought it would be.

We left Quito at 6am and at 8am we got off the bus and started climbing. The first part was pretty easy.

We walked for about an hour and then stopped to rest for a few minutes and to have some food. Then the climb up got a little bit steeper, but still pretty easy and relaxing. Our plan was to go up to the second highest point of the Pasochoa and then the the highest point. After another long hour of climbing we got to our second stop. There the group divided. A couple of people decided to go with one of the guides through an easier route which went directly to the highest point, while the rest of us decided to take the harder way up, this way we could do a little rock climbing along the way.  Now I am not an expert rock climber, in fact, it was only the second time in my life that I was attempting to rock climb. The truth is I was terrified. The wall wasn't exactly vertical, in fact I am pretty sure it was not too steep either, but I am very scared of rock climbing because well all you can do is whip out some strength out of your body and push yourself up, if not the only other option is falling off the mountain which is not exactly the best choice. Once you start climbing, you can't go back down, there is only one way and its up. Luckily I wasn't the only girl practically paralyzed with fear. Two girls who were right behind me were actually crying at a point because they didn't want to keep on climbing. It was scary, and there were moments when I doubted I had the strength to go on. At other times I just wondered why on earth I had decided to climb a mountain, but in the end I was fine. I did get some help along the way from some french guy who knew what he was doing. I am glad he was there, if not I am not sure how I would have made it to the top.

At the end of that rock we were finally at the top of the second highest peak and thats where we took our third break to rest and to have some more food. The view up there is absolutely stunning.

On one side you have the mountain which is actually an extinct volcano, and on the other side there is pretty much a cliff that falls right into the crater. The crater of the Pasochoa is huge, its what's left from an eruption that happened thousands of years ago. It pretty much blew off part of the mountain so that it collapsed into the crater. The inside of the crater is now extremely fertile and full of vegetation. Most of the time you get lots of fog in the inside of the crater so it seems like one side of the mountain vanishes into nothing, but when it clears out all you can see is a dense forest inside, its really beautiful. 

After the second highest point we walked towards the peak of the volcano (the one you see in the photo above). The climb up to that one luckily didn't involve any more rock climbing, because I don't think I would have made it. Once up there we rested a bit, we got an awesome view of the Cotopaxi for just a couple of minutes and we practiced a little bit more rock climbing and some rappelling as well. 

I actually can't believe I did all that, but I am glad I did. I'm not sure if I would do it again, I'm still terrified of rock climbing, but I guess I probably will because nothing beats the feeling of accomplishment once you reach the top of a mountain. 

reboot, refresh, restart.

fresh page, new day.

I might turn out to be the world's most terrible writer....or maybe I am just bad at commitment. It seems like many times when I decide to do something I don't always stick to it. Last time i posted for real around here was more or less 4 months ago. 4 months seems like a long time when I don't write. The truth is its been an odd year or so. Its been a time to change and adapt and try to figure things out, maybe to try to find myself (not that i have accomplished or even gotten close to that).

I've been back home for a year more or less, and although I love Quito and Ecuador, for some reason I haven't been handling moving back here very well.

Its also the first time I actually have a real job. A bit less than a year ago I finished college and started working, and its the longest time i've been in one job and well, its not easy.

Going to work at the same office every day, without major vacations or breaks isn't easy when you are used to the great life you can have as a student. But I'm here and that's what it is.

Of course for a whole year, although i have been here, I haven't really been here. I've been dreaming of buttercups instead going out and planting some real ones. Mostly I've been living in my head, maybe in denial and probably in the past.

But it seems like maybe the time to move on has finally come.

So today I made a pretty big decision...or at least its a pretty big decision for me.

I decided that I need to start climbing up some mountains, because I need a break. I need some change. And of course, I need some distraction. If not I might just go crazy. So I've decided to join a group of mountain climbers here in Ecuador. They go out every weekend to climb a mountain and they have more or less 3 programs every year where they train to go up to different peaks.

I start next weekend and hopefully I will be able to go up Cayambe and the Iliniza Sur at the end of the training. We'll see how it goes. I'm not the most fit person and I'm definitely not the strongest, but I am healthy.

Next sunday I should be going up to the Pasochoa (4199 mt). Its not the highest mountain of course since its just the beginning of the training. We will also be learning a bit about rock climbing since both the Cayambe and the Iliniza Sur require a bit of rock climbing to get to the top.

The truth is the rock climbing is what worries me the most. Last time I tried to go rock climbing with my brother it was a horrible experience. I don't know how I expected to pull myself up a rock wall when I can't even do a full push-up or pull-up, but I guess I am hoping that I will get fit in some magical way and I will be able to go up the final mountains. If I do manage to do this I will be incredibly proud of myself (and so will my brother I am sure). To prepare I decided I am going to do the 5 tibetan rites every morning. And I also installed a pull-up bar in my bathroom doorway (I'm hoping by the end of this I will be able to do at least one pull-up).

We'll see how it goes. Here are a couple of pictures of the mountains I might be climbing in the following months.

Pasochoa 4199mt (extinct volcano)

Chiles 4720mt (active volcano)

Imbabura 4660mt (inactive volcano)

Rucu Pichincha 4698mt (active volcano)

Sincholahua 4919mt

Cotacachi 4935mt (dormant volcano)

Cayambe 5780mt (volcano)

Illiniza Sur 5305mt