Fulbright Fellow, Cuenca Ecuador, August 25 2007-December 22 2007, What a blessing!

Page 2: October 1 to November 3

My project: Developing Computer Instrumentation Capabilities in Latin America, was accepted by the Fulbright Commission and the US Dept of State and here I am! I am here to teach computer instrumentation, help develop instrumentation infrastructure and a new major in Engineering Physics and possibly a national Physics Teachers Association. Above is my first class. We had a mini-course for 40 hours during the last two weeks of September. In October I started two regular courses for the rest of the fall.

All pictures below are "thumbnails." Click on a picture to see a bigger copy, afterwards, use your browser's back arrow to return to this page. If you see any pictures that you want a higher resolution copy, just email me. Most pictures have 3-4 Mbyte originals

More Pictures Around Cuenca:

My favorite lunch place is on the Barranco, Sankt Florian very close to my apartment. This whole spread only costs $2.90. This is my favorite waiter Juan Pablo

This cool statue is in the Plaza del Herrero (Iron works)

They had a nice parade in support of all the (mostly fathers) that were immigrants in other countries. They seem to have a lot of parades in Ecuador and the students have to miss classes many times, oh darn!

One of my favorite parks: Parque de San Sebastián

And another of my favorites: Parque San Blas

When it rains in Cuenca, the rivers fill up rapidly:

During one of the rainstorms, this guy decided that he want to come inside at the University of Cuenca:

Gualaceo

One Sunday I had a chance to go and visit a small town near here. With me was one of the Fulbright students, Victoria Stone from New York. She is finishing her PhD in anthropology on the immigration in Ecuador.

Vilcabamba

The weekend of the 13th I went and visited the pueblo of Vilcabamba in the south, near Peru. Nice place. It was a little touristy, but still inexpensive. Here is the main park"

When I was there I met some new friends, Jim (US), Arlene (New Zealand) and Spike (Germany?)

The first night I stayed at the Hostelría Izhcayluma. They had a great hammock on the balcony, but I quickly left for a better place.

Rumi Wilco Ecolodge and Nature Reserve
Click here for Contact Information

This was both a great place to stay, cheap, and a great nature reserve, all in one place Here is the entrance and a walking bridge that I had to cross with my luggage. Careful!

Along the slope trail 1:

Now up to the ridge trail 7:

The aproximation Trail:

And finally along the Flood Plain Trail and the Rio Chamba:

And  my favorite trail of all, the Hammock Trail!

Mandango

The next day I went up to a mountain on the other side of the valley, Mandango. This was another great hike although it came with a surprise. I have never had a park attendant ask me if I had anything of value on me. Well, not really, I told her, only my camera. Why? Are there robbers in the hills? Yes, she told me and they have had problems on the trail! Such a great tourist attraction, huh? Actuall it was very beautiful, and I am glad I went . . . -

If you look closely at this picture you will see a cross at the very top of the mountain. That is where I am heading:

And here it is. Only, this is not the summit, there is another over yonder . . .

I can make to that peak . . . and here is the view. Although there are more peaks higher up, but I had ran out of time.

On my last morning I took a walk through the countryside.  How cute is she?

I want my own cow to walk along the road with. I walked up the Rio Chamba to where it is the junction of two other rivers. The map said that the trail followed a covered water channel. Most of the time the trail was on top of the channel. In the first pic you can see the channel as we went around a cliff face.

Cojitambo

The next week I went to Cojitambo for the morning. In my pare from last June I showed a picture of it from a distance, beautiful single peak in the middle of a large valley with a supposed Incan temple on top. Well the trail was a road, but it was pretty and worth the small amount of time: First I went to Azogues I was the last one on the bus and they squeezed me in the front, but I wasn't alone!

From Asogues take the Panamericano Bus to Déleg

This is Cojitambo, cute town with the mountain behind, but stay on the bus until you get to the far side of the mountain and look for this entrance. or better yet, ask the probably friendly driver where the entrance for the mountain is:

Here is the entrance off of the main road (no signs)

Here are the Incan ruins:

There are two sub peaks above the ruins. From one of them I got a great view of the valleys around and the pueblo of Cojitambo:

Time for a break!

Total round trip, including the bus in town in Cuenca, $2.50.

Zamora and Podocarpus National Park

This is probably my favorite place in Ecuador so far. Beautiful high-jungle, great heat and humidity. Fantastic people. Terrible bus ride from Loja, but i don't think that is the city's fault.

At night on the hillside they have a great clock. It says Zamora, Ciudad de Aves y Cascadas. (Zamora city of birds and waterfalls.)

I stayed at a very nice place the Hotel Betania. Click here for contact information.

Around the town:

This cemetery has a good idea, it says Aqui Termina la Vanidad, y Comienza la Igualidad (Here ends the vanity and begins the equality.)

Podocarpus National Park--Bombuscara, low altitude entrance.

Zamora is nice, but the park nearby is really great. Low enough( ~1000 meters) that it has a good jungle feel, but high enough that it does not have a lot of the dangers of the "real" jungle, snakes, alligators, and bugs large enough to drag off your children in the middle of the night. Take a taxi in, $4.00 and walk out ~6 km (or be wimpy and call for a taxi.)

The park attendant is Carlos. He is a good guy and very friendly and helpful. They had no maps of the trails to give out, but at least the trails were poorly marked so I didn't miss a real challenge.

Below is a map of the park: CAREFUL! This is a very big picture ~3 MBytes. If you ever plan on going I suggest that you print a copy of this picture and you will have a great detailed map of the park trails.

The first trail that I did looked like the hardest, the Sendero Mirador #7 (the Vista Trail #7). It was. Here is Zamora from the top of the trail. This was straight up the mountainside. What a hike . . .

In order to cool off a little I next went and visited The Ponderosa Waterfall. Where's Hoss and the others??

The next day I spent quite a few hours on the Higuerones Trail. I made it around 1km past the end of the map. Supposedly this trail will connect with the high altitude part of the park--after three days! I believe the part about the city of waterfalls.

Evenrude, here just landed on my walking stick (while I was walking with it) and insisted that I took his picture. He even gave me a good smile, see what I said about everything being friendly here?

This beautiful butterfly has translucent wings. I couldn't get him to pose for me with them open. I guess that he was a little too shy.

On the other side of the river were homes of people. Later in this hike when I cross the river to go back to town, I will run across burro tracks from the entrance to this place. I like the idea of living in the country, but this is a little extreme!

More along the trail including a rickety bridge to cross:

I do not know what these are, but the metallic-blue berries were beautiful. They are probably deadly poisonous and if I had picked any I would still be out there on the trail making my own contribution to the "natural" food cycle.

There were tons of leaf-cutter ants: Cute!

I stoped at the river before I headed back into town:

This nice lady and her family stopped and offered me a ride in the back of their nice truck. This saved me about 5 km of walking! What a town!

The road to and from Zamora

One quick view of Loja. More later hopefully, as I really have not had the chance to visit, only pass through.

My Presentation for the Fulbright Commission

I spent my Halloween night giving a presentation on Virtual Instrumentation to a packed house. Now this was fun!

Here is my Abstract and here is my Power-Point. Enjoy!

The Universidad San Francisco de Quito

The next day I was able to visit USFQ. What an impressive campus. Very much like my campus, but the are only 19 year old! The two main guys that formed it are both physicists. Now does that say anything?? I wonder . . .

Pretty nice Labs:

First workshop on Christian leadership in Universities

During the weekend I attended a nice workshop in Quito. The main speaker Rolando Justiniano, a missionary from Bolivia gave a great set of presentation on leadership.

We had a visit from missionaries from Turkmenistan or one of those "stans" that estan near Afganistan.

We had a nice celebration at the end. The rock band from Riobamba was very good:

One last picture, from--I don't remember. I remember taking it and I think it is from a town near Loja, but I am not sure. I still like the globe. Does the Catholic Church support Globalization?

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All pictures above are "thumbnails." Click on a picture to see a bigger copy, afterwards, use your browser's back arrow to return to this page. If you see any pictures that you want a higher resolution copy, just email me. Most pictures have 3-4 Mbyte originals