So, this weekend I got to be the genius who jumps off a bridge. Normally bungee jumping in a third world country might not be the best idea... but this is Ecuador- what's the worst that could happen? On the far side of Tumbaco, on a 250ish foot bridge, and bungee jumping company had set up shop, so 7 of us GAIAS kids decided to give it a go. Needless to say, we were all a bit hesitant, and I am truly impressed with Whitney's choice to go first. On the pedestrian walkway on the side of the bridge, the company has the cable, and a little wooden platform mounted on the railing, so that we could suit up in a full body harness and jump off one at a time. When it was my turn to leap, I had hoped to do some epic swan dive off the platform. That definitely did not happen. When the countdown hit 1, it was more along the lines of flailing as I jumped. My first real glance at what I was doing was while I was still high in the fall, with the rope looped below me, and out of my sign, making it seem like I was completely free falling, and that my life was about to turn poorly. As I reached to bottom of the fall, the rope caught me and I swung under the bridge, heading for the far side in a long arc. By this point, I was fairly confident that I wasn’t going to die, and I started to enjoy myself! The lack of downward movement was rather important to that… For a while, I swung below the bridge, halfway between the metal framework above me and the Rio Chincha below, nestled in the narrow and surprisingly steep canyon. After I stopped moving, I quite enjoyed hanging above the river, 100 feet up. It reminded me a lot of working at zip-line park, just a tad bit higher up.
Today, I decided that 80m wasn’t enough, and decided to go higher- hiking up to 4,698 meters up the side of Rucu Pichincha, one of the two peaks (and, more importantly, the non-volcanically active one) of the mountain that overlooks Quito. Four of us decided to make the hike after it was suggested by our soon-to-be geology professor, so this morning we got up early, met at USFQ, then headed up to Quito to ride the teleferico, the lift rising thousands of feet above the city to the shoulder of Pichincha. The majority of the hike was over cold, wind-blown grass, all uphill with several steep uphill segments. As we got closer to the summit, clouds moved in, covering the mountain in fog so that we could only see a few hundred feet, at most, in all directions. The first sign of things to come was when we had to climb out over an expanse of rock that replaced a section of trail where it was too steep for soil to cling to the mountain side. Shortly beyond that, the path disappeared into a sharply angled field of sand, I suppose the remnants of a massive landslide. We would have had to blindly climb the sand, if some passing Ecuadorian hikers hadn’t invited us to join them on their push to the summit. With the front of their group hidden in the fog, we followed them on a path around the sand, until we reached the rocky ridgeline of the mountain. On the ridge, the mountain fell quickly away into the fog, hiding the danger on both sides of the narrow ridge. Eventually, we were forced to leave the ridge, and hike slightly below the ridgeline, over the rocks on its eastern side, clambering over the rock face drenched in fog. Finally, we returned to the ridge at the summit, where a wooden sign marks the location. Though a little further down the ridge seemed suspiciously higher…. After being disappointed by an unripe mango, we began the trek back down, which seemed more harrowing than the hike up. At least going up, you can see where you’re putting your feet. After we passed the rocks, we returned to the sandy slope
And, of course, the dogs. A brown mutt and a beautiful husky had accompanied us since we met up with the Ecuadorians, so we assumed the dogs were theirs. Apparently they were just strays, who liked the company of the hikers on the trek for the summit, and had no problems summiting the steep face of the mountain. Unfortunately, theirs was a search for scraps, not adventure.
not usually the face of a stray. rocking out the david bowie, different collored eyes look
Aww. Dems some cute strays.
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