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

Page 3: November 4 to November 30

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. Above are the students in one of my regular classes, the "Professional Class."

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

El Cajas National Park

I went with a bunch of the students from Sampere Spanish school to a high altitude national park "El Cajas," on the 10th of November.

What a bunch of tourists!!

This rock formation includes the "virgin" for the area. Can you see her in the last photo?

the we went up to Tres Cruces (Three Crosses), over 4000 meters (over 13,000 feet). Here is some great shots of llama-type animals.

How cute!

Here is the group from afar. Also my fellow Fulbright colleague, Vikki Stone from New York got to come along.

Did I mention our altitude?? I need to remember how to get back to this room . . .

Also one of my favorite professoras from Sampere came with us. She is a card . . .

We hiked for around 3 hours, air, air, someone give me some air . . . . .

We stopped and had lunch in a cave. That was nice since it had started to rain:

Vikki managed to fall in the mud:

I look like I know what I'm doing, don't I?

We then spent some time along the Incan road to the coast. Chevere!

and then some hot chocolate at a trout farm on the way back:

These dogs knew better than to go out in the cold and rain!

More Pictures Around Cuenca:

I thought the people going to the bathroom on the edge of the river made a mess, well . . .

This is a cool dragon statue in a park in town:

I go to church at the First Baptist Church of Cuenca.( when I am in town . . .) Here is our worship. Pastor Vincent is a really great pastor. He gets very emotional, but generally uses logical arguments to explain a detailed point.

Keep it up pastor!

Here is one of my classes at the University of Cuenca:

These are the students in one of my two regular classes, the "Professional Class."  These guys come twice a week after work to learn about Virtual Instrumentation. In the foto: Fabián Viteri, Iván Hermida, me, Hernán Durazno and Alex Torres.

Machala:

On the next weekend, November 16, I went to a town near the coast and then on to the island beach town (not resort, trust me) of Jambelí. On the way down the mountains: (First time to descend to sea level in almost three months.)

Machala! Well, not really exciting, but friendly any way.

I stayed at Hostal Mercy, $5 and not bad.

The next morning, on to Jambelí

Jambelí:

Here is the port in Puerto Bolivar

We actually cut across the middle of the island through the Mangroves, to near the other side.

I stayed at Cabañas Colibri. I have included all the photos, just to see what is going on. Biggest disadvantage, no hot water! It was nice to fall asleep listening to the ocean waves. It turned out to be a very quiet area, no parties!

Guess what I found? I even had company.

This beach was not clean or well attended, but it was very good to walk on. It was almost 10 kilometers end to end and mostly empty. Here is the south end where the Mangroves were taking over and the beach was ending. You could see some islands that were part of Peru from here.

Here is the lighthouse at the north end, where the ships from Puerto Bolivar would head out to open sea:

On Sunday I got the opportunity to take a trip into the Mangroves with a guide from my hostel, Angel. In case you don't know, (I didn't) Mangroves are a series of plants and trees that can exist in the salt-water mud of an area the has the tides changing the water level. They have a cool set of roots that are well distributed. They help control a lot of the coast lands.

They are also homes to a lot of different types of animals, including iguanas. Can you find the iguanas in these three pictures?

Here are two blow-ups of the last picture where it is a lot easier to see the cute little buggers.

Can you say, African Queen??

Angel asked me, "would you like to take a hike through the mangroves?" "Sure" I replied, thinking there was a little spit of land to walk on. I was wrong, he literally meant the trees, and here we are. Chevere!

On the way back we were chased by a dog from one of the shrimp farms. This guy was very, very persistent.

On Monday morning I headed back to high altitudes. A guy was fishing from the dock while we waited for the first boat to shore:

On November 23 I got to go to Uruguay to visit some close friends there. On the way there I stopped for the day to visit a friend of mine at ESPOL (Escuela Superior Politechnico del Literal) in Guayaquil. To see my page on Uruguay please CLICK HERE.

ESPOL:

Here is my friend and fellow physicist, Eduardo Montero. This is the lake in the middle of campus. This is a very large campus!

They had the only children's science museum in Ecuador!

Here are some cool tiled bridge supports in Guayaquil, near Eduardo's house.

Now on to Uruguay!

On the way back through Lima, Peru, this is all I got to see . . .

Well, that's all this time, one more month. Next month, can you say 5 star beach resort? How is this possible? I'm a physicist that's how! come back and see . . .

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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