Heeey all,
Well, it's been another amazing weekend in Ecuador filled with adventure!! Things are going great, especially considering that my Spring Break starts on Thursday this week!! We have the end of this week off, and all of next week. For break, I'll be going to a little town called Santo Domingo to do volunteer work (for about a week), and then to Mindo for the last couple days to visit a cloud forest and hopefully go white-water rafting... or something along those lines. I can't wait!!
So this weekend I had my second Andinismo trip to a volcano called Cayambe. The purpose of the trip was to practice our skills in the snow and ice, to prepare us for our next trip to Cotopaxi!! We left Saturday morning from our University in two jeeps. There were about 15-20 of us, and 5 seat belts per jeep. As you can probably imagine, a two hour long jeep ride with three more people than there are supposed to be in a car was anything but comfortable. You also have to remember that everyone had gear for the snow: ginormous snow boots, tents, sleeping bags, food, lots of clothing, the list goes on and on. So cramming gear and people into the jeeps wasn't exactly easy. Also, I'm pretty sure the whole way there, my butt was not once entirely on a seat. Another thing about the car ride there... a couple weeks ago when writing my email for my last Andinismo trip, I said something about never having been on such a bumpy car ride in my life. Well, the ride up the mountain this weekend beat it, and not by just a little bit. It was, hmmm... interesting.
So after the bumpiest car ride of my life up the mountain, we made it to the refuge!! As always, we didn't stay in the refuge. Tents are better anyway (not to mention, it cost somewhere around 20 bucks for anyone NOT Ecuadorian to stay in the refuge for one night. That's how much a room at the Holiday Inn would probably cost in Ecuador. Pshh). Well anyway, after we set up our tents, we ate dinner, explored around a bit, enjoying the heavenly-like views surrounding us, took many many pictures, and then met back at camp around 4:30 to take off to do some anchor-setting and repelling practice (rock climbing, ehh, stuff). I was particularly happy to learn a bit more about anchors, as that was part of the reason I really wanted to take the class. We also learned a bunch of other mountaineering skills, like how to get out of a crevasse with just a rope and a couple little cords (assuming we would fall into one on our trip?). We practiced this well into the night, until the stars came out and the moon lit up the rocks we were climbing on. There was also a lightning storm that we could see in the distance, behind miles and miles of mountains. It was a gorgeous night.
The next day, we got up around 6:30 to do some more practice in the snow and ice. We ate breakfast, tore down all of our stuff, and put on our harnesses, mountaineering boots, cramp-ons (spikes that hook to the bottom of mountaineering boots), and grabbed our ice picks, and set off for the glacier on Cayambe!! We were pumped. When we got down to the glacier, a few of us realized that we had forgotten our sunglasses at home (one of them being me). CRAP!! My teacher, Diego, sadly told us that without sunglasses, it was too dangerous for our eyes to go onto the glacier (because the strength of the sun that reflects off of the glacier and snow can permanently damage our retinas or something). So, the four of us without glasses stayed at the bottom while everyone else walked up to the glacier. I was absolutely crushed, especially considering that I had heard a rumor that only four people get to climb to the top of Cotopaxi while the others in the group stay at camp (because we only have two guides that can hook two students to them while climbing to the peak). And I was pretty dang sure that without any ice practice at Cayambe, I didn't have any chance of being one of the four people to climb to the top of Cotopaxi. So while I was sitting at the bottom of the glacier devastated, I decided that I was so desperate to join the rest of the group that I would go ask some random Ecuadorians that happened to be nearby if I could rent their sunglasses from them for two hours. They thought I was weird, told me no, then walked away. Oh well, I figured it was worth a shot.
So after about 30 more minutes of trying to think of a way to find sunglasses, or construct some, or SOMETHING, the sun decided to hide behind the clouds!! Diego motioned for us to hike up and join the rest of the group. Hooray!! So we joined the group, learned how to catch ourselves with our picks and boots if we happened to fall down the mountain, and even got to practice it a few times. Then we continued on the glacier, keeping an eye out for crevasses, and came to an ice wall. Yes, then we got to climb it. There's really no word to describe how cool that was (I mean, the wall really wasn't that big, and we weren't strapped in with ropes or anything, but still, I was in heaven). After climbing the ice wall, we hiked back down the glacier, back to the refuge, where we got into our jeeps and headed home.
Well, that's pretty much my weekend in a nutshell!! I'd love to hear back from you all as usual, I hope everything is going wonderfully for you all!!
Abrazos y besos,
Jenna <=D
DO OR DIE
