Saturday
6:30 am - we met at the bus
We then drove for a while in the buses and got to watch a random assortment of movies throughout the day ranging from Transporter 3 to Harold and Kumar. The roads we were driving on were windy two lane roads that often had piles of dirt and large puddles to avoid which involved driving into incoming lanes of traffic. In addition to this they also were weaving around mountains without a guard rail in sight. The views, especially in the morning when it was clear, were spectacular.
Our first stop was a random outcropping of igneous (volcanic) rock. It was of course pouring. We got out of the buses and scrambled up this hill to look at the outcropping and surrounding rock debris. I had lots of fun because I got to climb on everything. We collected a couple rock samples, including natural asphalt which I found exciting, and moved on.Our second stop was once again just pulling off to the side of the road and getting out. This time we were looking at clastic sedimentary rocks, in this case mud stone. This involved walking through lots of mud. At one point I apparently picked a not so great path and the mud stole my shoe. Luckily I was able to retrieve it although it was then twice as heavy with mud. once again we collected some rock samples and moved on.
Our third stop was the most exciting part of the day. Basically we hiked through the woods without a path, but more about that in a second. To get to the woods we hiked through we crossed this crazy rickety rope bridge. It moved when you walked on it and there were parts were there were holes in the boards and you cold see straight down to the river. Someone on the trip has a video of us all running across it. The best part was that there was a perfectly safe stable bridge directly next to the rope bridge, but obviously that one was less fun. So to the hike. There was absolutely no trail and we were climbing up and down these hills either dragging ourselves by roots and trees or half sliding down on your butt. I was having a great time as this is basically my idea of a good time. Some less outdoorsy people enjoyed it a little less however. This trek took quite a while as there were about 50 of us and we had to go single file. I did not take any pictures but other people did so I will put them up when ever they put them up on facebook. Once we got to our destination, a big sheer cliff, we talked for about 10 minutes and then went down this wide, although extremely muddy, path that led back to our bus. So basically we spent an hour and a half walking there and ten minutes walking back. This was the highlight of the weekend and I kind of want to go back and do it again with fewer people and less waiting. By the end of all this I was completely covered in mud.
Theo (our professor) kept asking me if I had done things like this in my other geology classes. I had to explain that in the US we have all these crazy liability laws that do not encourage trekking through jungle just for fun. Also New England has much less dramatic geology.
After the academic portion of our day, about half the group went to the hot springs at Papallacta. This felt awesome after a long day of treking through the mud. The best part was to go and sit in the cold river and then run back to the hot springs. Hopefully I will be able to include pictures soon.
Sunday
6:30 am - once again we met at the buses.
This day we concentrated more on faults and more specifically volcano related things.
The first stop we once again stopped at the side of the road and and climbed up a hill to look at huge cliff on the other side of the road. Here we learned about the basic faults. The outcropping had some nice clearly defined stratigraphic layers so we were able to look at and draw the faults that were there. They were all normal faults (which probably means nothing to most of the people reading this blog but oh well).
Our second stop was much like the first but this time the outcropping contained an example of each of the three different types of faults. This is really rare and kind of bizarre and my nerdy brain thought it was super cool.
Our next stop was the crater lake Cuicocha which the BU group also visited on the way to Otovalo. We did the same little boat tour, but this time it was not raining and Theo gave us a more technical explanation of things.
After that we drove some more and then came to these massive ash deposits. It was pretty sweet. And that was the end of our exciting weekend.
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