I'm still alive !

Hey Readers!

Another month has slipped away so quickly! From the way I blog it must seem that I'm either super busy or I don't enjoy it. I can tell you the truth of the matter is we are "super busy". In the past month we've made it back to California from Ecuador. We are living once again in our beautiful lodge in Bass lake. Spring break has already gone and passed. I spent my first few days of spring break and my friend Sammy's house in LA. About the middle of the week I took a train to a town just outside of San Fransisco. Where I stayed with my second cousin and his wife. Both places I felt very warmly welcomed and comfortable with lots of food at my disposal. =)

This is picture is of me and Michael at one of his neighbour's houses. His neighbour has a collection of home made aluminum figures in his front yard.

We've ran into a few small scheduling problems in the first few weeks back. The first week we were home we had a major snow storm. Devastating our electricity in Base lake. These pictures are from the week of beautiful but devastating snow that kept our living fun and unique for a week.

Luckily, after the second day of no electricity, Tom who lives about 20 minutes away, invited us over to his house. We stayed with his family for the rest of the week and weekend. On the weekend the Smith's had to go into Fresno. I tagged along to hang out with Ryan their 15 yearold son. Me and Ryan spent four hours at restaurant called Papa Johns. Lets just say, it's all you can eat pizza and ice cream including numerous T.V.'s segwade to sports channels. Enough said right? Last week was also a little differently scheduled. We only had class for two days early in the week and then had the rest of the week off. Tom and his family decided to travel to Malibu so we didn't have to much class going on. But there was still alot to do with due papers and readings. This week we're finally starting to settle into a schedule again. There's been lots of studying and hard work going on in Bass Lake. We have a bunch of papers due again in a week before we leave on our two and a half week outdoor excursion. Here's me and Bekah at our finest, enjoying the outdoors and deep in study.

This week we've been studying, reading and living a life of Spiritual Disciplines. Currently we are reading a book by Dallas Willard entitled "The Spirit of Disciplines". Our week has been contemplating how our inward life of disciplines really effects our outward living. As Christians we are in pursuit of the Kingdom of God to become more Christlike in God's eyes. These disciplines are not ways of showing others that we follow God but ways to direct our inward spirt to our outward reality. Let's be like Christ, believing and acting with our whole bodies in complete surrenderence to Jesus Christ.

Cayambe the highest point on the Equator!

Where do I start?

It’s been another couple wonderful and challenging weeks in Ecuador. Three weeks ago, we climbed Cayambe, the tallest point on the equator. Our team included Henri (an Ecuadorian mountain guide), Bryce (Ecuador summit instructor), Kelly, Bekah and I. Early in the afternoon, after a bumpy 2 hour drive in Henri’s Toyota Land cruiser, we arrived at the mountain hut! The hut sits at 15,000 feet looking out towards the peak of Cayambe.


The Refuge of Mt. Cayambe
The view from the refuge
looking towards the top

Our sleeping quarters

We spent the afternoon eating, playing cards and farting (a negative part of the high elevation experience)! After dinner, at around 5pm we went to bed. Our group woke up at 11pm. To climb Cayambe safely, you must climb while the suns down. We gathered all our gear, put our head lamps on and walked out into the dark cold evening air.

The evening was really clear and the moon shone almost bright enough that we didn’t need our head lamps. About every hour we took a break from hiking and stopped for water. Finally, at about 6:30am, we looked up at the summit of Mt. Cayambe. I thought to myself there’s no way I’m going to make it up that. Kelli decided she couldn’t go on because of altitude sickness. Brice and her turned around to go down. Bekah and I continued the tough uphill ascent.

This looked alot more intimidating in real life!

We climbed straight up for about 10 or 15 minutes. Each step we were carefully digging our crampons and ice axe into the snow. Finally, we reached a spot where Henry had us sit down on a high ledge and wait as he climbed around the ridge. Once he was at the top, he tugged on the rope connecting us to him. We began climbing straight up again for another 10-15 minutes. At the top, where Henry stood, pulling the rope as we came up, the mountain leveled out but it wasn’t the top yet. We continued on a flat straight path until Henry stopped suddenly. He began examining the snow around him using his ice axe to check the strength and thickness of the glacier. There was a deep crevasse ahead. He drew a line in the snow and told us to jump as far as we could from the line. We all made it over the crevasse with no problem and continued on a 30 percent incline. After another 15-20 minutes of walking we made it to the top of the peak. My final feelings didn’t even matter once we reached the top. As my jaw dropped at the wonderful view, we looked out at the rugged terrain of Ecuador. The sun was just beginning to rise, the day was clear and mountain peaks were in sight every way you could look. There was a warm glowing and inspiring feeling stirring in me.




Henry informed us as soon as the sun warms up the snow begins to shift and therefore we didn’t have very much time to get comfortable at the top. We descended the 8 hour summit in 2 hours. After getting to the bottom we were all warn out and ready to sleep for the 3 hour drive home. Except to our surprise, we ran into a little problem on the bumpy mountain ride down. Henry get stuck driving in a rut immediately he cranked his wheel to get out. And the land cruiser veered straight into an earthy wall on the mountain road. The whole left alignment was in a deep rut and the truck was leaning on the wall. We all stood looking at the damage unsure of what to do. Finally, Henry started looking at how we could get out of the rut. The truck looked really stuck and we weren’t sure how we’d get it out. No vehicles passed by for two hours because we were still on a desert mountain road far from civilization. We worked for those two hours collecting stones and using our ice axes to scrap away the dirt from underneath the axels. Then Henry got back into his truck thru the passenger door. I didn’t even think the truck would move but to my surprise he drove right out of the rut. The damage wasn’t even very bad. The mirror was pushed in but that was easy to fix. And the front bumper had a few dents. Finally, we were on our way home again. And I was able to get a good sleep once we got off the scary, bumpy mountain road.

A before and after shot of the Land cruiser stuck!

Time is ticking in Ecuador!

We have spent the majority of our past week in Conocoto, what a blast! Both, Bekah and I stayed with two different loving families in the area. My middle-upper class family, lives in a beautiful four bedroom home in a gated community. Marco, the father is an auto mechanic and his wife Mariana is an accountant. They have one daughter, Sara, who’s in school for architecture and an aunt and nephew who also live in their home. They were very kind and hospitable. I was very thankful that Sara knew some English because I know very little Spanish.

Parts of our host families

In the mornings, Sara drove us a couple minutes to the Orphanage. Ben and Kelly joined us each day. A few hours every morning we learned Spanish, at our teacher, Secilia’s home. I began to become overloaded with information. By the evening I could barely remember how to say simple greetings. It was especially hard for me because I haven’t had any Spanish classes before and in language studies there are many things to memorize and repeat.
For lunch and the afternoon we were assigned a Casa “home” to join. In each Casa there are about 10 orphans and a mother to care for them. They were all very lively and loving children. The language barrier definitely made it hard for me to communicate with them. But the young children were loads of fun, tickling, cuddling and laughing all the time. In the evenings we went back to our host families.
The first day, Bekah came over with some of her family. We watched the popular movie “Twilight” and later on in the evening, later being 9pm, they decided to take us into Quito, to see the city lights. Bekah and I, knowing that Spanish class would be awaiting us in the morning but both having a sense of adventure decided to go for it anyways. The next few nights were very similar late nights and early mornings. We spent a great deal of time together with both families in the evenings. Usually supper took place around 8-9pm. This is very typical for the average Ecuadorian family. There was always plenty of food to go around and we’re always offered more.
The last night, the girls dragged me and Ben to a dance class. This turned out to be more of an aerobics class! Ben and I decided it was still pretty feminine and we probably wouldn’t do it again. Although we all did get a great workout in! It was sad to say goodbye to our families’ and to the Happiness Foundation on Friday. We made many great relationships and have many great memories in Conocoto.
This weekend we climbed Iliniza Norte! Everything went extremely well, we were blessed with the safety from great guides and all of us stayed predominantly healthy. Although we didn’t have the best weather it wasn’t the absolute worst either! I had no idea what to expect when mountain climbing. It definitely gave me some fear and scare to see how exposed we were to the mountains edge.

Bekah and I on the mountains edge!

Our team ready for the climb!

We are recovering for the next few days here at OMS. On Thursday, we are setting out for the big Mt. Cayambe! Can’t wait to see what new challenges lay ahead! Thank you for those continual thoughts and prayers!

A new country!

Buenas Noches!

We arrived in Quito, Ecuador late Sunday evening! The plane ride went very smoothly but it dragged on all day, Sunday. Darrell, the OMS guest house owner picked us up from the airport. We are staying at the guest house for our first week in Quito. Darrell and his wife Kelly, are super friendly folk, originally from Austin, Texas. They serve us breakfast each morning and we cook our own lunch and supper meals.

Monday was our first full day in Quito. We met another Summit instructor, Ben, whose been working in Quito for a month already. He will be spending the majority of days with us while we are in Ecuador. Ben and Kelly gave us a small debrief about the city in the morning and then sent me and Bekah to get groceries for the week. We went to a huge market where there were tons of fruits, vegetables, chicken, rice and basically everything you could think of. After taking a few hours of using Bekah's Spanish and deciding what to buy we walked back to OMS. In the afternoon we set out again to tour the town. We took the city bus to a large cathedral called "Basilica del Voto Nacional". The inside and outside had very unique architecture. For a total of two dollars we went to the very top of the Cathedral. The top overlooked Quito and its surrounding mountains. It took us awhile to figure out what buildings we were looking at using our map. Eventually, we found a town square with a few museums and the Presidential Palace. We hiked over to the town square and lingered into a Museum until supper time. The museum was full of national geographic pictures. Some of these pictures were about the terrorizing A taxi took us back to the guest house for a $2.50 fee. Kelli and Ben made dinner and we spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

Tuesday, Ben, Kelli, Bekah and I went to a park. We worked out most of the morning, ran the couple kilometer track, did pull-ups, pushups and sit-ups. After a couple hours of working out and adjusting to Quito's altitude, which is 9300 feet above sea level, we went for lunch. Ben took us to where he claimed was ‘the best place lunch’ in town. It was a small restaurant hidden in the neighborhood close to where we are staying. They served us, a bowl of potato soup, a plate of rice, chicken and salad and a banana yogurt for dessert. This is a very typical lunch in Ecuador. After eating, I had to admit, it was very tasty. We spent the afternoon discussing a culture inquiry project and watched a movie called "The Mission". Tonight, I learned how to make rice at a new altitude. With the help of Kelly (from OMS) I made some pretty good rice. We had more chicken and rice for dinner! The rest of the evening we had to play ping pong and do our own thing.

Wednesday, we spent all morning and some of the afternoon on long hike! Bryce, another Summit instructor joined us for the day. The hike took us to almost 15,000 feet above sea level. The oxygen was noticeably different, and my heart was racing at a much faster pace. We are continuing to try to train our bodies to acclimatize at high altitudes. It gave me a little scare and excitement for the big climbs ahead. Bryce, Ben and I still felt hungry after eating a peanut butter sandwich on the trail. So we went out for lunch again, to the “best place in town”, close to OMS. In the late afternoon Bryce, Kelli, Bekah and I decided to check out a Art Museum. The artist was famous for drawings of the early Ecuadorian people such as the Inca’s and Mayans. Many of the drawings showed the darkness of the ancient world. There were a lot of painful stories expressed through this art but it gave inspiration to us, as we tried to understand what their life of suffering and pain was like. Again, the evening was set aside for our own personal time. Me and Bekah played more ping pong and read a few more chapters in our cross cultural book “Serving with Eyes Wide Open”. This book has risen many great questions such as, “What assumptions do we make of the country we’re visiting?” How do we stop ourselves from making assumptions and begin to use knowledge mixed with our observations? We also need to begin to ask what is deeper, behind our observations.

Today, we spent most of the morning at the park, working out and running the track. I didn’t have much energy because of the mix of elevation, eating differently and being in a new place. We spent some time reviewing what we are learning and observing in this Ecuadorian culture. This afternoon we walked the streets of Quito. We found another great lunch spot, reviewed what the Government is like in Ecuador and found one of the oldest ice cream parlors in the city. The ice cream was about one of the tastiest I’ve had in awhile. I couldn’t decide whether that was because the sun had been beating down on us all day or I was still exhausted from working out. Somethings I learned about Ecuador's government today were: Their are many different police authority officials such as transportation police, government police and the military. And none of these police have anything to do with each other. Ecuador is also known as one of the most currupt governments in the world. Their leaders do not stay in power for very long because either they are assassinated or are kicked out by the people. Anyways, it’s almost supper time now. It’s been nice to be able to sit down and share the last couple days with my friends and followers. I hope your still enjoying my blog even with my lack of grammar. That’s all for now, pictures are coming soon!

Pics of Winter Camping

4 Days of Winter Camping

Hello again,

It's been another great week in California. Sunday morning, bright and early, Bekah, Tom, Kelli and I set out for four days of winter camping! We spent all of Sunday, cross country skiing towards Ostrander lake. Which was about a 15 kilometer trek thru Yosemite National Park. The terrain was very rugid. At different points the hills were to steep and icy for us, "beginners". It didn't help that we were carrying 50 pound packs. So all of us walked except Tom, who calls himself a "Guru" in skiing. We finally came to a valley with a wonderful view about 2 kilometers from Ostrander and decided that we should camp there because it was getting dark and we were exausted. That evening we dug out a flat sleeping area and kitchen. I learned how to use the outdoor stove and we boiled snow for water for the next day. After everything was finished being set up, we had supper under the stars. The following day we left most of our gear at our new campsite and headed out to Ostrander lake. Skiing got a little easier with very light day packs! We had lunch around the lake and then Tom taught us how to do complex teleturns on a really steep hill. After getting some more bruises we decided to return to camp.. Our last day in the snow we learned to use a compass and map and Tom taught us about avalanches conditions. We had beautiful sunny weather all four days. The evenings would get to about anywhere from 0 to -5 and during the day it was plus 7-15! Our last evening, Bekah and I decided to build a Quinzee. A Quinzee, for those who don't know, is basically a bunch of snow piled up and then dug out. It took us about 2 hours of moving, packing and hollowing snow to finish. We made it big enough for the two of us to sleep in. Bekah by accidently poked a hole thru the side, making a window. Which later she claimed, it would be "safer" because she could see outside. I was a little scared that the window would cause the snow to shift and collapse. But when morning came around, we were still alive. Finally, it was time to make the decent home. We ended up walking our ski's down two of the very big hills. By midafternoon we made it back to the Ski Pass. In the evening we decided to celebrate our safe travels with Tom's family and a few other people at El Sid's, a mexican restaurant. These last two days we've been completly switching gears. We unpacked all the winter gear on thursday. And today, we had a little debrief and now we're packing for Ecudor. There has been an unexpected flight switch. We were supposed to leave tomorrow but due to weather we aren't leaving until sunday morning. Well it's getting late, I should finish packing and enjoy one more day of beautiful sunshine in the state of California tomorrow. I hope to continue to blog when I am in Ecudor. Pictures are coming soon!

Day trip, First Week -> Cross Country Skiing to Dewie Point