I´ve had a couple of questions about my safety around the active volcano, Tungurahua, here in Ecuador. Tungurahua is located a couple hundred kilometers north of where I am staying. So far, I have seen no indication of it; no ash has fallen locally. I met some travellers who saw it at night, and said it was spectacular. The government is evacuating people close to the volcano, and others are on a very short evacuation warning (8 minute notice I heard). This is causing many problems to the evacuees, many of whom are subsistence farmers. From what I have been told, there is little in the way of social safety nets here. My class schedule here has been changed to afternoons this week as they accomodate my short week given my departure to the Galapagos on ... read more

January 26, 2008 On Saturday, a group of students from our school went on a tour to Cajas National Park. In Spanish, “Cajas” translates to “boxes”, and the small lakes in the park are characterized as “box lakes”. The park is about 45 minutes drive west of Cuenca. There were about 10 of us from the school, and a few others on the bus for a total of about 13 people. Cajas park is part of the Andes chain of mountains. The park area could be described as mountains and valleys, with lots of pothole lakes. Our guide told us there are well over 200 lakes in the park. In fact, much of Cuenca’s fresh water comes from that area. The park spans the continental divide, so water from the park flows both to the ... read more

Saturday January 19, 2008 After breakfast, I went for a walk with my camera, with the goal of getting up somewhere higher to get a good view of the city. First, I went downtown to a “Cabina telefónica” to call my daughters Megan and Melinda. I had a nice talk with Megan, but there was no answer on Melinda’s phone. Meg said they were heading out that day, so they may have left. I had seen a church steeple high up on a hill outside of town “ La Iglesia Turi”, so I started walking towards it. I followed the road towards it, as it switch-backed it’s way up. Eventually, I found a staircase that looked like it went up to the church, so I started up on it. It was a long climb up those ... read more

A Big Cathedral There is a big Catholic Cathedral (“La Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepcion” or “Catedral Nueva”) in town across from the main square (Parque Calderon). It replaced an older cathedral (established 1787) which is on the other side of the square. The new cathedral was built from 1885 to 1899. It was never completely finished. The intent was to have two tall towers at the front of the church, but it was determined that the foundation would not support the intended design, so it stopped as it is today. There is an enormous gold-leaf canopy over the altar which is very imposing. I felt very small and insignificant inside the cathedral. It kind-of reminded me of the vengeful god in the Old Testament. ... read more

Well, I have arrived in Cuenca. The flight down was long, considering I got up at 3:30 A.M. on Sunday. I arrived in Houston about noon, had a four hour layover, then a five hour flight to Quito. I was met at the airport by someone from the school, and delivered to a modest hotel about 15 minutes drive away from the airport ($13 for the night). The room was small, but clean and quiet. I was worried about hot water, but there was no problem. I had a shower at midnight because I had to get up at 4:45 A.M. (which was 2:45 AM my time). A cab was waiting for me at 5:15 and I was at the airport at 5:30. I discovered the time on my ticket was a check-in time, not the ... read more