Hiking trip

Becca and I had been scouting out a new waterfall for a while, and we found the time to go hike into it today. It was about a 40 minute drive into the Andes from our house. The hike was great, and the waterfalls were amazing! Hopefully Becca will tell of "the accident" in her blog. She writes better than I do, and will convey a little better what happened.

Me and my girls in front of the waterfall...kind of. The mist was really heavy and I couldn't find a suitable place to take a photo without Madison getting soaked. She loves riding along in the backpack, which makes hikes like these all the more enjoyable.

Here is the shot of the big waterfall. It probably has a drop of around 100-120 feet. I hope to go there again, but this time with my swimming trunks on!

Fruit Stand

Traveling anywhere in Ecuador you will see fruit stands of various sizes, with various fruits according to their season. It is always cheap, and usually the quality is good.

Got Milk?

While driving down the mountain from the hot springs we saw this man taking his milk jugs to be sold in town. You see a lot of the "old style" milk industry as you take side roads and explore little hillside villages. Despite the lush greenery seen in the picture, it is very cold in the high country. This picture was taken at around 11,000 feet, and the sun didn't come out very much. The temperature was probably around 45 degrees and very humid with a light mist. Forty-five degrees used to be balmy when we lived in Colorado, but now we are not used to the cool/cold temperatures.

Next gas 200 miles

While away on our little Andean adventure, we went to a hot springs deep within the mountains, and far from anything else. I had plenty of gas to get to the nearest gas stations, one out east into the jungle, or one west back in the Quito area, but I didn't have any "exploring" gas. So, we asked around in the little town where the hot springs is located and found out there is a woman that sells gas. She fills up her 5 gallon jugs of gas and then raises the price around 30% for a total of $2.00 a gallon. No I am not complaining, I know the price of gas for all you "poor" people that live stateside, and I know our gas prices are cheap. Hey, there are some benefits to socialist thought and government subsidies.

Hubo muchos caballos silvestres

As we drove to the back side of Cotopaxi Nat' Park, we came across a lot of wild horses. In total we probably saw about 60-70 horses comprised of around 3 separate herds. Most of them had really long mains and tails, most reaching the ground.

Back home

We made it back from our little trip yesterday afternoon, although we had to park the car a block from our house and walk with all of our stuff to the house, but that is another story and another blog. We had an incredible time, and of course we took pictures. Now that Becca and I both have cameras again, my hard drive might be getting fuller, faster. We only took around 700 pics! With that many, I obviously cannot post all the good ones, of which there are many as well. So, I will start here and from time to time keep putting a picture on.

(click the photo to see the llama grazing and the climber's refuge right below the snow line.)

One of the places we went was Cotopaxi National Park. We had a GREAT time there! Not only is the centerpiece of the park incredible (Cotopaxi Volcano) but so was all the wildlife and the landscapes. We saw wild horses, llamas, awesome birds, Inca ruins, mountain lakes and streams and ancient lava flows (pictures to follow). For the first time in a long time we experienced cold temperatures and very hard wind. Did I mention we couldn't breathe? Most of where we drove had us around 11-12,000 feet. A few years ago when we lived in Colorado this wouldn't have been a big deal, but now we lowlanders get winded doing things above 8,000 feet (only 500 feet higher than our home in Colorado). I am sure we will revisit this nation park. You can drive almost all the way to the climber's refuge, but we thought we would wait until Madison gets a little bigger, being that it lies at around 15,000 feet.

Vacation

This week I am on vacation. Although I have had days off here and there since arriving in Ecuador a year and a half ago, this is our first dedicated, "on purpose," week long vacation. Today we are just hanging around the house, but tomorrow we are off on an adventure. We will be sure to tell about it when we get back this coming weekend, with pictures of course.

Sunset

Like I have said before, living on the equator isn't very conducive to vivid sunsets. But, there were sure some beautiful colors of blue yesterday as the sun went down behind Sangay Volcano.

Lichen?

Brooklyn and I went for a quick walk through the woods yesterday near our house and saw these weird lichens. At least that is what they looked like, except they were huge like only the jungle can make things, the largest being approx. 3 square feet.

Droplets

During a light rain today I caught these water drops forming on our banana plants in our back yard.

From the logbook...

Compared to previous days, Friday was a light day on the flight schedule. I still had 4 hours of flight time and 9 landings, but thankfully the weather didn't put up much of a fight. I still spent a little time in the soup, but nothing like Thursday. Once again, I was taking teachers all over tarnation. I think we have another solid week of flying teachers. On one of the return legs to Shell I also stopped in Capahuari (CAP) to bring out a government medical team.

Usually the community helps carry things to the airplane, and this time even the kids were joining in, helping to carry some paperwork and the tent.

I snapped a quick shot just before loading all of their stuff in CAP. As usual, this medical team was glad to come out of the jungle, especially since it was Friday.

From the logbook...Soup anyone?

One of the common terms that pilot's use to refer to their time flying in the clouds is flying in the soup. I had a big day of flying teachers again yesterday, and a lot of my day was spent flying in the soup. It seemed like my destinations had decent weather, but en route was bad all day long. For my two flights, I had to "shoot" the approach to get back into Shell, my last one which was down to minimums. Four hours of flying will make me tired anyway, but adding all the time in the soup as well definitely makes for sweet dreams.

From the logbook...More teacher flying

I was given a bit of a break today from the flight schedule. Things were still very busy in the hangar though, keeping flights going as airplanes returned. It was kind of like the pit crews of NASCAR... but different.

Late this afternoon I did make a short flight to a place called Pacayacu (PAC). Once again I had a load full of teachers and a LOT of cargo. Most of the weight was books and school supplies. You can tell by the photo above that the tail of Alas 10 is very close to the ground with the nose wheel almost in the air. ALL airplanes are like big teeter-toters, therefore it is always critical to have your weight balanced correctly or bad things can happen. I was at the very aft limit of my CG (center of gravity) on this flight. With the very capable Cessna 206, there are two ways to determine CG. One is to crunch the numbers and see where it lies. This doesn't take long and it is highly accurate. Usually though, I just use method number two (it's even quicker). To determine the CG, you load your airplane with everything that is going, except yourself. Then you carefully push the tail of the airplane onto the ground. If the tail comes back up on it's own, you are good to go. If the tail just stays there, you better do something different with where your weight is located. This method won't work for many airplanes and it is commonly known and used by many C206 pilots.

From the logbook...Teacher flying

We have been really busy flying literally hundreds of teachers and their cargo into the jungle these past few weeks. Lucky for me I am flying this week instead of flight coordinating. I have been everywhere these past few days, and logged a lot of flight time, and of course, landings. I wanted to share briefly the photo below of a place called Cononaco Bameno (CNC). I have written about it before. This village is home to Waorani Indians, and if your cannot tell by looking at the photo, many of them are still very "natural." Much of this is due to their isolation. They live about 140 miles from Shell, and there are not even any nearby roads for them. Everything is either transported by airplanes or rivers.

Sunday drivin'

As usual, we went for a drive this afternoon, after we watched the Denver Bronco's barely beat the Bills. (It was awesome!!!) Here's is a little of what we saw...These are growing in our front planters. For those of you about to loose your hard earned gardens and flowers due to the coming fall and freeze, eat you heart out! :)

Just your "average" roadside jungle flower.

Bromeliads grow everywhere. I am continually amazed by how many different types I see. Truly the handiwork of purpose and design, not happenstance. Did you know pineapples are parts of the bromeliad family?

Here is a shot of the ol' homestead. Our three fruit trees hide most of our house.


Our sweetie sitting in the back of the Bronco as we let our dog Maya run along the car for a while to burn some energy.

Coffee anyone?

On our latest trip to Quito, I shot this B737 leaving for takeoff from our hangar. I guess even the sides of airplanes are billboards now!

Jungle snow

Waking up this morning I found Sangay Volcano finally coming out from under it's cloudy blanket. It was beautiful to see a new and fresh coating of snow on it, drawing the snowy skirt ever closer to the jungle.

Master of the bush

I am coordinating flights again this week so there may not be a lot to talk about flight wise. But, that doesn't mean things aren't exciting from time to time around the hangar. One of our flights today entailed bringing out a patient that was bitten by a snake. The snake was a bushmaster. It is a beautifully nasty animal, and very stunning. Now, if you have been reading lately you will notice a lot of snakes. I am not a snake person! Although, I still marvel at their design and function.Here is a close up of it's awesome head (you can see where it was killed with a wooden rod right behind the skull). The snake came in a sack from the village of Copataza where the bite took place. The snake bite patients always try to bring the biting snake with them to make it easier to positively identify what kind of snake bit them, and the doctors in the hospital can administer the correct medicine/antivenin. I'm not sure why he has paper stuffed into his mouth, but that was fine with me. I have seen "dead" snakes do "lively" things, and a dead poisonous snake can still inject venom.
Here you can see that the snake is longer than I am, or around 7 feet from head to tail. Interestingly enough, we just watched a documentary on TV about this species this past weekend. It is not to be messed with or taken lightly. From what I read on the Wiki link above, and saw on the TV show, the patient we hauled out was lucky to be alive.

Time from bite to arrival at the hospital...around 3 hours.
Time from bite to hospital without airplane service...?

A time to relax

This weekend has been a good one for relaxing. Here are a few photos of what made it nice...

We took a drive yesterday to eat at a place about 40 minutes from our house. To some that may seem like a long drive just to eat, but that is just it. We like the drive, and it helps get us out of the house. Did I mention the food was really good?

The restaurant had a nice garden to stroll though as well. So of course I took pictures. Did you know there are over 25,000 different species of known orchids in the world? That's amazing!


Yesterday on the way home from the restaurant one of the rivers we cross was really flowing. Actually, it is always "really flowing" but I finally stopped to get a picture. Just 50 yards downstream this river dumps into the Pastaza River.


Today Brooklyn and I practiced her bike riding skills on the roof. We rode yesterday as well, and I found something that really helps Brooklyn. I used duct tape and taped her feet to the pedals. Ya, I know that sounds a little...dangerous, but she really got the feel better of what both of her legs should be doing at the same time that way. Before, she would push one pedal down while the other leg hung limp, and the do the same on the other side. She wasn't getting anywhere to fast. Today I joined her riding Becca's bike. It was a great time, and our dog Maya had fun too.