The Flight In (Day 1)

The week leading up to the trip, was boring to say the least. I couldn't wait to hop on the plane and just go straight into it all. As a result, I ended up packing my bags days before the actual flight. Checking, double checking, and triple checking my pack. As someone who rides motorcycles, I tend to travel as light as I can, taking only the essentials and lightweight emergency equipment.

This is just some of the emergency gear that I packed for the trip. Mostly survival stuff, because we are in the end camping out in the Amazon, and climbing a 20,000 feet high active volcano (5000 meteres for you metric folks). So having an emergecy kit is quite beneficial. You know what they say, better have it, gotta not need it, than need it, gotta not have it!

I linked up with my buddy Cristian at the airport and we checked our luggage in. The whole time I though I was going to get stopped and have somone put their finger in my butt looking for something paticular, but none of that happened and we moved on our merry way to the departure gate. The flight was packed, 200/215 seats booked. Here I am looking famished and exhausted from the waiting.

And our jet getting refuled and refitted for the next flight

And my good old kriega, mountaineering boots and my Rev It Defender Jacket.

Cristians old workmate Andres(he used to work at the airport maintaing the aircrafts) came by to say hi and asked us for our tickets and came back with a nice little suprise.... First class upgrade! Free of charge! Thanks Andres!

Heres my cheery ass getting ready to board the plane all bundled up like its -20 degrees outside( Farenheit of Celius, take our pick, its bloody cold either way).

Cristian taking his walk down to the plane.

and Andres on his phone as we sat in the plane.

Look at all this leg room, oh and the comfort of having Vibrams aboard a plane! My legs are in heaven! I almost felt like I had to scoot forward because there was so much space.

Dinner came around 1am, afterwhich cristian promptly knocked out leaving me with just my own thoughts to waste time. So I decided to have some fun with the camera.

We were traveling south and the moon was on our right (or in the western sky). It was waxing moon just several days shy of a full moon, but it was still blindingly bright. Cotopaxi should be climbed with the aid of a full moon to help see in the dark. So this was actually perfect since we plan on climbing on monday the 9th, the day of a full moon. A little messing around with the camera and you can see just how much of the moon is left before it becomes a full moon.

I was attempting to get some sleep, but I just wasnt tired and kept rolling around. So I got up and decided to do more snoping around.

I tried to play some games, oh how fitting airplane is! I guess I shouldnt be an air traffic controller anytime soon?

Its not easy to tell, but when I looked outside the window facing east, there was a patch of sky that was just slightly brighter than everything else, but do note that it was still pitch black outside since it was still 4am, but it was the first sign of dawn breaking. You could see one of the planets in the background. I'm not sure which one it is since I havent got a skychart with me, but I think its jupiter rising in the background. You can tell a planet from a star because stars emit their own light, so they twinkle. Planets reflect the light of the star they orbit so they always have a constant light (everything that would twinkle is absorbed by the planets atmosphere, which is why Earth has a blue tint).

Jupiter or Mars, or it could even be Mercury, im really not sure, is the lone bright object in the sky. It was really cool to see the planet rise with the sun and dissapear into the sunlight when day broke.

I saw.... I saw something on the wing!!!!!

With the sun finnaly out, our companion planet says goodbye before the sky is nothing but a blue marble blur.

Which means that its tea time! No sugar, no milk, just tea. Thats how we roll!!!

Cristian woke up several minutes later from his perfectly timed coma and had some good old hot cup of joe. The black posion!

Still with no sleep on my side, I continue to ponder pointless thoughts as I stare into the horizon.

But, staring pays off, as the sun rose, I managed to capture the first glimpse of Cotopaxi in the distance.

zoomed in a bit, you can begin to really appreaciate what cotopaxi really is, a massive stratovolcanoe, Looming over the cloudline with its summit at over 19,000 feet. An eruption from this still active volcano would devisatate the local area.

When we finnaly landed, the luggage took over an our and we ended up missing our connecting flight from Guayaquil to Quito. We can thank this fat ass who is sitting on the convoyer belt as his minions unload the luggage rack from the planes as slow as possible.

Cristian had a new pad in Quito, so his place was pretty much empty and ready for us to ruin. Great reason to break out my knife!!!

Later that night we walked around, got some grub and drinks before we made our way to the hang out area. We meet some tourist throughout the night. Lots of people were either taking classes abroad at a local university, or teaching english at local schools. Lots of drinking in this area. Its really all there is to do.

As the night ended, we ended up munching on some delicious kabobs! Sorry for the blur!

And then as if it wasnt enough we went and grabbed a midnight snack called salchipapa, which is really just a deep fried hotdog in a bag of deep fried fries.

Before we finnaly got in a cab and made our way home...at 4am when the fog overtook the city

My delrious ass staring back at Cristian.

Without a bed sheet in my room, the sun came up and blinded me around 7am. I pretty much went 3 days without sleeping much, if at all. As I said before, the place we were staying in was brand new, and I unforuntely got the room with no curtins or blinds. Sleep? Who needs sleep? Not me. Okay just kidding I love you sleep!

sorry if this blog has all messed up text. i will fix it when i get home. internet again sucks here!