When I started I had three objectives: to learn Spanish, learn surfing and climb the highest mountain of the world. One year later I do speak Spanish good enough to have almost fluent conversations. Not quite good enough to use the subjuntivo at the right places and sometimes with horribly Latin American accent (sin zetas). Surfing is a different story. I did catch a few waves, on mostly long boards and beach breaks, but I am very far from being able to say I learned surfing. And I did climb the mountain. So overall it is not a clean and clear success on all three objectives, but I’m satisfied with the results.

Now a bit of statistics. I was keeping the almost real-time map of places where I stay. Now I have archived it here. It was not perfect, but over the year I have done 173 pins on the map. The total distance between these pins is almost exactly the perimeter of Earth. The break-down of individual means of transport are on the right. Yes, more than a half is the flights from and to Europe. On the other hand, if not flying or sailing the actual distance traveled between two pins might be as much as twice the numbers shown, because roads especially in South American mountains do not tend to be straight lines (in any dimension).

I have written 46 blog posts. Which roughly corresponds to 40.000 words.

I have started the trip with 2 film cameras and a digital camera in my phone. I killed one camera quite soon, but the other one survived about 20 rolls of film (still unsorted on my table). The films and phone together made 342 public photos on flickr. Most are geo-tagged so here you can see them on world map. Plus there are 67 photos I uploaded on Facebook during the same time.

I have read 30 and a half books.

I have totally worn out one pair of shoes and one pair of pants.

I have tasted many new kinds of fruit and have done other stuff for which no statistics can ever describe the real experience…

After 354 days on the road and 12 days acclimatizing back in Prague the year is done and it is time to move on.

PS: I reacquired my flat, so all of you, my traveling friends, consider the Prague couch opened.

Douglas Adams: one of The Hitchhiker´s Guide to The Galaxy trilogy books
I don´t know which part was this, but it was brilliant as always. Special thanks to Captain Jack for giving me this book.

Sam Lipsyte: The Ask
A bit above my slang knowledge, but still entertaining

Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger
Excellent book about Indian servant/murderer/entrepreneur written as personal letters from him to Chinese prime minister. Most funny.

Emil Zola: Clovek Bestie
Tvrdili mi, ze jsem prvni cech v hostelu, ale po tom, co jsem tam nasel tuhle knizku tomu tezko muzu verit. Jak jsem tohle mohl minout, kdyz jsme to meli v povinne cetbe?

Malcolm Gladwell: The Tipping Point
Interesting “non-fiction” book. The main theory has probaly some truth to it. But the book could have been so much shorter that it is. It gets boring towards the end.

Stieg Larsson: Millennium Trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
Just in time before the movie hype. The story and style are truly excelent. I should soon read some other book by Larsson. The only part I did not like was the first 200 pages of second book which seem to repeat the first book too much.

Dan Brown: The Da Vinci Code
I missed on this one in it’s hype time. It is excelent and I basically could not stop reading for long. At the very moment I was reading the part about The Bible being censored by the church, a tico missionary came to the hostel and handed me a flyer with title “Come to discuss the bible with us”. I almost died laughing.

Dan Brown: Digital Fortress
This was a big dissapointment, especially after having read The Da Vinci Code. There is not much new in the book, just like Da Vinci recycled in different setup with a bit of mostly out of place computer science thrown in.

Michael Connelly: Angels Flight
Not too intelectual, but a detective story as it should be. Full of plot twists and I had hard time quessing who the murderer was.

Markus Zusak: The Book Thief
Excelent book, although the story is really said. But that is to be expected from a book being told by The Death himself (no, this is not another Terry Pratchett book).

John Gowdy (editor, essays by others): Limited Wants, Unlimited Means
Some essays a bit borring, but most are really surprising point of view on hunters and ggatherers societies.

Paolo Coelho: Manual del Guerrero de la Luz
Bueno para aprender Español. Tambien bueno para pensar.

Un auteur français: Un livre
Très bon livre, c’est domage que je pouvais lire que la moitié. Le lendemain, les chiens l’ont mangé.

Goerge Orwell: Coming Up for Air
Most melancholic story set just at the begining of war. Makes you want to go fishing.

Malcoml Gladwell: What the Dog Saw: and other adventures
Similarly to The Tipping Point some stories have interresting basic idea in them, but the whole book gets very boring at some places.

Paul Maar: La Puerta Olvidada
Libro para ninos de 7 años. Pero tiene todos los tiempos gramaticos que tengo que practicar.

Ronald Heyman: K: Biography of Kafka
A very difficult reading, it took me more than a month to get through. Partly that was because of the language barier, but partly also because Kafka was trully mad. Now I need to read more of his books.

George Soros On Globalization
A bit outdated as the author himself writes in the introduction. However the key point was clear: the biggest problem of third world is the lack of capital caused by inequality between free movement of capital and much less free movement of labour.

Frederick Forsyth: The Afghan
This was a bit of dissapointment. I have read better pieces by Forsyth. Yes, it has his good style, but the story was not that stunning and seemed I got the feeling, that this book came to exist because he desperatley wanted to write something about Al Kaida, rather that he had a strong plot in the first place.

Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Idiot
How could I miss russian literature douring school years? It is very entertaing and also education about that age in Russia that I had known nothing about. The hard part is to know who is who in the book, as all characters have several names in several variants. And it also feels a bit strange to read Dostoevsky in English, but one cannot choose too much in book exchange. Who wants to more about the Idiot, write me a mail.

Michael Connelly: The Fifth Witness
Another thrilling detective book from Connelly. This time even more attractive because the story is set in the recent real estate buble explosion. And no, I did not expect the ending.

David Foenkinos: La délicatesse
En fin un livre français que je pouvais lire entier. Un nouvau film avec Audrey Tautou a été fait de ce livre et c’est exactement le même genre.

Wendy Northcutt: The Darwin Awards Next Evolution (4th book, Clorinating the Gene Pool)
As funny as all the Darwin Awards. Gets a bit monotonous, so do not read it in one go. Rather read a story everytime you feel stupid.

Paolo Coelho: El Alquimista
Buena historia, excepto las connotaciones religiosas que no son de mi gusto

Paolo Coelho: Las Valquirias
Interesante por los aspectos autobiográficos.

Gunter Grass: Crabwalk
Very difficult to read in the begging, but once you get used to the crabwalk, it gets easier. No wonder Grass is not really loved in many countries.

Jack Kerouac: On The Road
Entertaining classic. Sometimes it feels like my friends’ travel blogs of today, including the typos/slang and unstructured narrative.

Dave Eggers: What is the What
Definitely not the most optimistic book of this collection. It is real story of Sudanese refugee whose life did not get any easier even after emigration to US.

E.F. Schumacher: Lo pequeño es hermoso
Una lectura muy pesada de economía y los problemas del mundo. Parece nuevo, pero fue escrito hace 30 años.

I got lost on the way to the photo shop. Something I thought was impossible in a city I know on a way to a place I had been to already. After half an hour walk I was almost where I started and I was really surprised. Then I picked the right road and followed the way I knew. I was thinking this is the place where I had been caught in a tropical rain for the first time. And over there is the bus stop where I took cover. And at this exact moment a tropical rain came again. I ran to the same bus stop. The roof is still not repaired… Some things do not change.

For the weekend we went to Isla Taboga. This island is only about 20km, or 1 hour boat ride away from Panama City. This distance is just far enoght that sometimes Panama is not visible, other times it is. At night I could see from our hotel the big advertisement screen near the city hostel. On the boat ride and also on the island one can see all the ships waiting for the Canal. Waiting for days.

Then I almost missed the plane to Europe. Started late, missed the airport bus stop. But made it in the end. Adios America Latina.

In order not to have a big cultural shock I stopped in Spain for some time. One night in Madrid to get over jet-lag. Unfortunately all people I know in Madrid had left for vacation. But that is to be expected in August.

Next stop Bilbao or more precisely Plentzia in Euskal Herria, where I visited and stayed with my friends Asier and Casey.

We went to caves in El Soplao for adventure tour. This included fancy clothing and 2 hours of walking inside the caves. The caves are remarkable especially for asymmetric formations. Nobody is really sure how such formations are formed.

I also went to Donostia where happened to be Clasica Ciclista San Sebastian 2012. I waited 75m before the finish line. The fist guy was so fast, that at 100m he stopped pedaling and just enjoyed the finish. I’m out of focus in the crowd near number 75 at this photo.

30 anos con peugeot at EveryTrail

I also made some bike trips on my own. In Asier’s old Peugeot bike. First trip was to get over a hangover. The second trip I went to see the nearby nuclear power plant that was almost finished but never started production as ETA killed some people involved in the project. So today there is this torso of power plant at the beach.

centro nuclear at EveryTrail

Almost a year ago I went with Ewan to Portobelo on the Caribean side of Panama. This was my first trip in Panama actually. There in Captain Jack’s I met people that had come to Panama with a sailboat from Colombia. I learned how this works and that it is the most sensible way how to travel between these two countries (other options are a flight for almost as much money but much less fun or crossing by land with probably too much “fun”). I decided back than that this is the Way I will return to Panama when my trip loops.

Fast forward 10 months.

I was looking for a boat in Cartagena. Most boats charge 550 USD. They vary in comfort, speed, days spent in San Blas, crew experience etc. They also don’t leave every day, so having a flight to Europe from Panama forced me to plan a bit. I asked in an agency, but was not super happy by the offer. They told me I could also go to the port where all the boats are leaving from. Once knowing this key info I went there and asked around. This is how I find Island Fever.

Island Fever is 41 feet (13 meter) long sail boat. It takes 9 passengers and 2 crew. It is officially registered in Germany, owned by some German guy. The captain is Israel de la Asuncion from Barcelona and currently he sails with his sister as second crew member.

I loved this boat. And I really recommend sailing with it. (Don’t get discouraged by some bad reviews of Island Fever on the internet, such as this one, which refers to Island Fever being sailed by different captain.) The captains official page is still named after his own boat: http://www.sailingfrederika.com/ and he has a facebook profile too.

Now how did the actual sailing go? First we went o buy some beer. Then we headed off. We went through the Boca Grande of Cartagena. This is where the Spanish built underwater wall to crash all boats who would try to enter the port and attack the city. There is only about 20m in the middle where boats can sail through and this is marked by two buoys.

Then we were on the open sea. We passed some shallow reef adjusted the course for San Blas and began the longest straight passage of this trip. 44 hours or about 360 km without seeing much. The first day everything was a bit new. People started taking sea-sickness pills, I had a few beers (I did not invest in the pills as this was my first sailboat trip and I hoped I would be sea-sickness immune). The first night was hard. I had a night long sensation of not sleeping at all in the always moving bed. But I believe I did sleep a bit. I woke up early in the morning when most people were still sleeping, but the sun was already a bit up. There was absolutely nothing to be seen anywhere. Not even a cargo ship. I went to try to sleep in the moving bed again.

I woke up an about 10am with the engine suddenly slowing down (yes, we vere sailing with sails and engine as the wind was not strong enough). I went up and saw a huge military ship next to us. What is going on? It was US Marines. Our captain asked them to keep their distance and in turn the were asking for all the details about our boat.

Captain, what us the boat name and registration?

Island Fever, registered in Germany in Freiburg.

What is your name, nacionality and date of birth captain?

Israel de la Asuncion, Spanish, …

What are the nationalities of passengers?

after a long pause and counting> We have 3 French, 1 Izraeli, 1 German, 1 US, 1 Argentinia, 1 Peruvian and 1 Czechoslovakian.

Is the boat owner on board?

No. But I have all the documents on board including the owners authorization to use his boat…

And so on. Until they decide it was enough and left. And we could continue with breakfast.

That day the sea was calm. I was having a talk at the back when suddenly just next to the boat the delphin jumpt out of water. I lost my speach for some time.

At night there was the lightning plankton all around the ship. Like hundreds of starts in the water. And there were hundreds of stars above too. We all got more or less used to the boat movement. That night I slept like a baby.

The next morning I got up when we were already anchored at San Blas. The more enjoyable part of the trip began. We swam to the nearby island, explored it, some went snorkeling around. Oriel, a Kuna man, came and sold us some fish for lunch. We slept anchored there.

The next morning we moved to another anchorage between two other island. The same thing all over again. Except the dinner was a langusta with coconut rice served on the island.

The next morning I woke up with a strong sound of wind. I jumped to the board to catch my swimming shorts before they would be blown away. The storm was coming. Before I could catch anything more I was ordered to go down in the boat. The cups became flying, the iPods and the like too. The storm was so strong that the anchor could not keep us steady. And that is a problem when there is reef all around and other moving boats too. We almost crash with the boat of the french guy who had given us some couscous the night before, because he went down his boat just at the time both boats started to be dragged by the wind. But Israel ran to the front of the boat and pushed the other boat away with his body. That was close.

Most boats moved a lot. Exept for the one whose captain was not there. How lucky. One boat moved from one island almost to the other one. Passing the reef by a few feet and stopping within a few feet from the beach. This was the only boat where neither the captain not anybody else woke up to fight the storm. When the finally woke up, they looked surprised. How lucky again.

We lost the paddles from the dingy which got turned up side down. But the captain of another boat found our paddles at the beach of the other island. How lucky again. Now harm was done to any of the 15 boats present.

After the storm we moved again to another island. This one with and airport. On the way we saw one big turtle swimming along. We played some beach volleyball on the airport island, got stamps in passports, played some games on the boat, slept and in the morning we left with a Kuna “speed” boat to mainland. Then 2 hours of jeep to Panama City. And the trip has looped finally.

After salsa life in Cali I went to relax in Salento. Salento is a coffee region of Colombia, but also a home to Colombia’s national tree – the funny looking high palm.

Valle de Cocora at EveryTrail

My first night there I was welcomed by hundreds of lightning beetles. Quite similar to Nicaraguan experience earlier on this trip, minus the water. The next day I went to see the palms. The weather was not too nice, but I always like to photograph in fog, so I did not complain. Well maybe a bit when I got wet, but the coffee in the shelter made up for it.

The next day I was planning to go cycling. But it was raining all morning so I left to Medellin. Medellin is the only city I visited in Latin America which has Metro. I was impressed.

I was not so much impressed by the city center though. I went to the museum with the greatest collection of Botero. Then I wanted to go back to the hostel, but there was a huge queue to buy Metro tickets. SO I decided to walk to the next station and try there. I walked only two blocks and things became to look too strange, even for me. There was an almost naked prostitute on the sidewalk using window as a mirror to put up makeup. Further down the street there were many drunks, some unable to stand. At 3pm. I was seriously considering turning back and running, but then decided to pretend I’m local and everything is fine. I did not pull my camera out though, so no pictures from adventures. The Metro station in this district was without a queue – happy end.

Apart from that one trip to the center I was mostly partying in the nearby Zona Rosa (no, it is not the equivalent of Amsterdam’s Red Zone). Once we even invited ourselves to a private party. The strangest thing ever. The house owner was quite happy to open the door and let us in. He had hired a private DJ for this party of 6 people and was streaming it life to the internet. I was really impressed again.

Then I bought a flight to Cartagena. The flight itself was nothing special. But as soon as the wheels touched down in Cartagena there was a lot of smoke coming to the passenger cabin. At first only in the front of the airplane, but later even near us in the back. It looked scary, but turned out to be only caribbean humidity condensing in cool interior. Then I got out of plane and the humidity and hot really hit me. I can not understand how the locals might live here and wear long pants all day long.

Cartagena itself is a very beautiful city. At least the part within the wall. Then there is a modern part at the other side of bay, but I never made it that far. My biggest concern there was to find a boat. Once I did, that was the end of my stay in Colombia.

Once I found the salsa hostel in Cali (Jovita’s) I started taking salsa classes and dancing. The day schedule was totaly different from whatever I had experienced before on this trip. Sleep all morning. Group salsa lesson in the early afternoon, individual lesson in late afternoon or vice versa. Siesta. Salsa practice at night. Sleep all morning. Repeat. Repeat…

At night there is generally one place for each week day where everybody goes. So it is Las Brisas Mondays, Mi Tiera Tuesdays, Tin Tin Deo Thursdays,…

The hostel crowd was exceptionally great. I really had fun. Francy, the dance teacher, obviously can dance, but also is a good techear as she managed to get even such untalented guy as me to learn a few basic steps.

Except for the salsa, there is almost nothing in Cali. The old town is a few old buildings scatered between ugly new ones. So after a few tries I totally gave up on standard tourism and just went with the salsa beat.

On Thursday though, we made the effort, got up early and hiked the mountain all the way up to the three crosses. Then we came back and continued with the salsa schedule. On friday I could not walk.

For the weekend we left Cali and went to a beach near Buenaventura on the Pacific coast. We planed to stop in another town on the way, but plans had to change. We got on a bus, paid and I was getting ready to sleep all the trip. The bus however stopped at the nearest gas station and they started pumping water on the engine. Then we went for about 20 minutes until we stopped again for more water. Then 10 minutes more and more water. At this point we were asking to get the money back to catch a different bus. We were repeatedly assured everything was going to be fine. It was agreed that if another stop is made, we would get the money and could go. 5 minutes later there was smoke in the bus and it was obvious the thing cannot move any more. So after 2 hours we have not even made it to the famoust Kilometro 18, which is as one would guess only 18km from Cali.

The second bus made it to Buenaventura. Then we bought a boat ticket and were told that the first stop was our destination. We reached the first stop and it was the worst beach slum I have ever seen. Everybody from oer group hoped this was not our stop. Luckily it was not. The next stop was not much better. Again we hoped this was not our stop, we even pretended it was not our stop after we knew it was. But it did not work because it was the last stop of the boat.

The beach was so ugly, with all plastic bags floating between glass bottles and sharp cans that the first day I did not go in the water. But we found a nice cabaña with beach speakers playing mostly reggaeton, started drinking ron and had a good time. I hope that that drunk beach bachata dancing video will never make it to the internet.

The next day the trash moved inland with the tide so I could step over and finally had a swim. Still it is nowhere as pleasant as the Pacific beaches of Central America I was used to.

One pool is 44.5 C and the other one is 17 C. You start with the hot one. At this temperature it gives a real boiling sensation. Probably close to what lobsters are experiencing. I saw one gringo jump in. He kind of jumped out as fast as he could while almost screaming.

Then the cold one. Then your nerves just give up and you can keep changing the pools for an hour or so. Somehow this shock to the nerves provokes endorphin creation. The whole place felt like a hippies gathering. Minus the drugs and sex (to my knowledge). But everybody is high, smiling all the time, talking to absolute strangers. This is true for locals as well as gringos. Truly unusual experience.

The best part is it makes you tiredless for a long time. Party hard, get up next morning full of energy and looking forward to go to the spa in the evening again. Repeat…

banos downhill at EveryTrail

During the day I went cycling with Sam and Nick. Most of the way was downhill. We stopped for several waterfalls. The locals claim there are more than 300 waterfalls in this area. The once we saw very impressive. First a private double waterfall that had to be reached by a cable car.

The second waterfall was even more amazing. Before getting to it there was a sign:

¡Prepárate para una sorpresa, Dios existe!

It did not change my world views, but there definitely is a truth in it. The best part was climbing behind the waterfall and taking a shower in it. Hope Sam and Nick would share the pics from this soon. Sam’s take on Baños here.

Next stop – Quito. Party place, really. But not only. The historical center is super beautiful. I was shown around, went to Virgen del Panesillo, even hitchhiked downtown.

We also went up the mountain with a cable car. When you get up, there is a sign saying you are in 4100m and if you have heart problems you should not be there. Well at that point it might be too late.

One day I went out of Quito to see the equator. There are two places. One where the French proudly measured to be the real equator a few centuries ago. Then a huge monument has been build there with a golden line just on the equator.

Then in the age of GPS, it was found out, that the real equator is about 300m to the north. Never mind, they built another museum there. This one is actually much more entertaining. They have a sink, fill it with water and show you that the water just goes out with no turning if the sink is exactly on the equator. Then the same experiment 2 meters to the southern hemisphere and the water turns clockwise. Yet another experiment 2 meters in the northern hemisphere and it goes counter-clockwise. I was very sceptical about the 2 meters making any difference, but I could not see any trick in the experiment itself. So now I´m in doubts.

The next experiment was balancing an egg on a nail. This is supposed to be much easier on the equator as no forces are pushing the egg to fall. And it really is. Now I am officially certified to do that. So if you need an expert, just ask me.

A few days later I was kicked out of the hostel. Apparently I did not tell them how long I´m going to stay (I never do that) and there was no problem with that until one day when they booked out before I woke up. So I decided to leave not only the hostel, but also Quito and also Ecuador.

It has been a nice month in Ecuador. Most of the time drinking Cerveza Pilsener. It is not as good as the real Pilsner from real Pilsen, but good enough. It has the best ever tagline – Ecuatorianamente Refrescante.

Chimborazo is the highest mountain of the world. Well, sort of. The highest mountain of the world messured from the sea level is of course Mount Everest. But messured from the Earth center, it is Chimborazo, because the Earth is not a perfect sphere. For completeness, there is also the tallest mountain of the world in Hawai. For better explanation see here.

Passing through Ecuador I thought it would be a good idea to climb the highest mountain of the world. Even better that it has “only” 6300m.

So I went to Riobamba and shopped around for the best tour company. I got a few offers of the sort:

We will get you there no matter what, no questions asked. 100USD

And a few of the sort:

You need a long acclimatization, it is dangerous, but we can propose you acclimatization package which will only cost you around 1500USD.

Well I´m not stupid enough for the first and not rich enough for the second. After 2 days I finally found Andean Adventures. Quite reasonably the charge 240USD for equipment rental, transporation, one meal before ascent and a guide for the ascent. They gave me the equipment a few days earlier free of charge and they recommended me places where I could go without a guide for acclimatization.

1st acclimatization under chimborazo at EveryTrail

First 2 nights I spent in Casa del Condor at 3800m. I made a short hike to 4000m on the arrival day. Nothing special, I got lost a bit. The second day I made a longer hike to 4800m to Templo Machay – natural cave/temple on the side of Chimborazo. There was no snow there, but the next morning I could see from Casa del Condor that the same places I hiked the day before were suddenly overed by snow.

2nd acclimatization under chimborazo – templo machay at EveryTrail

The 3rd day I hitchhiked up to the Park Entrance. The park rangers refused to let me in because the previous night one climber died on the mountain and police were still investigating the case. There were two versions how it happened. They were two experienced climbers from Spain. They set up at the usual 11pm time. At 3am the luckier one came back to refugio and announced that his friend was dead. Now one version says he got hit by a falling rock under El Castillo and then he fell 60m down. The other version says he slipped, fell down 60m and only then cracked his head on a rock. Eitherway they made two fatal mistakes – they did not tight themselves together with a rope and they did not have a guide.

Four hours later 20 policemen and 10 medics finally brought the body down. After that the park reopened for climbers with guides. I did not have a guide at that time, he was supposed to come 2 days later after I acclimatize. I said I only want to get in for acclimatization, but apparently the spanish climbers also said they were not going to climb without a guide, that they were only comming for acclimatization, so the park rangers did not believe me. Fortunatelly one of the guides said he was my guide for the hike to the refugio and that he will make sure that I do not continue to the peak. They finally let me in.

The first night I spent at the lower Hermanos Carrel Refugio, at 4800m. Nice place and there was even unexpected luxury of fire at the fireplace, running water at the toilet and 3 hours of electricity in the evening. That night 2 groups attempted to summit. The Ecuadorian guy with his (and sort of mine) guide made it (it was his second attempt that week, the first time he brought his girlfriend who got altitude sickness in 5700m and had to return). The two Australians with a guide made it to 5700m, gave up and came exhausted back, although they were super motivated and even brought Australian flag with them to photograph at the summit.

The next day I moved to Edward Whymper Refugio at 5000m. From there I also hiked to Agujas de Whymper and a little bit above to about 5400m. There I was I bit scared to be hiking solo especially after I heard the thunderstorm just bellow me. I got the first nice views of the glacier there.

3rd acclimatization under chimborazo – from refugio to refugio and then up to whymper needles at EveryTrail

That night I was left alone at the Refugio. The guardian went to sleep in the other refugio. Now this was a bit of experience by itself. There was absolute silence, no electricity, no toilet, one candle. I closed the doors, went to bed and hoped for fast falling asleep. At night I was woken up by a noise of the front door opening. But I could not hear anyone walking downstairs. Even worse I needed to pee. I lighed up the candle and went downstairs. I saw the door was opened, the next second the candle died. I had to remind myself I did not believe in ghosts of dead climbers. I went outside to pee and then closed the door better.

The same night my guide Julio climbed up with another climber – Peter. They made it for sure to the first peak at 6200m, but I did not understand what the story about the real peak was. One said they reached it, the other one said they did not.

The next day I did nothing. I tried to read, tried to sleep during the day without much success. Julio slept well after the climb with Peter. Later he told me that even the night before Peter he climbed another ecuadorian volcano. I have no idea how he does it.

At 5pm he woke me up to eat dinner he had prepared, then I tried to sleep a bit more. At 10pm we got up, ate brakfast!, dressed up and set off at 11pm.

We walked really slowly from the begging. At about 5300m we put on the crampons. Walking became more difficult. At about 5400m a big stone flew next to us. We lay down as more stones were falling. Fortunatelly no hit. Then Julio said we should go fast through this dangerous area, but I already had breathing problems so it was not exactly a sprint. At El Castillo at about 5500m we had a 10min break. After another 200m the glacier finally started, no more walking on the stones with crampons on.

The slope was about 45 degrees. Just about the slope when you do not know if it is better to stand on two legs or use the hands too. I did not see much with the head lamp, but enough to comfortably jump over the ice cracks, some of which were really deep. It was harder and harder to breath. I very often needed a break. Everytime I was told “¡Tranquilizate!”, which is easier said than done.

I got into a sort of video-game mood, except of course I had only one life. The guide was anouncing levels: 5700m, 5800m, 5900m… It was getting harder and harder but on the other hand I wanted to get to the next levels and I never wanted to go back. All I needed was to stop every few steps and get extra few deep breaths. After that I was again ready to continue. It was not really cold either. A bit of snow falling (from the sky) at 4800m, but soon we were above. A bit of cold on the toes, but not worse that skiing in bad boots.

We made it to the falso cumbre at 6200m. Then walking to the real peak is another kilometer, a bit down and than about 150m up. We got there at 5:21am, too early for sunrise unfortunatelly. Waiting for sunrise was not an option as there it was really cold there because of the strong wind. After 10min we started descending, this time I went in front.

Before we returned to the first peak it was already very light, so the headlamps were no longer needed. Then we started the real descent down the glacier. This time I could actually see how steep it really was. I was instructed how to descend with crampons on ice efectively, but I just could not do it. I became really exhausted. I needed more brakes comming down than going up, even after the air became more thick, because my knees were slowly giving up. The guide said we should hurry up (actually down) becase we needed to pass the dangerous part bellow El Castillo before the sun would start to melt the ice, then the rocks would be falling like crazy. Well, I tried. We made it down with only one big rock falling between me and Julio, luckily no hit again. I was at the Whymper at round 9am, mostly unable to pack and descend to the other refugio, but I really did not want to stay another night. On the way back to Riobamba I passed out in the taxi, but they woke me up when the taxi got a flat tire and I had to get out. When I finnaly got into town at about noon I put all my stinky clothes to laudry and fall asleep for the whole afternoon. This did not stop me from happily sleeping the whole night too.

It all turned to be partially true. We went to the immigration, then to the bus station and I got the ticket. And I needed the stamp prior to boarding that bus. But I was on the other side of the boarder so he claimed the agreed price is in USD. The proper way to do this is to take an international bus from Peru to Ecuador that stops at the immigration office. Well, next time I’ll know better.

There is not much to do in Loja. I only stayed one night. It took me some time to figure out where anything was happening on SATURDAY night, but in the end I found a reasonably good latino rock concert.

I got to talk to 5sec Fredy. 5sec Fredy was so drunk, that he could not remember almost anything. Except for the the fact that I went to his home near Punta Balcones. The conversation went forever in circles:

What’s your name?

…

Where are you from?

Czech Republic.

What have you done in Peru?

I went to Punta Balcones.

I’m from Punta Balcones! I can’t believe you went there. Sorry, what is your name?

…

And you are from Denmark, right?

No, Czech actually.

Ahhh, ok, and what is your name?

…

I can’t believe you went to Punta Balcones. Did you know I was from there? Not many Danish go to Punta Balcones. What is your name?

When the concert finished and 5sec Fredy went to the toilet I quietly left the place. The Danish are so rude.

Next stop was Vilcabamba. Lovely little town in the south. Hostal Izhcayluma proved to be a really good choice. There was a crowd of mostly solo travellers, good bar atmosphere and good hiking opportunities around.

Izhcayluma San José Trail at EveryTrail

I went for a little hike close to the hostel. Later we went to Parque Nacional Podocarpus with a small group. We climbed up to 3500m in rain and wind, but got some nice views on the way back.

Next stop – Cuenca – is a super nice colonial town with excellent night life and not so excellent museums. Instead of going to the nearby Parque Nacional Cajas I borrowed the hostel owner’s bike and went for a ride. Climbing to 2700m was not easy, but then I followed some kind of water canal so the altitude was bearable.

The dogs on the contrary were really annoying. I learned how to handle attacking dogs while hiking. You just have to pick up a stone, or if there is no stone then simply pretend to pick up a stone, and the dog usually gets it. While riding a bike this trick does not work. Speed works better, but unfortunately only downhill. I have no idea how the local cyclists do it, you probably have to carry a gun or at least a machete. Fortunately I got bitten only once and mostly on my shoe.

Canal above Cuenca at EveryTrail