When we were in ecuador me and my dad climbed Cotopaxi. It is the highest active volcano in the world at 20,000 feet high. Me and my dad didn't get to the toput we got pretty close. We got to 17,000 feet. The day before we got picked up at our hotel and drove to the lodge at the base of the mountain. There we had a late lunch and dinner befor sleeping for about two hours befor geting up to climb at 11:00. We didn't get much sleep so it was a very tiring climb. We drove to parkin wich is abotut 500 feet above the base of the volcano. There we got our gear on and started climbing at night with only headlamps to see. The first part of the climb to the refuge was just as steep as every thing else but what made it hard was that it was like hiking a beach at a 50% angle, it was so sandy. When i got to the refuge i was so hot after the houre hike. I had four layers on and it was hot to be in all of those cloths. I had long jons, a sweater, a down coat, and a shell. I took off the down coat and put a thinner coat on and put the other coat in my back pack. I was still hot at 15,000 feet above sea level. We also had got on our crampons and roped up for the glature ahead of us. After the fefuge we hiked for a few more hours on a 50% angle glature with nothing around to hang on to exept your ice axe. I finally got to tired that we had to go down at about 17,000 feet. I reallised that i did not get enough sleep and that i needed to be in a little better shape. We then heded down and thats where i relized really how tired i was, i was litterally falling down onto the snow wanting to sleep. When we finally got to the car i took my gear off and went strait to sleep in the back of the car. We drove to the lodge where wepacked and got a couple hours of sleep before dirving back to quito. It was a life chanding expeariance that i hope to do again, i will not forget that trip. During the trip it was perfect wether and that made it even more of a great trip.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Cotopaxi
When we were in ecuador me and my dad climbed Cotopaxi. It is the highest active volcano in the world at 20,000 feet high. Me and my dad didn't get to the toput we got pretty close. We got to 17,000 feet. The day before we got picked up at our hotel and drove to the lodge at the base of the mountain. There we had a late lunch and dinner befor sleeping for about two hours befor geting up to climb at 11:00. We didn't get much sleep so it was a very tiring climb. We drove to parkin wich is abotut 500 feet above the base of the volcano. There we got our gear on and started climbing at night with only headlamps to see. The first part of the climb to the refuge was just as steep as every thing else but what made it hard was that it was like hiking a beach at a 50% angle, it was so sandy. When i got to the refuge i was so hot after the houre hike. I had four layers on and it was hot to be in all of those cloths. I had long jons, a sweater, a down coat, and a shell. I took off the down coat and put a thinner coat on and put the other coat in my back pack. I was still hot at 15,000 feet above sea level. We also had got on our crampons and roped up for the glature ahead of us. After the fefuge we hiked for a few more hours on a 50% angle glature with nothing around to hang on to exept your ice axe. I finally got to tired that we had to go down at about 17,000 feet. I reallised that i did not get enough sleep and that i needed to be in a little better shape. We then heded down and thats where i relized really how tired i was, i was litterally falling down onto the snow wanting to sleep. When we finally got to the car i took my gear off and went strait to sleep in the back of the car. We drove to the lodge where wepacked and got a couple hours of sleep before dirving back to quito. It was a life chanding expeariance that i hope to do again, i will not forget that trip. During the trip it was perfect wether and that made it even more of a great trip.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Spanish school
We have been going to spanish school for about two weeks and have learned a lot. We know the basics of how to creat a sentence and when to use Ser insted of Estan. Emma and I dont know very much vocabulary but we decided that we could learn vocabulary easier than we could learn to say a sentence right. So we learned how to congegate and use verbs first before learning the vocabulary. It has been great fun. We have class from eight to twelve in the morning with a half an hour break in between. I think I forget more than I learn but I take in as much as I can. It is a great school and I wish I could continue because I still have almost no clue of what most people are saying. It is very fun.
Thank You Letter to Host Family
These past two weeks we have been staying with a host family. They are a nice family of six but we only live with the two grandparents. Once in a wile some of the family members come over for dinner. It is a big house that we live in and we all have our own rooms. The one thing that is dissapointing is that my bed is as hard as a rock and no other bed in the house is. We had a great time at their house and we wrote a thank you letter to them in spanish. (Below)
Muchas gracias por permitirme estar con ustedes. Ustedes tienen una casa grande y una gran familia que me hace sentir como si estuviese en mi propia casa. La comida ha sido grande, sobre todo las sopas. Mi papá y yo esperamos la receta de usted, porque no hacemos muchas sopas en casa. La comidad aquí me da una sensación de felicidad. Prefiro quedame con usted antes que ir a un hotel donde no tiene ninguna de las comodidades del hogar. Una vez más, muchas gracias por todo lo que han hecho.
Dylan Crane
Muchas gracias por permitirme estar con ustedes. Ustedes tienen una casa grande y una gran familia que me hace sentir como si estuviese en mi propia casa. La comida ha sido grande, sobre todo las sopas. Mi papá y yo esperamos la receta de usted, porque no hacemos muchas sopas en casa. La comidad aquí me da una sensación de felicidad. Prefiro quedame con usted antes que ir a un hotel donde no tiene ninguna de las comodidades del hogar. Una vez más, muchas gracias por todo lo que han hecho.
Dylan Crane
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The Galapagos Islands are a Very Special Place
The Galapagos Islands are a very special place in this world. The history of Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution started on this dry and barren volcanic archipelago. There are animals found here and nowhere else on Earth. Surprisingly the animals are uninhibited by humans, such as travelers and give a visitor an amazing opportunity to see them up close.
There are a lot of species unique to the Galapagos. Some of those animals are: Blue Footed Boobies, Nazca Boobies, Red Footed Boobies, Red Billed Tropic Bird, Galapagos Shear Water, Lava Gull (the rarest gull in the world), Galapagos Dove, Lava Heron, Galapagos Hawk, Marine Iguana, Land Iguana, Galapagos Penguin, and many more animals. The animals have had to adapt to a life and environment with very little water.
These 13 islands are not lush paradises because they do not get much rain. It is also not lush because the islands are young and still growing from regular volcanic eruptions. Most islands are not inhabited by humans because there is not a lot of water and it is very rocky. The ones that are inhabited either get their water shipped in from the mainland of Ecuador, collect rain water, have a small spring, or a combination of all three.
Charles Darwin came to the Galapagos Islands for a month in the 1830’s on a boat called the Beagle. He came to the islands to collect animal specimens that led to his theory of evolution. The proof he found were the finches on the Galapagos. He found 13 different finches that all looked different and ate different things. At first he thought they were all different types of birds but when he got back to England he realized they were all finches. He concluded that each finch over time had adapted or evolved to fill a niche. That is how evolution came to be.
The animals have almost no predators on the Galapagos and therefore no fear of humans. So when you want to see an animal up close, go right ahead. You can literally get a foot away from the animals; it is the coolest thing in the world! This friendly trait is being endangered because of all the tourism. The guides do a good job of educating the visitors, but it is up to the world to keep that trait from becoming extinct.
Many animals of the Galapagos are endemic to specific islands such as the Red Footed Booby who is only on the island Genovesa. The Albatross stay at sea for most of their lives and land only on one piece of land in the whole world once a year to mate and nest, the island of Espanola.
Giant Tortoises also live in a very specific environment. They only like the highlands with mud holes, and some islands just aren’t high enough. The tortoises can live to be over 100 years old and with each year the shell gets smoother and smoother. They also have the very unusual characteristic of taking two months to digest their food. During World War II sailors in the area collected tortoises for food beginning a threat to their population. The park wants to increase the tortoise population, but has a hard time telling which island certain tortoises are from. They do not want two different types of tortoises mating with each other to create more hybrids.
The rarest animal on earth is at the Galapagos Islands on Santa Cruz at the Charles Darwin Research Center. He is a tortoise named “Lonesome George”, named because he is the last of his kind from the island of Pinta that erupted and killed all the tortoises except one. They are trying to have him mate with other females, but it has been unsuccessful. They think he might be infertile. I hope not.
The Galapagos Islands are a magical place of many animals. There are many reasons for me to go back and I hope to do so some day. I hope it is preserved forever and never changes.
There are a lot of species unique to the Galapagos. Some of those animals are: Blue Footed Boobies, Nazca Boobies, Red Footed Boobies, Red Billed Tropic Bird, Galapagos Shear Water, Lava Gull (the rarest gull in the world), Galapagos Dove, Lava Heron, Galapagos Hawk, Marine Iguana, Land Iguana, Galapagos Penguin, and many more animals. The animals have had to adapt to a life and environment with very little water.
These 13 islands are not lush paradises because they do not get much rain. It is also not lush because the islands are young and still growing from regular volcanic eruptions. Most islands are not inhabited by humans because there is not a lot of water and it is very rocky. The ones that are inhabited either get their water shipped in from the mainland of Ecuador, collect rain water, have a small spring, or a combination of all three.
Charles Darwin came to the Galapagos Islands for a month in the 1830’s on a boat called the Beagle. He came to the islands to collect animal specimens that led to his theory of evolution. The proof he found were the finches on the Galapagos. He found 13 different finches that all looked different and ate different things. At first he thought they were all different types of birds but when he got back to England he realized they were all finches. He concluded that each finch over time had adapted or evolved to fill a niche. That is how evolution came to be.
The animals have almost no predators on the Galapagos and therefore no fear of humans. So when you want to see an animal up close, go right ahead. You can literally get a foot away from the animals; it is the coolest thing in the world! This friendly trait is being endangered because of all the tourism. The guides do a good job of educating the visitors, but it is up to the world to keep that trait from becoming extinct.
Many animals of the Galapagos are endemic to specific islands such as the Red Footed Booby who is only on the island Genovesa. The Albatross stay at sea for most of their lives and land only on one piece of land in the whole world once a year to mate and nest, the island of Espanola.
Giant Tortoises also live in a very specific environment. They only like the highlands with mud holes, and some islands just aren’t high enough. The tortoises can live to be over 100 years old and with each year the shell gets smoother and smoother. They also have the very unusual characteristic of taking two months to digest their food. During World War II sailors in the area collected tortoises for food beginning a threat to their population. The park wants to increase the tortoise population, but has a hard time telling which island certain tortoises are from. They do not want two different types of tortoises mating with each other to create more hybrids.
The rarest animal on earth is at the Galapagos Islands on Santa Cruz at the Charles Darwin Research Center. He is a tortoise named “Lonesome George”, named because he is the last of his kind from the island of Pinta that erupted and killed all the tortoises except one. They are trying to have him mate with other females, but it has been unsuccessful. They think he might be infertile. I hope not.
The Galapagos Islands are a magical place of many animals. There are many reasons for me to go back and I hope to do so some day. I hope it is preserved forever and never changes.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Galapagos
Our family just finished the galapagos part of our trip and it was amazing. We went to six different islands. Our boat was called the Riena Silvia. It was a 16 passenger boat. Our guide was named Tanya and we became good friends so it was hard for me to say good bye to her. Every day we would have breakfast and then go on a morning hike(the food was great). After the hike we went snorkeling and saw mostly sharks, turtles,and sea lions. After the snorkel we would have lunch and then go on our afternoon walk. That is how most of the days went. You could get two feet away from the animals before they moved, that was really amazing. We also got to swim with the sea lions while we were snorkeling. Our cabins in the boat were tiny. They were literally the size of an average bathroom. So you can bet that we didn't spend most of our time in there. Over all, it was life changing and I hope to go back.
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