San Juan El Acantilado

Leaving Jungle sceneries we head to San Juan El Acantilado a crag near the Chimburazo mountain at pretty much 4000 meters height. The topo was pretty approximative and we lost a few hours trying to find the crag riding Ernie through dogie roads... I think some locals have been kind of surprised to see such a big truck driving through their tiny farmer village... We ended-up bush camping on the side of a road before finding the crag a few hours later the next day.

Where is this f*** crag ??

The crag itself looked crap at first sight but finally was offering good technical pitches still on the same andesite volcanic rock. Again we haven't seen any local climbers...it looks like the climbing community in Ecuador is not that big, not very surprising considering the country poverty.

After hours of research we're there, the crag is underneath us :)

Breakfast

Cooking !

Local farming kids

San Juan Crag

While most of the group was enjoying cragging two of us went to try to tick the Chimburazo. Unfortunately one of them suffered from altitude sickness at around 5000m and they had to abandon their project. Indeed  our acclimatization was not the best ever after having spent a few days at a few hundreds meters height in the jungle...

The massive Chimburazo 6268m

Puerto Misahualli

After Cuyuja cragging we head toward Puerto Misahualli which is the gate to the deeper primary amazonian jungle. No climbing planned here but just nice hangling out in a sweet hostal near the rio Misahualli. Many  equatorians were having parties for the independance day, it was great to see the town packed with locals enjoying street food and river beach. We obviously made a small one day jungle tour with a 5-6 hours hike through the primary jungle. Not so much animals though but nice insects, butterflies and crazy ants.   

Fuel stop !

Yes. Banana AND cheese.

Lots of locals partying on the (Rio) Beach

Our camp at Banana Lodge with a sweeet river

Tobby lost in the primary jungle

Yeah. A single germing seed...

Crazy "punaises"

Massive jungle tree

Cuyuja

Very first Ernie driving day

Playing at La mitad del Mundo (The half of the world). I only added this picture because  it's not worth seeing the  touristic parc the Ecuadorians made on the ecuador....

On the road baby !!!

The small town of Cuyuja with the crag on the very left

First place we head for is Cuyuja a very small town 70 km from Quito. Setting is high altitude (around 3000m) jungle. Nice bush camping near a river, town being 5 minutes by foot and the same for the crag. Of course first wake-up happens under the rain...

Bush camping near the crag

Cuyuja crag

Access to the crag 

At first thinking that climbing wouldn't be possible we finally discover that a nice roof protects the crag from the rain and except the very muddy access we had two days of good sport climb on a volcanic andesite rock surrounded with waterfalls, great ! The climbs were pretty tough for everyone, most of us were in this altitude only since a few days and also pretty much jet-lagged ! Beside of that the climbs are pretty awesome, long technical climbs with slight overhang.

Crag again !

View from the crag, pretty jungly !

Toby climbing

 We stayed two full days overthere with Ernie (the truck which is absolutely NOT a bus) in raining mode (there is a nice blue tent to be able to make the food in dry conditions...luxury trip :) ) and celebrated Tom's birthday, the leader of the group. Very nice party with some drinking games and dancing in the truck !

Truck dancing :)

English people learning caps :) Hard time for them !!

Arrival in Quito

Seamless arrival in Quito, no plane delay or lost baggage, cool. Went directly to Jardi del Sol hostel were I directly met two Hotrockers. Next day we went visiting the old Quito which is one of the biggest old town in South America before joining the other Hotrockers for dinner.

Plaza de independencia 

Panecillo

Place in front of San Francisco Covent

Cool piano player who dedicated is life to old school piano repair

San Francisco covent

Quito old-town

View from Panecillo Old town in front and in the back Mariscal

Ernie !!!!!!!!

Beside of that Quito is like most of South America capitals not that interesting and dangerous in some areas (two people from the group have been mugged in the first days in Quito...). First meeting with the group in the evening around some pints. The group is pretty international with people form England, Scotland, US, Germany, South-Africa and even another guy from France. Also met some folks from the previous trip finishing their 8 months trip from Ushuaia to Ecuador. The trip starts directly the next morning after packing all the bags into the truck. The truck is pretty big and can fit up to 16 people, everyone gets a secured locker for personal belongings, it also includes bookshelves, bar, stereo and all the cooking facility.

Here it starts !

So first I chose to write the blog in English as some of my possible readers won't necessarily understand french... Though I apologize for French friends who do not understand English...

So here's the trip plan, 11 months in total, 5 months with Hot Rock and 6 months travelling by myself.

Hot Rock is a climbing company running trips all over the world. Take a big red truck, a bunch of climbers and let's go ! I chose this option because it allows to travel in far remote places and have partners for climbing as well as water/food supplies for a pretty long time. So it's not that much organized, there is no guide or so but they manage all the logistical aspect of the trip.
During these 5 months we will travel from Ecuator to Chile going through Peru, Bolivia, Brasil and Argentina.

For the other 6 months I wanted to travel by myself (which is great to meet people) and the rough plan is India for 2 months and the other 4 months split between Greece and Turkey. Of course the goal is to check the best climbing places... with a little bit of tourism.

Concerning the stuff to do before leaving for such a long time (at least what I did) :
0. Save enough cash or gold if you fear a financial breakdown
1. Quit your job ! (Or if you are in a nice company you could get a year-off...)
2. Book at least the first flights
3. Get a health insurance for travelling. Most regular insurances like VISA or so only cover for 90 days max and obviously won't cover climbing activity. I chose AVI international insurance which includes everything and also has an option for "dangerous" sports. On top of it it has a good reputation for refunds which is not the case for some american ones....
4. Leave your house/apartment if you're renting and stuff all your belongings to your family and friends
5. Stop all monthly paid useless stuff as phone, insurances
6. Make a goodbye party ;)
And that's it !

Concerning the stuff I brought the list is pretty long as we will camp 90% of the time...and the weather can be rather cold as we will hit some high altitude places. I was lucky to be allowed to bring two pieces of luggage on the plane and finally had around 40kg of gears...