Heading to San Diego

I hadn't paid much attention to the times of my flights to San Diego. I assumed it would be the same early morning flights out of Saskatoon that we usually get. Instead I found that I left at 2:30pm and arrived at 11:30pm. I would have preferred to get there earlier, especially since the ETech conference started first thing Monday morning. Oh well, my own fault for not paying more attention.

On Saturday it had been amazingly warm in Saskatoon - melting temperatures. So I figured I'd be fine wearing sandals to travel, my preference instead of confining my feet to shoes for such a long time. But Sunday it was -17c with nasty winds bringing the wind chill to -30c or more. Too late, I'd already packed my shoes in the bottom of my bag. It's a quick trip to the airport.

For some reason they could only check me in as far as Calgary. That seemed a little odd but not unheard of so I didn't think too much of it. I also had aisle seats on all the flights. Shelley would have been happy but I like to sit by the window so I can look out and take pictures. Luckily they could switch my seat.

Of course, I had arrived at the airport early. I'm a belt and suspenders kind of guy. Maybe working with software development has made me more of a believer in Murphy. Not a problem, I'm already switching to "patience is my middle name" travel mode. To avoid leaving a trail of disposable cups I'd brought my travel cup with me and I filled it with a cup of tea to keep me company while I waited for the flight.

When we eventually boarded the walkway to the plane was freezing - I'd left my winter jacket at home. And then the plane was roasting hot, presumably a result of trying to fight the cold air coming in the open door. I sat down in my window seat and was a little horrified to see a large, wide woman drop into the seat beside me. The middle armrest was up and she overflowed into my space. One of the risks of traveling solo. Just as I was resigning myself to a somewhat "cozy" flight I happened to glance up at the row numbers and realized I was, hallelujah, in the wrong row! I apologized and moved ahead one row to sit beside a thankfully more normal sized person.

It was a clear afternoon, blue sky overhead shading to almost white at the horizon with a little haze. The fields were all white with snow in Saskatchewan but as we got closer to Calgary the snow disappeared. I think we flew over Eagle Creek that I kayaked down last spring. I'll have to compare the pictures I took with the map (or Google Earth).


There was enough haze in Calgary that you could just see the tops of the mountains peeking out. We had to walk down the steps of the plane to the ground and then immediately up a set of stairs to the walkway. All we need was a plank and we could have gone straight across. Luckily it was warmer in Calgary.


I got to practice my calm, relaxed, zen travel attitude early in this trip. I went to the United counter to check in and get my boarding passes for the rest of the trip. Although there was no lineup, no one seemed to want to talk to me so I tried the automated check in. But it refused to recognize me. Eventually I got someone to help me. But they couldn't check me in! I was on the passenger list and I had a seat, but for some reason I didn't have a ticket. Huh? How could I have a seat without a ticket? Because of my flights to Mexico next week my ticket had been booked through Aeromexico, although it was Air Canada and United Airlines flights to and from San Diego. Could I contact my travel agent? Not on a Sunday. They phoned Aeromexico but they just said they had nothing to do with the flights in Canada and the United States. Next they phoned Air Canada who told United not to worry about it, just check me in. But the computer wouldn't allow that. Damn computers :-) Eventually Air Canada issued a paper ticket and somehow that allowed United to check me in. I even managed to change to window seats :-)

Unfortunately, Shelley is flying on a similar itinerary next week to meet me in Mexico. Hopefully the travel agent can straighten things out so she doesn't have the same hassles.

By now my bag had been tirelessly circling the conveyer for some time. Customs was pleasantly uncrowded so I was through in no time. There's not a lot of choices for restaurants in the C terminal but there is a Starbucks so I picked up a latte and even managed to snag one of the few big comfy chairs to sit in while I drank it. The sun was shining through the window and I was on my way - life is good.


It was midnight (2am Saskatoon time) when I finally got to the hotel so I pretty much crashed right away.

Evening Light

Walking home yesterday, the sun was sinking and the light was nice. I took a bunch of pictures but most of them were unremarkable. Here's a few I liked:




My favorite is the first one of the water running over the weir. I'm sure every Saskatoon photographer has numerous photo's of the train bridge. The temperature has warmed up to almost 0c so the ice on the river is melting fast and my fingers don't freeze like at -20c

I took these with the Canon SD700 IS since that's what I keep in my pack for occasions like this. Of course, when I do see something I want to photograph then I wish I had the SLR. But I can't see carrying that in the bottom of my pack all the time!

The photos were tweaked in Lightroom e.g for exposure and contrast. I don't have a very good eye for subtle shading and color adjustments but I think the end result is still a big improvement over the "defaults".

Another Sunrise

Although it's still cold, it is so much nicer to walk to work with the sunrise rather than in the dark.


I think people who live in more "moderate" climates would find Saskatchewan in the winter to be very bleak. But it has an austere beauty. Maybe it's just the fact that you've spent your whole life somewhere that allows you to appreciate its subtleties.

I gave Shelley a hard time about her enjoying the cold, crisp morning the first day we were back from Ecuador. But I did understand what she was talking about and felt some of it myself.

In Saskatchewan, hot weather is something you get for a few short periods in the summer. And when you do you either hide from the heat or rush to talk advantage of it. Either way, it's not "normal".

LightZone

As spring approaches the days get longer and I see the sunrise on the walk to work. Here's a picture I took the other morning. (Unfortunately, the weather is still wintery and I froze my fingers taking pictures at -20c)


I had heard good things about LightZone and they have a free trial so I thought I'd give it a try. Here's what I came up with after a little playing around. This is primarily the "Hard Look" style. It felt the closest to how I remembered the scene.


I tried to recreate the same look in LightRoom but it's not quite the same.

LightZone did a good job of making it darker and more dramatic without losing the detail in the trees.

I'm not sure if I'm ready to spend the money for it but it is a pretty nice tool.

ZENN and the art of slow progress

One of my recurring complaints is gadgets that are only available in the US. But at least it makes a certain amount of sense when they're made in the US. But here's an example where it's made in Canada and it's still only available in the US! (I'm posting it here because of the environmental aspect.)

Ecuador Travel Notes

In case anyone is visiting Ecuador here are some notes about places to stay, eat, and visit.

Note: This is based only on our experience, I'm sure there are lots of other good alternatives.

We enjoyed staying in the old (historic) part of Quito. There are fewer hotels, restaurants, and shopping but we enjoyed walking around the old churches and architecture and plazas instead. And it's only 25 cents on the frequent buses if you want to get to the new part of town.

Hotel Patio Andaluz is where we stayed in old town. The full rate is $200 which is pretty pricey but we got a rate of $113 booking through TravelRes. That's still not cheap but it was a lovely hotel. If you're on a budget there are lots of cheaper places.

On a clear day (mornings seemed to be best) you get some great views from the top of the Teleferico. If you're ambitious you can continue hiking all the way up Rucu Pinchincha.

You also get good views from the Panecillo. You can walk up but it's safer to take a taxi. Based on an internet recommendation we went to Pims (the restaurant near the top) for lunch. We enjoyed it enough we went back for supper to see the night lights.

Other restaurants we enjoyed: Theatrum, Mea Culpa, Tianguez, and also Fruteria for fruit and ice cream. (These are all in old town.) We enjoyed lunches at The Magic Bean and Zocalo in new town.

We also spent one night at Hotel Cafe Cultura which was recommended to me. We didn't think it was quite as nice as Patio Andaluz but still a nice place to stay in the new town.

Hacienda San Jose de El Chaupi is where we stayed before & after climbing Iliniza. To get there you can take the bus to Machachi and then another to El Chaupi and then a "taxi" (pickup truck) to the hacienda. It is possible to just show up but if no one is there it can be tough to find someone to let you in. Better to phone first, although we found that was tricky too. It's pretty basic but for $10 per night per person including a good breakfast it's hard to beat. It's clean and there are hot showers. And the owner, Rodrigo, was extremely helpful.

In Riobamba we stayed at Hotel La Estacion (recommended by Rodrigo) for $24 per night, including breakfast. Again, nothing fancy, but clean and good location. We'd recommend El Delirio restaurant. The guide book recommended Sierra Nevada but we (and the other people that night) had a pretty awful experience. The food took forever and came out in random order. I eventually canceled my main course because Shelley had long ago finished hers. We ordered wine by the glass and it was blatantly watered down. When we pointed this out to the waiter he just shrugged.

We just spent the day in Banos because of the volcano eruptions. We had a good lunch at The Hood "where the food is good". If you like zoos, we enjoyed the one nearby. It's quite a small town but nice - I could see spending a night or two there.

In Otavalo, based on a magazine recommendation we stayed at Hostal Chasqui for $7 per person per night. Nothing fancy, but clean and private bathrooms. It was outside the main downtown area which was nice since it was quieter. And Roberto was extremely helpful, walking us to a nearby restaurant to make sure we found it, and making good recommendations of places to visit.

The big market day in Otavalo is Saturday, but the big difference is quantity. You can get pretty much the same selection any day of the week at the smaller daily market. If you are there on Saturday it's worth checking out the animal market (7 - 9am) where they sell pigs and cattle.

A couple of day trips from Otavalo that we enjoyed were the Peguchi waterfall (taxi or a longish walk) and Laguna Cuicocha (bus to Quiroga, taxi to the lake).

Considering it's reputation as a tourist town, we expected Otavalo to have more tourist restaurants and coffee shops but there didn't seem to be many. Maybe most of the tourists just come on day trips from Quito. For breakfast and coffee we liked SISA. We had a good supper at Quino (although initially we thought it was closed due to a mixup over which was the right door). The restaurant at Hotel El Indio Inn was also quite good. (Not to be confused with the lower end Hotel El Indio.)

We also stayed one night at La Luna about 5 km south of Otavalo (take a taxi). It was very quiet and peaceful here; lots of greenery and great views down the valley. For $12 per person we had a really nice room with our own fireplace that they lit for us in the cool evening. From La Luna we took a taxi to Laguna Mojanda and hiked up Fuya Fuya.

We chose not to visit the coast or the jungle since that would have meant taking malaria medication (and we had enough to do anyway). But we did enjoy visiting the cloud forest. We stayed at Septimo Paraiso, a few kilometers outside Mindo in a private 300 hectare reserve. It was pricey at $100 per person, but at least that included three meals per day. The hotel hired a guide for us for one day for $50. He was great - we wouldn't have seen anywhere near as many birds without him.

There's not much in Mindo itself. The small butterfly farm is worth a visit if you have time. We had coffee and lunch at Caskaffesu. It also looked like a nice place to stay, at least from the outside.

It was easy to get around on the buses and very cheap (a dollar or two). Occasionally they can get crowded but usually they were comfortable. In most cases all you have to do is get to the terminal and say where you want to go and someone will point you to the right bus. (Usually you just pay on the bus - you don't need to buy a ticket in advance.) The only time we had trouble was getting to Mindo and that was because the guide book was out of date and talked about a bus terminal that no longer existed.

Galapagos

There are a lot of companies offering boat trips in Galapagos. It's really the only way to visit most of the islands, which is important because they all have different wildlife. We ended up booking with Ecoventura on a 20 passenger boat with two naturalist guides. Not having experience with anyone else we can't say how they compare but we were certainly happy with our experience. The boat was nice, the food was great, they filled our days with activities, and we got lots of chances to snorkel (which suited us). They're not the cheapest, but they're not the most expensive either. It cost us $2675 each for a 7 night cruise (everything included except alcohol). From what we saw of them, I wouldn't want to go on one of the big 100 passenger ships.

Unlike most cruise clients we chose to stay an extra night on Santa Cruz before the cruise and three nights afterwards. We stayed at Hotel Sol y Mar which we'd recommend. The other place that looked good (from eating in the restaurant) was the Red Mangrove Inn. The Finch Bay Hotel looked nice but it's pretty isolated - you have to take a water taxi to get there. For a nice meal we really like the Angermeyer Point restaurant. Living so far away from the ocean, I like to sleep and eat near the beach if I can!

Books

Before the trip we enjoyed browsing through the Insight Guide for Ecuador & Galapagos with lots of pictures and background information. During the trip the Lonely Planet Ecuador & the Galapagos Islands was more useful with its lists of hotels and restaurants.

Before the trip I enjoyed: Galapagos Diary, Galapagos: The Islands that Changed the World, and the Traveller' Wildlife Guide for Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. On the trip we carried Lonely Planet's Watching Wildlife: Galapagos Islands and the Pocket Naturalist Guide to Galapagos Wildlife. We could have used a better guide to the fish and other underwater wildlife.

For an interesting look at the human side of Galapagos, I enjoyed Plundering Paradise. I also liked Lonesome George.

For climbing we used Ecuador: A Climbing Guide.

For help with the language we carried Lonely Planet's Latin American Spanish Phrasebook.

Ecuador Photography Notes

For cameras we carried the Canon SD700 IS and the new Pentax K10D with the Tamron 18 - 250mm lens (equivalent to 27 - 375mm, almost 14x).

This was the first trip I'd taken the big SLR. The weight and size were certainly a change from the Canon S3 IS. It also seemed more awkward and take longer to get it out and put it away, but maybe I'll get used to that. I really enjoyed the lack of shutter lag. You wouldn't think it would make that much difference but it was great. The only time there was a delay was when the auto-focus was having trouble and it would refuse to shoot. (e.g. when trying to follow birds in flight) There is a setting so it shoots even if it hasn't got focus which might be ok if you had enough depth of focus.

I don't think the image stabilization on the K10 is quite as good as the S3. That might be because the S3 is optical. But I still think it's valuable, especially with the long telephoto.

The 27mm wide end of the Tamron lens was wider than I'm used to. I actually found myself using it quite a bit to take in large scenes.

One of the reasons I wanted an SLR was for the manual focus. Especially in the forest, automatic focus can be tricky. I fought with the S3 quite a lot trying to get it to focus on what I wanted. For closeups with the K10 I often set the focus to the minimum distance and then moved the camera in and out to focus (e.g. for insects).

I didn't carry a tripod or a monopod. There were lots of times when it would have helped but I'm not (yet) motivated enough to lug one around.

I shot raw with the K10 in DNG format. This results in image files of about 16mb each. That meant about 240 shots per 4gb SD card. I brought four 4 gb cards, which seemed like a lot, but I filled up a card many days, and some days more than one card. In comparison, the SD700 jpeg's are only about 3mb each so memory was much less of an issue.

One of the reasons to shoot raw is to have more latitude in "developing" the photos. So far I haven't noticed a huge difference, but I haven't done side by side comparisons either.

I knew I wouldn't have enough memory for the whole trip so I took my MacBook and downloaded periodically. Since I was reusing the memory cards this still left me with only one copy of the photos - not so good if the laptop was stolen or crashed - so I burnt dvd's as well. I took 10 blank dvd's thinking 40 gb of storage would be lots, but I ended up having to buy more blank dvd's and ended up with 14 in total. We shot about 4100 photos in a month. That seems like a lot, but with digital there's no reason not to shoot lots and have a better chance of getting something decent. The only downside is that you have to look through all those photos but with good tools like Lightroom that's not too bad.

This system worked reasonably well, but burning dvd's is slow and the dvd's themselves are somewhat fragile. Next time I think I'll try taking an external USB hard drive and backing up to that. Lightroom will even do the backup automatically as it imports the photos, saving a step.

Another option would be to use something like the Epson P-5000 Photo Viewer 80GB Digital Photo Storage Viewer. But that still wouldn't give me a backup unless I used it as well as the laptop, but that would mean downloading the photos twice.

Although it's a nuisance to carry and charge the laptop, it was great to be able to look at the photos on a good screen and to have Lightroom to do sorting and minor tweaks and then upload to the web (using the Picasa Lightroom plugin).

It's a little scary carrying around thousands of dollars worth of cameras and computer. I guess that's what insurance is for!

I used the waterproof case for the SD700 IS for snorkeling and diving. Near the end of the trip it started to leak while we were snorkeling. Luckily only a few drops of water got in and the camera was ok. If it had leaked while diving I would guess that would be the end of the camera. I assume I just need to replace the main o-ring seal but I'll have to test it since it could be one of the smaller seals on the controls, which I don't think are replaceable. I'm hoping I get the replacement o-ring from Canon's service department before I head to Baja in March.

Adventurous Couples

Check out WestJet's in-flight Up magazine article on "adventurous couples". Shelley and I are on the last page.

One funny part of this was that we were contacted by a local photographer who had been assigned to take pictures of us doing "our sport". When we told him our sport was mountain climbing he understood why that might be difficult in Saskatoon! Besides, we were leaving right away for a trip to the mountains. This worked out well since they got a photographer from Calgary who met us out in Kananaskis and we got some pictures in the mountains.

Ecuador 2008 Part 5 - Galapagos

(Shelley's writing this again while Andrew deals with the pictures)

We flew out to Galapagos a day ahead of the rest of our group -- despite resistance from our tour company. They wanted to herd everyone together -- we wanted to get our bearings and arrange some diving for Andrew when we were done the cruise. Our hotel, Sol y Mar, was right on the water, the deck and room balconies were colorful with bright yellow and blue chairs. There's a pool on the deck area and when we checked in we were told not to panic if the neighborhood sea lion jumped in the pool with us! As we sat on the deck the sea lion was there along with a few marine iguanas, pelicans and great blue herons. We saw our first blue footed boobie on the roof of the dining area and the hotel also has a resident pelican with only one wing. He still seems to have a pretty good life here! (Although he has to hop up the steps to get from the water to the deck.)

Anyway, back to the cruise -- Andrew and I don't "herd" very well as you can imagine, nor are we the big group type of sociable people. In fact, we were going into this part of the adventure with great trepidation. So far the tour groups we'd seen had either been high school age teens on school trips or filled with people considerably older than us and each seemed to have at least one loud opinionated person who would have driven us crazy by the end of a full day with them.

We were very pleasantly surprised to find a wide range of ages and nationalities in our group, and everyone seemed to be quite fit. All had traveled quite extensively so it was fun to hear about places they'd been to. There were 20 of us ranging in age from 11 to, I'm guessing, 60's. Of the twenty of us, six were Swiss, four from England, six Americans, and four were Canadian (the other two were from Vancouver and related to and traveling with one of the Swiss couples). The 11 year old, Isaac, at first reminded me a bit of Andrew. Skinny, dark hair, he was traveling with his Dad and his favorite subjects in school are science and reading. Within the first hour on the boat the two of them were engaged in a game of checkers. Although I'm sure Andrew probably wasn't (isn't!) as outgoing - Isaac provided us with much entertainment throughout the week!

We had nine crew members plus our two naturalist guides, Janet and Paul -- both Ecuadorians who spoke quite good English. The nine crew seemed a bit excessive at first but when you consider three meals a day for 20 people, transporting us on and off the various islands, boat maintenance, and night shifts when we traveled from one island to another, it's understandable.

The boat we were on was called Flamingo I. The company, Ecoventura, has three similar boats and all three were more or less on the same schedule. When we first started searching the Internet for cruises it was almost mind boggling the number of different companies there are. We narrowed it down based on their eco-friendliness and then Ecoventura was the one that had room for us at a price we could handle. We also lucked out with a really good schedule. The Park Service dictates who goes where and when -- we had a good route and also seemed to be the first ones off at each location we went to. There were usually three or four other boats with us, including the two other Ecoventura boats.

Sunday -- We started the trip near Baltra, where the airport is. Buses took us to the dock where the boats were waiting and we rode by panga (zodiacs) to the boat. The two pangas stayed with the boat all week (being winched up and secured to the side when not transporting us on and off the islands). The seating in the waiting area of the dock was already occupied by sleeping sea lions! Once on the boat, it took a while for us to get going as they gave us plenty of time to get unpacked, have a briefing, have a safety drill, etc. Our first stop was a small island called Mosquera where there were lots of sea lions. Some very big males which got quite irritated when people got too close, and smaller ones still suckling on their moms. Also a few marine iguana and different types of birds. It was very hot and absolutely no shade!

Each night before supper either Janet or Paul would give us a briefing about what we were doing the next day. Sitting still for an hour as the boat rocked seemed to make both Andrew and I a little queasy by the time supper was served. Andrew missed two meals during the week and I only picked at mine the first few days.

Monday -- Overnight we traveled to Genovesa Island which is quite far north. This island is one of only two where the red footed boobie lives. In the morning we went to Darwin's Bar and toured around for a bit. Saw lots of the red footed boobies and their babies. The babies are quite funny because they look like furry little puff balls. As they get older they look almost as big as the adults only have this mess of fuzz instead of proper feathers. We also saw quite a few frigates with the red front but it wasn't puffed out like it will be in March during mating season. We snorkeled off the beach and the visibility wasn't great but still saw lots of fish and Andrew and a few others saw a small shark about 4-5 feet long.

In the afternoon we moved to another area of Genovesa called Prince Philips Steps -- after none other than Prince Philip who visited a few years ago. This area of the island is quite rocky with black lava and therefore very hot. Again, no shade! Lots more baby boobies with the parents taking turns providing shade for them. They move their throats really fast to cool themselves off. The highlight was finding an owl near the end -- this area is known for them so we were looking the whole time and finally found one under an overhang in a fissure of the lava.

Of course I couldn't take any longer than the second day to sunburn myself! Even though I put sunscreen on twice, my arms got fried. Not many people escaped some sort of redness either on arms or legs. [Andrew - Some of us wore long sleeves and long pants, despite the heat!]

Tuesday -- We went to Fernandino Island and landed at Espinosa Point. This is the island known for marine iguanas and flightless cormorants. It's the youngest of the islands (about 700,000 years old) so again lots of hot black lava. Thank goodness for a bit of breeze off the water! The cormorants have huge webbed feet. The iguanas blend in quite well with the lava so you have to be careful not to step on them! As we stood looking at the cormorants I suddenly realized there were literally hundreds of iguanas on the rock right beside us!

In the afternoon we moved to Isabela Island, Tagus Cove. We snorkeled from the pangas but the water was really cold and rough so we didn't see a whole lot due to the murky water. The new and interesting animal here was the penguins. Very small and not as many as we thought there would be but many of the penguins died in the warmer water during el Nino in 1996-97. It was still pretty cool to see them sitting on the rocks and have them zip by you in the water.

After a quick look at Darwin Lake and a panga ride around the Cove to get a closer look at the penguins and other birds on the rocks we were off again!

Wednesday -- At Santiago Island, Egas Port, we started the day with a short walk to see the tide pools where the fur sea lions hang out. (All the sea lions we had seen up to now were Galapagos sea lions.) We then got to snorkel off the beach and today the snorkeling was absolutely amazing!!! Within a couple minutes of being in the water Andrew spotted a sea turtle. He kept telling me to come over to where he was, but I was enthralled with the sea turtle that I'd spotted! Then all of a sudden there were five within sight. We followed them for ages and they let us get really close and touch their shells. It was so cool!

Then we saw two big octopus that looked like they were fighting it out, all wrapped together and turning this way and that. Either fighting or having sex! There were also a few big sting rays sitting on the bottom. And this doesn't even begin to cover the abundant, big and beautiful fish.

As we came back toward the shore, the sea lions had to get their share of the attention as well. They were so playful! Swimming all around us, coming right at us and then darting away, hamming it up for the camera. I kept getting water in my mask because I was laughing at them! It was great fun!

The only really annoying thing is that Andrew had handed me the underwater camera shortly before the sea lions and I thought it was already on. Turns out it wasn't and all the "photos" I took of the sea lions didn't exist! I was more than a little angry at myself!! Oh well.

We got back on the boat for a three hour ride to Bartolome Island and part way through the captain called us all to the sun deck to see the dolphins. He circled around for quite some time and it was fabulous to see all the dolphins jumping in and out of the water and following the boat around and around.

It was about this time that I was playing a game with Isaac to help pass the time and he said to me "You sure say 'eh' a lot." I told him that's how we talk in Canada. He wanted to know if it was pronounced eh, (as a statement) or eh? (as a question) so I explained the fine art of how to say 'eh' in Canada. He said if you live in Texas you have to learn how to say y'all. From then on it was a challenge to use the words eh and y'all in the same sentence. Hilarious!

We snorkeled again in the afternoon and although the visibility wasn't as good we still saw lots -- a shark about 5 feet long, the most humungous starfish we've ever seen including a chocolate chip star fish (they're yellow with brown spots that look like chocolate chips), sting rays and schools of hundreds of smaller fish.

Then we climbed the "mountain" -- which actually had stairs all the way to the top -- and got great views of Pinnacle Rock which is the view you see on most postcards or photos advertising Galapagos and was the site of the Galapagos scenes in the movie "Master and Commander" starring Russell Crowe.

Thursday -- Back at Santa Cruz Island today and Andrew and Martin, one of the other guys from our boat, went diving while the rest of us when to Rancho Primiso where the giant tortoises roam in the wild (along with all the tourists). It was extremely hot and again very little shade but it was cool to the see these huge beasts!

Then it was off to the lava tunnels (huge underground tunnels causes by lava flows a million or so years ago) and to Los Gemelos, the twin craters.

In the afternoon we went to the Charles Darwin Research Station where Lonesome George and Super Diego reside. George is the last of his species. They've been trying for years to get him to mate with one of the female turtles of a similar species but George isn't interested. On the other hand, Diego's species were almost wiped out in Galapagos so they brought him from the San Diego zoo to try to revive the species. And he's been so active (resulting in literally thousands of babies) that now they call him Super Diego.

The thing I really didn't like about today was the feeling of being one of the masses of tourists. Bus loads being herded here and herded there; look at this, look at that; get back on the bus, go to another location and do it again. Ugh.

[Andrew - The diving was great - saw Hammerhead and Black-tipped sharks, Spotted Eagle Rays, Manta Rays, turtles, and lots of fish. Although Martin and I had similar experience, he got put in the experienced group and I got put in the beginner group. We think when he said "fifteen dives" they heard "fifty" and when I said "fourteen" they heard "four"! I'd call myself a beginner but the other people in my group had no dives other than their courses. They ended up having a fair bit of difficulty and I wasted part of each dive sitting on the bottom keeping an eye on people while the guide sorted out the problems.]

Friday -- Very rough seas last night! When I asked Andrew how he survived the night . . . turns out he hadn't even noticed how rough it was and slept right through it. Typical!

At Isla Espanola we snorkeled most of the morning from the very beautiful white sand beach of Gardner Bay. In the afternoon we went to Punta Suarez for a very rocky hike. Here the iguanas are much more colorful -- bright green and red and are nicknamed Christmas iguanas. There were some great blow holes near the shore (water shooting up high through holes in the rocks due to the waves crashing against the shore) and some really beautiful birds flying around. The white tailed tropic birds were everyone's favorites.

When we got back to the boat we had time to go for a quick swim. A few people, instigated by Isaac, jumped off the sun deck of the boat. It's a big jump! I took the wimpy route down the ladder.

Saturday -- San Cristobal Island today, landing at Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, the capital city of Galapagos (although not as big or as touristy as Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz). This is where the cruise was supposed to start but the airport here is closed for renovations so all flights go into Baltra and that's where the cruises are starting from. We stopped at the Interpretation Center before heading inland to La Galapaguera, where they are trying to reintroduce the giant tortoises to the south part of the island. We had a bit of time to wander in town for a bit before heading back to the boat and moving on to Ochoa Beach for our last snorkeling of the cruise. Saw another octopus really close up. Huge eye! There were a few sea lions as well but one big male patrolling the shallow waters near shore so we didn't dare play with them too much.

We cruised past Kicker or "sleeping lion" rock which is supposed to look like a sleeping African lion and most other people managed to figure it out but I just didn't see it.

We had a really awesome final supper of jumbo prawns. We sat with Isaac and his dad, Jeff, this night but unfortunately this was one of Andrew's nauseous non-supper nights so he didn't last long. Isaac abandoned us soon after as he was grossed out by the entire prawn (head & eyes included) starring up at him from the plate. He did come back for dessert though!

Sunday -- We were up early and the staff almost kicked us off the boat! Well, they let us have breakfast first. They had to get ready for the next crew of people who would be starting their cruise later that morning/afternoon. Everyone else was heading back to Quito or Guayaquil but Andrew and I headed back to Sol y Mar in Puerto Ayora. We couldn't check in till noon so we left our bags and went back to the Charles Darwin Center for Andrew to have a look around. Much nicer this time with only us and a couple other families. And we got a much better view of Lonesome George. He was out in the open and when the big arm of a cactus came crashing down to the ground he lifted up his head to have a good look around and try to figure out what was happening.

Monday -- Andrew had diving lined up again today but it didn't happen. They had canceled because not enough people had signed up and another company we tried had a full load already. He was still feeling a little queasy and had been debating whether or not to go so the decision was taken out of his hands. We wandered some of the back streets while it was still cool (relatively speaking). Some really nice streets with bougainvillea and hibiscus and other colorful plants lining the walls and sidewalks. We spent the rest of the morning on the hotel deck, lazily reading our books, napping, and being amused by the antics of the iguanas, pelicans and herons.

Tuesday -- After breakfast we took a water taxi to Angermeyer Point and walked to Los Greitas for snorkeling. It was a small grotto area which had extremely cold water! but by far the clearest we'd been in. It was quite deep and we could see right down to the bottom. It was incredible with the sun rays shining down through the water and the big, brightly colored parrot fish. The best part was that we had the place to ourselves for a short time. In the afternoon we went to yet another snorkeling area, Garrapatera beach, where the water was shallow and incredibly warm! Funny how it differs so dramatically from one place to another.

Since it was our last night in Galapagos we went to the fancy Angermeyer Point restaurant for supper. The most entertaining part was the little geckos that were scrambling around the deck railings. [Andrew - I'd been looking for the geckos but this was the first and only time we saw them.] As we were eating dessert one of them got brave and crawled onto the table. He seemed to really enjoy licking some spilled fruit from dessert! We were passing the camera back and forth between us and the gecko didn't budge from his spot! Then he got even braver and climbed up onto the plate. I refused to let him get to the brownie before we did. We were exclaiming over him and pointing at the plate -- the staff came over to see what was wrong. They laughed but I'm sure they thought we were crazy!

As we walked down to the dock to leave we saw a lava heron with something in its beak. We thought it had caught a fish but upon closer inspection it was a gecko! The poor little thing put up a good fight but didn't last long before the heron gulped it down.

Wednesday and Thursday -- airports and airplanes. Flying back to Quito and then home. What a great trip we've had! [Andrew - Some excitement when the plane stopped in Guayaquil and was greeted by a fire truck and guys in full silver fire suits. Some of the passengers had seen flames coming from the wing! But after a few minutes the firemen left and we continued on in the same plane! Somehow I think it might have been taken more seriously in Canada or the US!]

Friday - Minus 22 C this morning in Saskatoon and I have to admit that I grumbled a bit as I put on my long underwear for the ½ hour walk to work. But then, when I got to the riverbank trail just 3 blocks from home and briskly headed toward downtown, I suddenly looked up and took in the view, breathed in the cold crisp air and thought “This is so awesome!!!” It's wonderful to be home! [Andrew - but Shelley conveniently managed to avoid the walk home with the wind-chill at something like -50!]



As usual, click on the slideshow to get a bigger version.

Ecuador 2008 Part 4 - Galapagos

We just got back from a 7 night boat cruise around the Galapagos islands. This was the first "organized" trip that we´ve gone on and we were a bit concerned about what kind of group we´d be stuck with, and whether it would be organized to our liking. But it´s really the only way to see Galapagos so we took a chance. Thankfully it turned out really well. We had a great group of mostly like minded people and our guides and boat crew were excellent. It´s been very hot - hiking on bare lava in the glaring sun is enough to roast even a heat loving person. Of course, I doubt we´ll get much sympathy from those of you left at home in the Saskatchewan winter!

We´ll add more detail and photos when we get a chance, but I will say that we were definitely not disappointed. Despite the problems it has had, Galapagos is still an amazing place. Where else do you have marine iguanas, great blue herons, blue footed boobies (yes, that´s a real bird), and sea lions sharing the deck of your hotel, and that´s in town! We saw an incredible variety of birds, reptiles, fish, etc. The snorkeling was great - a "bad" snorkel might only include sting rays, sea turtles, sea lions, and a zillion tropical fish.

Nonetheless, we are glad to be off the boat. The weather was good and the water was relatively calm, but we both were vaguely sea sick quite a bit. Two nights I had to skip supper because I was on the verge of losing my lunch. And the worst part is that reading is pretty much out of the question, which led to serious withdrawal on both our parts!

Ecuador 2008 Part 3

This post is written by Shelley. The deal was that I would sort through all the photos and she'd write up what we'd been doing. We took over 900 photos in 6 days. We used to figure two rolls of 36 per week. Digital has made quite a difference!

Shelley -- It's my turn to deal with the written posting. The side effect of Andrew having a super duper fancy dancy new camera is that he's filled four humongous (4 gb) memory cards with photos in only a week and now has to sort through them!

Heading north to Otavalo, the landscape is a little bit different than south. Rather than a somewhat straight road through the valley with mountains on either side, here the roads go up and down, in and around deep gorges -- emphasized by a fast and crazy bus driver!

We stayed at Hostel Chasqui, a place that Andrew's sister, Penny, had read about in a travel magazine. It cost $7 per person and although not fancy you can clearly see they are making the effort to fix it up and keep it clean. Our host, Roberto, was very nice and spoke just enough English, combined with our limited Spanish, to give us a brief rundown of the area and make some good suggestions on things to see and do and where to eat. Although the big market day is Saturday, even the rest of the week there's a big square stuffed with stall after stall of sweaters, paintings, weavings, jewelry and other crafts. We bought a few things just so we could do so in relative peace, expecting that tomorrow (Saturday) will be a zoo.

And we were mostly right. We started Saturday at the animal market just on the edge of town. There was a mass of people with ropes/halters around their pigs, piglets, cows and sheep, just standing around. It took us a while to figure things out. There's no auction as we would expect; the people holding the animals are the sellers, the people wandering are either buyers or gringo tourists. The buyers make their offer, go buy a new halter from a rope seller, come back and receive their bill of sale and their animal. I'm kicking myself for not going and finding out how much a cow in Ecuador is worth -- I know my Dad will ask!

Andrew had two interesting experiences at the markets. On Friday he was looking at some paintings at one of stalls and the traditionally dressed lady was giving him the sales pitch when she suddenly reached deep down the front of her shirt, digs around for a bit, pulls out a cell phone and says "un momento por favor" and proceeds to chat away to someone else. It just seemed so out of place! Then at the animal market a women with two young children in tow and carrying a third in a sling in front of her starts chatting him up; asking where he's from, how long he's been in Ecuador (Andrew did a great job of this whole conversation in Spanish!); she shows a photo of herself in front of a weaving loom and the oldest child starts pulling out scarves and belts out of a bag. Then, in the middle of all this, without batting an eye she reaches into the front of her blouse, pulls out a big floppy boob and sticks it in the baby's mouth! I'm afraid that ended the sales pitch!

In addition to the big open square, the Saturday market stretched about 7 or 8 blocks long, stalls on both sides of the street, plus most of the side streets a block in either direction. We'd had enough after a couple hours and took a bus and taxi to the relative peace of Laguna de Cuicocha, a beautiful lake formed from a collapsed volcanic crater and surrounded by steep and natural greenery.

On Sunday we headed to a hostal, La Luna ($12 per night per person), about 4 km from Otavalo. Incredible surroundings! Lots of hills and trees, streams and waterfalls - a bit like Switzerland. And very peaceful. Our little cabin overlooked a valley and from a nearby viewpoint you could see down onto Otavalo. The food here was awesome too! We had the most yummy salads with ingredients from their organic garden. Andrew also had more friendly dogs to play with. It gets chilly in the evenings up here but we had our own personal fireplace in our room to keep us toasty warm.

From there we got a taxi to drive us up to Laguna de Mojanda from where we could climb to the top of Fuya Fuya (4200m), another of the volcanic mountains. Pretty straight forward hiking other than the very long grass near the bottom that trips a person up with almost every step and a bit of rather serious scrambling near the top of each of the two peaks (we climbed them both). The odd good view of the lake but cloudy for the most part. Once down, we hiked back to the hostel. It was 11 km downhill which normally wouldn't seem like much but the road was all small rough stones which were very hard to walk on as our feet/ankles twisted a different way with each step. Luckily there were short stretches of grass and gravel along the edge of the road which meant we only felt half crippled by the time we got back. On the positive side, we got more incredible views of the valleys and farmland and could stop whenever we wanted to take photos. I've determined there are some very hard core cows around here! A Canadian cow wouldn't walk all the way up these big hills when the grass at the bottom looks just as good!

We made a quick trip back to Quito and then took a bus to Mindo; into the cloud forest area. We stayed at a place called Septimo Paraiso (Seventh Heaven) Cloud Forest Reserve. Again, food was incredible and to the point of being too much! We went for a hike on one of the trails when we first got there and it started raining but we barely got wet because the forest canopy was so thick! Lots of interesting and different plants, a few frogs, lots of spiders, and even an armadillo!

The next day we hired a guide to show us around. Danny is 25 years old and has been guiding (for bird watchers) for eight years. We spent five hours with him and he did an absolutely incredible job of finding birds for us to see. There's no way we would have spotted them without his help. He also told us the names of many of the trees and flowers and the use of them for medicine, roofing materials, jewelry, etc. We were extremely lucky on this day because it only rained for a few minutes. The next morning was an absolute downpour! Of course the almost constant mist/drizzle/rain is what makes it a cloud forest.

Back in Quito now. Last night we happened across an exhibit of prize-winning World Press photographs. They were very good but also very disturbing -- lots of war torn and natural disaster areas. We spent today shopping, working on this blog, going through photos, and finalizing details for Galapagos. Heading there tomorrow!

PS. We didn't book any of these hotels in advance - one of the benefits of traveling in the "off" season is that we could just show up and pretty much count on getting a room. Combined with $2 or $3 long distance bus fares it makes it very easy to move around.

Here are the photos. Sorry, over a hundred - didn't have time to filter them more. Feel free to skip over the bugs and flowers!



As usual, click on the slide show to see a bigger version.

Ecuador 2008 Part 2

Thursday morning we headed out from Quito. Took a taxi to the bus terminal with a certain amount of confusion over which bus terminal and which part of the bus terminal. But the taxi driver took us inside and handed us over to someone else who eventually led us to our bus. We got on and the bus left a few minutes later. Maybe it´s just coincidence but that has been the pattern for every bus ride - they seem to leave as soon as we get on. Maybe because there are frequent buses and they are directing us to the next one to leave.

We took the bus to Machachi for 75 cents each, spending the first 30 minutes of the 45 minute ride just getting out of Quito. Our climbing guidebook said we had to walk down the street to transfer to the bus to El Chaupi, but the bus dropped us off immediately behind the next bus so it was an easy transfer. It was 50 cents each for the bus ride to El Chaupi, where, as the guidebook said, there were ¨taxis¨waiting. Actually, pick up trucks - more suitable vehicles for the rough roads out here. This was the most expensive part of the trip - $2 to go the last few kilometers to Hacienda San Jose El Chaupi.

We had tried, with the hotels help, to phone ahead and book at the hacienda but we weren´t sure it it had worked. Probably not, since there was no one around except for three exceptionally friendly and dirty dogs. We wandered around the farm giving strokes and belly rubs to the dogs and meeting the pigs, sheep, chickens, cows, and ducks. We finally met Juan, the caretaker who waved us inside the hacienda but didn´t speak any English so we weren´t sure what was up. We hung out and finally started cooking our supper in the kitchen. At this point two more climbers showed up and Juan appeared with a cell phone with Rodrigo, the owner, on the line. He told us to make ourselves at home and he would come in the morning to make us breakfast and then drive us up to the start of the trail into the Ilinizas.

Rodrigo showed up to make us a great breakfast of eggs, bread, jam, tea, coffee, juice, and fresh milk from the farm. After breakfast he drove us up to the end of the road at La Virgin. (There are a surprising number of virgins here!)

The end of the road is about 4000m. (The hacienda is at about 3450m.) There is a hut at 4600m but that is quite a big jump from the hacienda so we camped at about 4400m, at the bottom of the N.E. face route. A descending guide told us it was "too hard" to go up the N.E. face, that it is a descent route, but it didn't look too bad to us.

Shelley even ate supper - a good sign. (Appetite is one of the first things you lose at altitude.) We set our alarms for 4am and got away about 5:30 under mostly clear skies. At breakfast Shelley said she figured she'd be puking sooner or later but I hoped this was the usual altitude plus godawful early morning rather than altitude. I was optimistic when she set a blistering pace for the first few hours of about 300m vertical per hour. That may not sound like much but up this high it's a good pace. [Shelley: The reason I was setting a fast pace wasn't because I was feeling good, it was in hopes of reaching the summit before puking!]

We reached the ridge line after about two hours and joined the normal route. It was still early and the tracks in the snow were pretty frozen and icy. The last 100m of scrambling (5.3 according to the guidebook) made me a little nervous because it was quite icy and we didn't have crampons, just ice axes. But we made the summit (about 5100m) by about 8:30 am.

This was luckily the clearest day we'd had yet and we got good views of Cotapaxi (second highest mountain in Ecuador) across the valley.

Unfortunately, Shelley's breakfast prediction came true and just below the summit on the way down she vomited up her breakfast. So much for my wishful thinking that this time she'd be ok at altitude.

On the positive side, the N.E. face is a quick descent route an once we were past the icy scrambling at the top we descended quickly. Back at our camp we relaxed for a bit. It was pretty obvious Shelley wasn't going to be up for the higher and more difficult South peak the next day so we decided to go down and catch a ride with Rodrigo who was picking up some other people at 3pm.

Unfortunately, although we got down about 2:30, we missed Rodrigo. We put up our tent, expecting to have to spend the night at the end of the road, but a German couple came down and gave us a ride to El Chaupi where we got a taxi back to the hacienda. There was no one around but eventually we found Juan (the caretaker) and he let us in.

As the saying goes, "the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglay". Obviously, with Shelley's altitude issues we weren't going to be able to climb Cotopaxi and Chimborazo as planned. We decided we'd go to Riobamba for a few days and then come back and climb a few of the lower peaks like Corazon and Ruminahui.

So the next morning, after another great breakfast, Rodrigo drove us down to El Chaupi where we took several buses to Riobamba where we checked into Hotel El Estacion (Station Hotel) that Rodrigo has recommended. It was $24 per night including breakfast and well worth it.

Just as we arrived a parade passed by - very colorful. Later in the day another parade went by the coffee shop where we were sitting. Sunday must be parade day.

That night we ate at El Delirio in a building where Simon Bolivar (the "liberator" of Ecuador) had written a poem to Chimborazo. We had a great meal and the restaurant was delightful with a tiny courtyard full of plants and a giant tree, and the interior decorated with local arts and crafts.

The next day we wandered around Riobamba. It doesn't seem to be a very touristy town. The few tourists we did meet seemed to be the hard-core, traveling for a year types.

On the 15th we took the bus to Banos. Originally we thought we couldn't go the Banos because the nearby volcano, Tungarahui, was erupting and they were evacuating. But things seemed to have settled down so we decided to visit for the day. Banos is an interesting little town, definitely touristy, but with a "hippie" flavor. We at lunch at a place called "The Hood" ("where the food is good"), at a table under a large mural of Ganesh (the Hindu elephant god).

We spent most of our time in Banos at the Eco-Zoo. Most of the time we were there we were the only visitors - it was nice to have the place to ourselves. One of the highlights was the escaped monkeys. We weren't sure if the zoo staff knew the monkeys were on the loose. The monkeys were delightful and very friendly. One of them followed us around and kept trying to climb up our pant legs and jump onto our shoulders and heads!

From Banos it should have been a simple bus ride back to El Chaupi. Unfortunately, our plans got derailed once more. Just about when we reached El Chaupi there was a big accident on the highway and we ended up sitting in the bus, stalled in traffic for over 2 hours. And then when we did get moving, the driver forgot to stop for us and we didn't realize till too late. So we ended up back in Quito instead of at the hacienda (where we had left our climbing gear). It ended up being a 6 hour bus trip instead of 3. Luckily the Patio Andaluz had a room and they even gave us the same rate as we'd got from the internet.

So much for our plans to climb a bit more around El Chaupi. We wanted to be back in Quito on Thurs. so that Fri. we could go north to Otavalo to see the big Sat. market. By the time we got back to El Chaupi we would have just had to turn around and come back. We managed to contact Rodrigo and he kindly brought our climbing gear back to Quito for us.

Wed. we wandered around town, confirmed our Galapagos trip and went to the Vivarium (small zoo in Carolina Park). But we would have rather been out in the mountains.

Thurs. we took the Teleferico up to 4000m from Quito at about 3000m. From there we hiked up Rucu Pichincha, about 4700m high. It was a good hike with a bit of scrambling near the top. The weather was a little better than it has been - we actually got a bit of sun - but for much of the time we were buried inside clouds. Shelley felt a little queasy by the top but felt better by the time we descended.

Today (Friday) we're taking the bus to Otavalo for the Saturday market and hopefully to do a little climbing around there.

Ecuador 2008 Part 1

It was a long day getting to Quito, Ecuador from Saskatoon, Canada. We were up about 3 am after not much sleep to catch an early flight to Calgary where we went through customs and grabbed a latte. Then to Houston. The sun was just coming up as we left Calgary and I took about a hundred pictures of the fantastic views (partly due to "new camera" syndrome). Late lunch in Houston and then the last leg to Quito. No views this time as it was cloudy and then got dark. Arrived in Quito with, thankfully, all our bags, cleared customs and caught a taxi to our hotel, arriving about midnight (11 am our time) - a 20 hour day.

The hotel isn't obvious from the street, just a big double door and small windows. Luckily the taxi driver knew where it was. It was all dark and closed when we arrived, but they opened up as soon as we pulled up.

I was a little nervous about our reservation. When I originally contacted them they said they had no rooms. But then I found I could book the hotel through a German travel site (TravelRes.com) for half the price. It seemed almost too good to be true but seemed legitimate. And it worked - the hotel had our room waiting for us. Even an upstairs room as I had requested based on recommendations on the internet. A little bizarre booking a hotel in Quito, Ecuador from Saskatoon, Canada via a web site in Germany!

The hotel is beautiful inside - the rooms are around two large courtyards with glass roofs. Our room was two levels - a living room with a desk on the main floor and a spiral staircase to the second floor with the bedroom and bathroom. Even chocolates on the pillows! The staff all seem to speak quite a bit of English and have been very friendly and helpful.

I have been trying to use my very small amounts of Spanish with mixed results. Our room number is 203. The first time I asked for it I said "dos cien" - wrong. Next time I was closer with "dos cientos y tres", although even then they couldn't understand my pronunciation. Finally I got it more or less right with "doscientos tres" and was rewarded with the room key instead of a blank look.

Shelley is pretty excited to be here. It's been a long time (2004) since she's been on a longer trip and Quito is reminiscent of our other trips to developing countries. Crowded cities, small run down taxis that rattle as they drive over cobblestones and potholes, black smelly exhaust fumes coming out of many vehicles, jammed like sardines on the local buses, not understanding the local language, guessing at what you're getting for lunch based on the one word in the menu description that you understand . . . it's awesome! At least no one has offered us guinea pig yet! (Supposedly a local specialty, although I suspect that the "specialty" is shocking tourists.) It's also nice that, unlike Kathmandu, the locals aren't harassing us all the time to buy tiger balm or miniature violins!

Yesterday, we started our first day by walking along "La Ronda", an old narrow street with interesting buildings. Then we took a taxi up to La Virgin del Panecillo which is up on a high hill with fantastic 360 views of Quito. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy so couldn't see Cotopaxi and some of the other mountains that are visible on a clear day. Went to Pim's where we could continue to enjoy the great views while we enjoyed a glass of wine with our lunch. (We know how to "rough" it!) We both got slightly sunburned despite it being mostly cloudy and despite saying at one point "we should put on some sun screen". You'd think after this many years we'd learn to put sunscreen on regardless when we're up high. (Quito is at roughly 10,000 feet.)

We're ready to go climbing now. There's a grocery store right beside the hotel so that was easy. We got fuel canisters for our camping stove at a climbing shop, some good cheese and bread from a deli & bakery. Of course it seems like we've got way too much stuff! We're hoping we can just leave Quito for the next couple weeks and move from mountain to mountain without too much trouble. Negotiating the local buses will be "interesting" to say the least. But when it's only a dollar or two per bus ride, one can hardly complain too much!



(Click on the slide show to view a larger version.)

Tomorrow I'll Be

half way round the world.
Not literally, but near enough.
"Inconceivable"
as they'd say in The Princess Bride.
I can never quite believe
that the rest of the world
goes on, carries on, without me.
Shouldn't Saskatoon
hibernate and hold it's breath
while I perambulate?
And do all those other places
really need to exist
outside of the guidebooks
when I'm at home?
It seems terribly wasteful,
in my self centered view.

Striking Photographs

Check out Nick Brandt's striking photography of African animals.

Tips for Climbing Photographers

Picture Perfect: 10 Tips to Take Better Expedition Photos

Turtle Antics

I've always been a turtle fan, but until Millie my only pet turtle had been a rather slow moving tortoise (land turtle). I didn't expect much different when I inherited Millie, a red eared slider, from my niece (originally a temporary thing, but it seems to be becoming more permanent). But Millie (originally Milton, until we decided it was a female) turned out to be quite entertaining. I'm not sure if this is true of all red eared sliders or whether Millie has more "character" than usual. She is definitely energetic - spending large amounts of her day swimming, digging, climbing, trying to lever the filter off the side of the tank, etc. She's quite attentive to what's going on outside as well. When she sees me get out her blue feeding tub she goes nuts swimming and splashing and trying to get to the food. Of course, she also spends a fair bit of time sunning and sleeping, but even that can be entertaining because of her goofy poses. As I was eating breakfast yesterday she settled to the bottom in this pose:

She stayed in this pose long enough for me to go and get my camera. At first she appeared to be sleeping (eyes closed) but as I moved around taking pictures she opened her eyes and gave me a look as if to say "What?"

The cute 1" baby turtles you see in pet stores are also red eared sliders. What many people don't realize is that they live a long time (30 years?) and get quite large - up to about 12". Millie has grown noticeably over the few years I've had her and she's probably 8" or 9" long now. (I know, I should be metric!) She was originally in a 20 gal tank which I quite soon replaced with a 50 gal. Now that's started to seem small for her and I've been looking at 90 gal tanks (or bigger). One downside of these turtles is that they should probably be renamed "turd-les" since they produce quite large quantities of crap, usually shortly after you clean the tank. Keeping the tank clean requires a fair bit of work.

A "Suggestion" to MEC

This has been bugging me for a while and I finally got around to sending them an email:

It would be REALLY nice if MEC would start carrying smaller pants sizes. You used to carry 28" waist, now the smallest you normally carry is 30" which is what used to be called 32" - but unlike much of the population I haven't added 4" to my waist.

I realize the population is getting fatter, and MEC is catering to a wider audience, but surely to goodness I'm not the only skinny MEC customer!

I could understand not stocking many of the smaller sizes, but not offering them at all seems plain wrong.

Ice Climbing Trip

We haven't been out ice climbing for a few years so we decided to head out. The first day we went to King Creek in Kananaskis where there are three short, easy ice climbs to warm up on. It was a beautiful day - about -6c and no wind. We had rented some newer ice tools to try out - Black Diamond Vipers. It was the first time we had gone "leashless". The tools and being leashless were great, although the thought of dropping a tool still makes me a little nervous!



The next day we did a longer route - Sinatra Falls, also in Kananaskis. It was nice and sunny and we were expecting similar temperatures as the day before. We were a little shocked when it turned out to be closer to -30c. It's actually not too bad if you can keep moving but standing belaying gets chilly, even with a down jacket.

Unfortunately, part way through the climb my left wrist got extremely painful. I wasn't sure what had happened, just assumed I had tweaked it somehow, perhaps not noticing because of the cold. The next day it was just as painful and swollen so we stopped in at emergency in Canmore. We arrived with coffees and books ready for the kind of wait we would have in Saskatoon, but we were the only ones there and got in right away. They figured it was tendinitis, although it was a bit unusual to appear so suddenly. So now I'm in a half cast and on anti-inflamatories for two weeks, and that was the end of my ice climbing for this trip.

I finally decided to take the plunge and on our way through Calgary I picked up a Pentax K10D digital SLR with a Tamron 18-250mm lens (35mm equivalent to 27-375mm). I chose the K10D for a variety of reasons - weatherproof sealed body, anti-shake, and raw DNG format. From the reviews it seemed to be good quality for the price. Having the anti-shake in the body means it works with any lens, not just expensive image stabilized lenses. The lens is relatively new - you may have seen recent ads for it. It's almost a 14 x range. It's fairly slow (f/3.5-6.3) but gets decent reviews for quality. Since my current shooting style doesn't include carrying or switching to different lenses, this gives me the same flexibility I've come to count on with my Canon S3 IS.

I can't believe how many separate buttons and controls there are! It's definitely going to take some getting used to, as will the size and weight. But I'm looking forward to shooting raw and having more room to adjust in Lightroom. After being away from SLR's for so long, there's something very satisfying about that solid "clunk" as the mirror flips up when you take a shot. And it's really nice to have a much shorter lag when you press the shutter release. Here a couple of photos taken with it:

I'm looking forward to using it on our trip to Ecuador and Galapagos in January.

Travel Books

Longitude Books Best of 2007

Sunrise on the Walk to Work

Beautiful Photographs

Have a look at Elizabeth Carmel's web site

Cypress Hills for the Prairie Pitch

I just got back from 6 days in the Cypress Hills, checking it out as a possible location for a future Prairie Pitch Adventure Race.

On the way down I stopped in Swift Current to gas up and asked if there was a coffee shop in town with espresso and lattes. The attendant said there was but he couldn't remember the name or where it was exactly. He gave me general directions and I headed downtown. When I got there I realized this was the same place where I'd been told the best they had was Tim Hortons (when I was on my way back from Colorado). Which was correct? I was just about to give up when I saw the Urban Ground Coffeehouse, which turned out to be quite a classy place with hardwood floors and black leather couches. I'm not the only one excited! In case you're looking for it, it's at 167 Central Avenue North. It was busy when I stopped there about 3pm - I grabbed the only remaining chair (a single spot in the window). Several people turned away when they found it was full. Obviously there is sufficient demand at the moment. I was annoyed that I hadn't found the place on my way back from Colorado, but it turned out they have only been open for a few weeks. I stopped here a second time and they had sushi for their lunch special (they don't serve much food otherwise). I had the veggie rolls and they were tasty. My only complaint was that they were closed on Sunday when I was heading back to Saskatoon. Too bad, but it appeared the whole of downtown was shut down, not just them. (It was also Remembrance Day, which may have had something to do with it.)

I also discovered a very nice little restaurant in Maple Creek of all places. Nothing against Maple Creek but it's pretty small and not where you'd expect to find a classy restaurant. When I drove by I noticed the white table cloths and wine glasses and figured it was worth checking out. It's called The Star Cafe and Grill (not sure how long this link will be valid). The chef has recently moved here from Rome (yes, Italy). You have to wonder why anyone would move from Rome to Maple Creek, but I'm not complaining. It's in an old turn of the century building and they have done a great job of the interior. I liked the huge abstract landscape painting that one of the partners painted. They didn't have a lot of vegetarian choices but the pasta I had was very tasty. We even tried a bottle of wine from the nearby Cypress Hills Winery (the only winery in Saskatchewan). If you're looking for a nice meal in the Maple Creek area I'd definitely recommend it.

Lots of people had told me how great the Cypress Hills are but I'd never been there. I wasn't disappointed, but I wasn't overwhelmed either. I guess I imagined a bunch of "hills" and instead there's really just one big "hill" or plateau that's been eroded into several pieces and into big gullies. It is a pretty big hill for Saskatchewan - about 200 m (600 ft) high, but not exactly mountainous. The lodgepole pines are a contrast to the usual prairie vegetation, but not all that different from up north.

One issue for the Prairie Pitch is that the area is pretty spread out. Most of the facilities (camping, lodging, etc.) on the Saskatchewan side are in the Center block. But the more interesting terrain seems to be in the West block (and in the adjacent Fort Walsh). And the only decent sized lake is outside the park entirely. So a race here will probably require a fair bit of cycling to get between the areas, although on the positive side, there are fairly interesting off-road routes to use.

So the resort is in the Center block and the West block straddles the Alberta/Saskatchewan border. But where is the "east" block? According to Wikipedia: "The "east block" of the Cypress Hills, situated near Eastend, Saskatchewan, is not part of the park." Strange.

I covered quite a lot of the area and I came up with a reasonable plan for a race. But ... then it turned out that the resort is all booked up for the weekends in September. That's bad news since I'm not sure if there's anywhere else out there with a hall for roughly 200 people.

I was a little disappointed to find that the park is used for grazing cattle. I'm afraid a bunch of dumb cows is not my idea of the great outdoors. (I was going to say "wilderness" but that would be a stretch!) According to the signs the reason for the cattle is to take the place of the buffalo. If you ask me, I'd rather re-introduce buffalo. No doubt there are a million reasons why that's "impossible". (Although they've done it at Old Man on His Back)

I was also disappointed to find "Designated Hunting Trail" signs everywhere. It always seems strange to me that hunting is allowed in provincial parks. I have been told that they "have to" because hunting isn't allowed on much private land. As you can imagine, I don't find that a very convincing argument. There were also signs up for the "Elk Management Hunt". Maybe we could leave the "excess" elk and let them do the grazing instead of cattle. Why do people think they have to "manage" nature? Things worked for a very long time without people "managing" them. A common justification is that we've screwed things up so badly that we have to work to "fix" them. But our track record at "managing" such things is pretty dismal; I suspect in most cases things would have been better off without our meddling. (Along these lines, I just finished The World Without Us - quite an interested read.)

On a more positive note, there were signs for a "Reptile Conservatory". Another somewhat incongruous thing to find in Maple Creek. I didn't have time to check it out and I wasn't even sure they were open but being a reptile fan, I'll have to stop in next time I'm in the area.

Thoughts from the Banff Mountain Festival

For the last 10 years or so Shelley and I have made an annual pilgrimage to the Banff Mountain Book and Film Festivals. We like the book festival best. There are talks by authors, panel discussions, and interviews. It's more personal and interactive than just watching films.

You'd think it would be relaxing to sit and listen and watch for four days, but it gets a bit tiring. We usually make it through all the sessions of the book festival for the first two days but often end up skipping a few of the films in the next two days just to get a chance to stretch our legs and grab a coffee.

One of the presentations was by Ian McAllister, the author of The Last Wild Wolves: Ghosts of the Rain Forest The Great Bear Rain Forest is on the west coast of British Columbia and is the largest remaining temperate rain forest. He had fantastic pictures of wolves and bears and rugged coast. But he also had stories of lumber companies clear-cutting swaths of land and trophy hunters slaughtering wolves and bears. These stories always raise a flood of emotion in me, a mix of anger, guilt, anguish, sadness. Part of me wants to kill myself just to escape being a member of such a human race. I start to understand the monks who immolate themselves in protest over the foul actions of mankind. Another part of me wants to lash out, take action, fight, get revenge. I want to join Edward Abbey's monkey wrench gang and sabotage the clear-cutting machinery. Or take up hunting myself. Hunting seems to be a good way to wipe out species. Maybe we could hunt the trophy hunters and endanger their kind. According to Ian, roughly 80% of people agree with stopping trophy hunting. What happened to democracy?

Geoff Powter's interview was supposed to be with Jim Bridwell but apparently they wouldn't let him into Canada. But I enjoyed Krzysztof Wielicki instead. I've always been amazed by the winter Himalayan climbs by the Polish. 8000 m climbs are hard enough in the summer; I find it hard to imagine what it must be like in the cold dark depths of winter. The Poles are known for "the art of suffering". But it's "good" suffering, "enjoyable" suffering, according to Krzysztof. Later, in a panel discussion, Barry Blanchard voiced a similar sentiment, saying "it doesn't have to be fun to be fun". Shelley and I often joke that you can't really be having "fun" unless you're "miserable". Krzysztof is 57 and still climbing hard. He says he has to keep tackling the winter Himalayan ascents because he can't find anyone else to take over. The "kids" these days don't care so much for the "art of suffering".

One of our favorite films was about 24 hour solo mountain bike racing. Again, I find it hard to imagine biking for 24 hours straight, let alone racing hard. Another favorite was a film about Chris Sharma. He is one of the best rock climbers in the world but it doesn't seem to have gone to his head and he comes across as quite humble and likable. It's hard not to be envious of his lifestyle of traveling and climbing full time.

We also really enjoyed Steph Davis's talk. We bought her recent book - High Infatuation. A film about her husband, Dean Potter was also good. Dean especially, but Steph also, do hard rock climbs solo, with no ropes. Scary stuff. In a film about Dean he describes how he struggles to differentiate fear from premonition - are visions of your broken body simply fear that you should overcome, or are they "intuition" that you should respect. This resonated with me. I still struggle with memories of being overwhelmed by fear on Manaslu. When I talk about it, people assume it must have been a premonition that I was "wise" to obey. But it's hard to believe that when others in the team continued and summited with no problems. I can't help but think it was just plain fear that I should have overcome. I still wonder why it overwhelmed me on that particular climb so much more than any other. You can always find rational reasons not to go up - there really are legitimate dangers - if you really wanted to be rational you wouldn't be there in the first place. When Krzysztof was asked if it was true that Polish climbers were crazy his reply was that all climbing/climbers are crazy when you get right down to it.

Although the festival always gets me psyched up to go climbing, it's also a little depressing to see how minor my own accomplishments are in comparison. I know it's all relative and that it's irrelevant what other people are doing. No matter how good you are at something there's likely someone out there who's better. And I know that to many people, Shelley and my accomplishments are impressive. But I can't help but feel twinges of envy and inferiority.

Of course, the friends I run into at the festival want to know what my next big project is. I've been thinking about Gasherbrum 2 next summer and it seems to have firmed up enough in my mind that I started telling people that's what I was planning. It's another one of the "easy" 8000 m peaks. It would be my 6th 8000 m trip. If I managed to summit it would make my record 3 out of 6. I know it smacks of ego (and insecurity), but I can't help wonder how many Canadians have summited three 8000 peaks (or even two for that matter). I wish Shelley was still able to go to high altitude with me. I do have one possible partner for the trip, but if he falls through I'll go solo again. It seemed to work well for me on Cho Oyu. The political turmoil in Pakistan is a question mark but the risk of a few days passing through Islamabad seems relatively small, especially compared to climbing an 8000m peak!

Shelley and I had been talking about going to Vancouver for a week for our anniversary in early December, but after getting revved up by the festival I suggested maybe we should go to Kananaskis Lodge and ice climb instead. For some reason it's been several years since we've been ice climbing. Part of the reason is that there are only so many moderate ice climbs we're willing to do "off the couch" and it was hard to get excited about climbing them again. But it's been long enough that it seems attractive once more. And it's a fitting anniversary since we stayed at Kananaskis Lodge and ice climbed (at -30c!) for our honeymoon.

And we're still hoping to get to Ecuador in January to climb and to go to Galapagos. We had originally planned to go in November but Shelley had things for work that conflicted. I'm lucky to be in a situation where I can take off pretty much whenever I want.

Blessed Unrest

If you haven't read the book you can get a taste of it here:

Blessed Unrest - Watch The Video