Hurricane Cotopaxi

9-8-08

So we didn't catch anything. And the road we took the bikes on was horrible. First a dirt road which was not very smooth and then a cobblestone road which was obviously not smooth, and not meant for bikes, or cars for that matter (I don't know what could comfortably travel on cobblestone). It was about 3 miles to the river, 3 painful miles. With the altitude and quality of the road we found the stream just in time because my lungs were ready to collapse. It was Unger, me and a couple that was traveling around the world before relocating from Canada to Australia. We have met many people but as expected not many Americans (We are currently riding the bus to Banos with 2 American girls but Americans are a rarity. I would say it is because of the economy but everything is so cheap here that now is the best time to travel) Anyway back to fishing. We finally found the raging river which was about 3 feet wide and maybe 2 feet deep. You can see right to the bottom and there were no fish anywhere. We walked up and down the stream looking and finally just dropped our lines into a deep pool. We got no bites and and decided to leave. Of course Unger tangled his line so we waited for him to untangle it. We rode back, ate lunch consisting of bread and vegetable soup. I took my first shower in 3 days and first hot shower in South America. I took a five minute nap and then read and talked to the other guests for about 2 hours. Dinner was very good BBQ chicken. Unger and I played scrabble after dinner and I crushed him. We went to bed early because in Cotopaxi everybody goes to bed early.

9-9-08

I awoke at 6:30 ready to take our day trip to Cotopaxi Volcano. 8 of us loaded into a pickup truck (four inside and four of us in the bed). It was a miserable hour and half on the same cobblestone road. It was pretty cold and the wind had picked up, so the four of us (Unger, me and the two girls we are with right now) covered ourselves with a blanket from the bed of the truck. We arrived at the base of the volcano and began our ascent. The incline was about 45 degrees and the wind was really picking up. Also there was so much cloud cover we couldn't really see anything. We couldn't look up anyway after about 50 yards because 50-60 mile per hour winds were blowing sleet into our face. The guide said we could turn around and go visit a lake instead. I thought that was a pretty good idea (understand I have never seen weather come even close to this and the guide later told us this was the worst weather he had ever seen up there) but our Australian friends Norman and Hanne were set on making it to the top. Norman is 71 who looks like he is in his 50s. So we continued on through ice and sleet and wind and finally reached the "Refuge", the building where we would be eating lunch. We ate hot soup and bread and at that point discussed going to the glacier about 300 meters further up the mountain. Now my lungs felt like I suffered from asthma and have been smoking a pack a day for years so I chose to stay. Did I mention I have a problem with altitude? But I figure there are plenty of other glaciers to see in the world. Ok, I'm an idiot and I think the altitude prevented at least half of my brain from functioning. Norman, the 71 year old businessman from Australia made it to the glacier. 46 years my senior and he made it and I didn't. I'm a little embarrassed. The highlight of the trip was the Andean wolf about 15 feet off the trail. We went back down the mountain and rushed back to the hostel to collect our bags and take the hour trip to Machachi which is about 15 miles away. I am now on a bus to Banos as stated before with Unger, Brittany, and Michelle (our new American friends). Back to civilization, sort of. It is sad.

"Si Se Puede"

Sorry it has taken so long for an update. It has been a very busy week.

9-6-08

I woke up the next day at 9am. Ate breakfast and just relaxed before the game. By noon we were dressed in our yellow Ecuador jerseys and got to cheer for "our" country against Bolivia. We took the bus about 45 minutes to the stadium. The game was incredible. Ecuador won 3-1 and all 40,000 fans were very happy. After the game we went back to the hostel (not before stopping for empenadas) and were ready to take salsa lessons. Unfortunately only about six of us were dancing, but it was still fun. The teacher said I was good, which as a white guy with 2 left feet, that is quite a compliment. After the dancing I went online to see that Arizona beat mighty Toledo and that made me happy. Although I didn't really want to go out, we decided it was our last night in Quito and went to "No Bar" which is a dance club in the new city (aka Gringo Landia). Without going into details it was a good night, followed by an awful 9am wakeup.

9-7-08

We packed up and took a truck the 30 miles to Cotopaxi Volcano. Two and half hours later (roads are not great here) we arrived at the hostel which has the most incredible view of the entire landscape and the volcano itself. The hostel is the owner's home which he bought about 2 years ago. There are a few bungalows with really comfortable bunk beds. I just basically sat in one of the hammocks most of the day and read and just enjoyed the scenery. The property has chickens, a pig, a sheep, rabbits, turkeys and guinea pig (aka cuy) which I have yet to try. All the food is home cooked and the meals have tasted great so far. We met a German family which we debated on the age of the son and daughter, but we think they were both in their early twenties. We discussed how it was interesting that they were doing a trip and staying in hostels like this, since I don't see many Americans doing something like this. They taught us how to play this card game that was fun. I lost but I was functioning on very little sleep. If I were rested I would have won easily. We went to bed early and now I am sitting writing in my journal about to take the bikes down to the river to go fishing. I'll update when I catch 10 trout. So maybe I will never update.

Ecuadorian Bus Drivers

9-5-08

Today was an interesting day. We woke up and ate our $3.50 breakfast which included French Toast today. We then decided to visit "La Mitad del Mundo" (interestingly there are 2 places that consider themselves the center of the world but the actually center is on the top of a hill with nothing around it). We started by going to one bus station which sent us to another bus station which finally sent us to another station. Now all of this was in Spanish and I got bits and pieces but Unger's Spanish is really good and we definitely were told to go to three different stations. "La Mitad del Mundo" is 30km from Quito which takes about an hour by taxi and 2 hours by bus. The bus costs $0.50 total with one transfer. Naturally we took the bus. Now let me tell you something about Ecuadorian bus drivers; their mentality is "I have the biggest vehicle on the road so you better move out of the way or I will a. run over you or b. pass you going 70mph in the U.S. equivalent to a 25mph zone." We would learn later this mentality applies to all bus drivers. It was not an isolated incident. I guess the fact that we were not locals allowed us to wait for the bus to make a full stop before we got on or off. This generosity does not apply to most, as typically if the bus slows down to 5-10mph to allow passengers on or off, these people are lucky. So of course we were happy when we made it without killing anybody or dying. We first went to the most famous site, took about 20 pictures, bought jerseys for the soccer game (Ecuador vs. Bolivia), had a beer and empenada, and left. We also met a girl from Germany named Silvana who we spent the rest of the day with. We then went to the other museum that claims to be the "real" center of the world. We chose to have a Spanish speaking guide and I actually understood most of what he said so I was happy. The tour consisted of a bunch of different experiments and exhibits with water, sundials, etc. I'm not going into details but it was fun. I will mention we saw a real shrunken human head that was 150 years old and we got to try to shoot a blowdart at a cactus. Based on the fact that if you missed the cactus, and everybody does, you could possibly hit a passing tourist, I don't think this activity will be allowed in the states anytime soon. we then took another bus to the only inhabited crater in the world. We showed up and the fog was so thick you couldn't see more than 20 feet down. Luckily the fog cleared and we were able to see a good amount of the crater. We then left and caught the bus back to Quito. Luckily a passenger told us we had to get off or we would start to go around in a circle. Unluckily we had no idea where we were. So we grabbed some food (corn, mini potatoes, and mystery meat, possibly chicken) and walked in the general direction of the hostel. we found our street and got some more food (chicken skewers and mystery ball of something with something inside; it tasted ok). Got to the hostel, played "pub quiz" aka trivia, lost miserably, then went to an Irish Pub called Finns. Went to bed at 4am. The end...for now

An Interesting Start

9/3/08

Well, after months of planning and waiting, we are finally off. I was up at 4:15am to catch my 7:20 flight out of SFO. I slept the first two hours of my flight and then decided to purchase a movie (Delta now charges $6 for movies also they charge for snacks and basically everything else. Anybody who has seen the Southwest commercial knows what I am talking about.) I arrived in Atlanta 20 minutes early but had to wait for the plane in our gate to depart, so I ended up arriving right on time, which for the airlines these days is very good. I met Unger at his gate and we are now currently waiting for the maintenance guys to repair the telephone. Assuming we arrive safely in Quito I will have more to report (hopefully interesting stuff) later. One thing to add; we finally took off. This plane is really old and loud. I hope the plane can make it the 2600 miles.


9/4/08


Well the good news is that I am writing which means the plane managed to survive the flight (who knows how many more flights the old fellow has left in him). Along with the rattling and other noises the plane still had ashtrays in the bathroom so I´m assuming the plane is more than 20 years old. All in all the flight was ok. (fastfowarding a bit; our taxi driver from the airport told us they are building a new airport outside of the city because the runway is too short. We coincidentally ran into our flight attendant and the two pilots while hiking a volcano in Quito and the pilot told us a story about an Iberian Airlines flight that landed, went straight through the end of the runway and came to a stop about 100 feet from a neighborhood. So now I am extremely happy we landed ok). I got ahead of myself but the story was relevant. Anyway, we arrived at the hostel which for $8/night is pretty nice. The building is very old, and the hallways and ceilings in places are narrow and low, respectively. But the view of Old Town Quito from the fifth floor terrace is incredible. Although the room is clean and bunk beds are actually relatively comfortable, I did not sleep much because some late night revelers were yelling at about 3:30am until about 4:30am. I don´t think the same noise rules apply to hostels as they do to hotels. But once again for $8 it is good. We woke up early and went up to the terrace for a relatively expensive breakfast for Ecuador standards. It was $3.50 all you can eat freshly cooked omelets, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, fruit cups, coffee, and juice. When we saw the price we said "screw it" and decided to splurge a little. After breakfast we hiked up a flight of stairs to a park called Ichimbia. Now I realize although I do exercise regularly, I should be in better shape, but man I was winded. The view was nice but I realize now it was peanuts compared to what we would see later in the day. We decided next we would go to the Basilica in Old Town. We paid the $1 entry fee and climbed to the top of the tower. On the way up we met a one-legged American ex-marine (lets call him George because I don´t think we ever got his name). George was a 61 year old fugitive who could not leave Ecuador. He is traveling in South America for two years and apparently he took a military plane into Ecuador and the guy who checked him into the country said he didn´t need his passport stamped. Well when he tried to leave Ecuador they arrested him. He sat in a holding room for a couple of hours until he decided just to walk out. He caught a lift with a couple of Colombian drug dealers driving over the border and when the police pulled the car over they didn´t even notice George and just arrested the Colombians. Now whether or not there is any truth to this story I don´t know but George seemed like an honest one legged ex-military man. After the Basilica we grabbed some coffee and walked to the main plaza. On the way I experienced the highlight of my day; my first empenada. An empenada is basically a fried piece of dough wrapped around chicken, peas and carrots. It was $1 and it was incredible. This country is really cheap by the way. We then took a taxi over to El Teleferico, which is a gondola($4) up to a hiking path that leads to a volcano. We hiked a little way and ran into a barbed wire fence. We asked a policeman working there if we could continue on and he said just climb under the fence (we found out later that people in this country don´t really view barbed wire as a way of saying "stay out"). Of course being with Unger we had to climb to the top, regardless of the storm clouds drifting our way from every direction. We hiked about a mile when we ran into the flight attendant and pilots. While talking, we saw our first flash of lightning and the pilot told of a previous trip here where he got stuck because of an ice storm. Well Unger kept an eye on the clouds and stated that it looked like it was clearing. So we continued on. About another half mile later my lungs began to feel like anvils and I believe my heart was beating at an unsafe level. So I stopped and sat down in the middle of the path. We were at about 15,000 feet so it is acceptable. Unger continued on. I turned back. an hour or so later we met at the gondola and started our descent down. 5 minutes later the sky opened up and it began to pour. I was right; going to the top was a bad idea. We went back to the hostel, attempted to read a Spanish newspaper, walked down the street and split 3 more empenadas (chicken, meat, and cheese). Did I mention they are really good. We then went into a restaurant and ordered the ¨Desayuno Completo" translated as the complete breakfast. It was 2 fried eggs on top of a piece of steak on a bed of rice with french fries, tomatoes, cucumber and avocado. It cost $2.50 and it was good.

Rewind Six Months

So I was sitting in my cubicle about six months, thinking to myself; I´m 25 years old, what am I doing sitting in a call center for Chase Bank trying to sell home equity loans? Now, unless you have been living in a bubble, six to eight (possibly a little earlier; it doesn´t matter, things were getting bad) months ago was about the time the housing really burst and the economy began to free fall. So now, not only was I doing something I really didn´t want to be doing but also the money I was making from 2007 was no longer going to be going in to my pocket, but instead it would be going into trying to save the bank from completely losing control of its retail finance sector. So I began to discuss with my friend Daniel Unger (who equally hated his job for different reasons) the possibility of just up and leaving Chase and begin to travel. Now ¨"travel" and "no" are two words that do not go together in Unger´s vocabulary so his response of course was ¨"sure, where are we going?" I´m not going to bore you with the details of our discussions but we both wanted to go to a Spanish speaking country and Europe was way too expensive (see above statement about our economy; that especially applies to the value of the dollar), and also a majority of the continent, well all of the continent except on country does not speak Spanish. It just so happened that I had recently found out I was going to have a brother-in-law and he just so happens to be from Chile and so Unger and I began to discuss South America. The more research we did the better idea we got of what we would be able to do. We got a smoking deal on a flight down and flights within the continent and decided one night "screw it, lets buy these tickets and go travel. If we don´t do it now we are going to look back one day and say, "what the hell was I thinking not to take advantage of that opportunity?"" So we looked at each other, clicked submit, yes that is how you book flights in this era, and our fates had been sealed. The six months between six months ago and present went by in a blur, so that is how I´m going to explain them. Gave Chase Bank my notice the day I got back from Puerto Rico (which happened to be an incentive gift from Chase Bank, but we won´t get into that, my mind had been made weeks earlier), packed up the house in Phoenix, Unger (the good friend he is) hopped in a Uhaul truck with my car in tow and the two dogs in the car (it was not inhumane, we left the windows open and stopped frequently), arrived in Monterey, worked for both of my parents for about a month, took an 8 week spanish class, continued working just for my father, went to the gym as much as possible (didn´t help, I´m still out of shape at 14000 feet), celebrated my sister´s wedding (it was a very nice event. Sorry Lisa; I´m not going into more details about it because this is my selfish blog all about me.), and before I knew it I was in a plane from SFO to Atlanta to meet Unger and take our flight down to Quito.

So now you know my story. I will update my blog as often as possible. Disregard grammar because I am basically writing what I´m thinking and I will never have time to make sure my writing abides by MLA (or whatever it is called) standards. I would love to hear from anybody who would like to post a comment, email me at brian.kroopf@gmail.com, or of course there is facebook. There are not a lot of Americans here so any news about anything American or just a hello would be much appreciated.