From Cuenca to Loja

14/2. Sunday. In the morning Eduardo and Anna come to our Hotel. We first go to a friend of Eduardo, Mario Brazzero who is waiting in front of the oldest church of Cuenca: "La Catedral Vieja"built in 1573. We admire the private chapels that do not belong to the church (!), the paintings with their "trampantojos" (trompe-oeuil) and the old organ, the music of which must have been heard by La Condamine.

The old organ which La Condamine could have heard!

At half past 9 we head to the south and soon come to the mountain described in the book of Neil Safier (see former posts). At 10:30 we are on the top of the Francesurcu (the mountain of the french?), having taken 643 steps. Our GPS gives the following position: S 3° 0' 28''; W 79° 2' 35'' and a height of 2887 m. There on the top we meet Braulio Pulla ("pintor") of the Parroquia de Tárqui. He tells us that they want to improve the acces to this start of the French-Spanish geodesic expedition.

Almost on the top of the Francesurcu, which La Condamine used

for his triangulations.

Eleven km south of Tárqui (11h40) we come to a 1829-war monument where Grand-Colombia fought against Peru. From there we have a beautiful view over the valley of the Rio Jubanes.

Going down the landscape changes continuously: At 2000 me everything is green; at 1500-1200 m we drive through a red desert without any plants; below 1000 m everything is green again, In the villages they sell bananas (platanas or maduros) and roast pigs on the street side whiloe children try to throw water in our car.

Enjoying carnival - on the way down to Santa Rosa.

We continue to Santa Rosa and Puerto Jeli near the Pacific coast where we eat fish in a big crowd feasting carnival. Finally, at 4 o'clock we leave for Zaruma where we arrive an hour later. Position: S 3° 41' 34''; W 79° 36' 37'' and 1220 m high. La Condamine was not allowed to put the position on the map because of the gold mines that are still existing!

Too late we leave for Loja. We have to climb a dirt road over a mountain through dense mist and in the dark. But when we come to the valley of Catamayo everything is different again: it is dry, warm and there is a bright skye. In the beautiful Hotel La Lojana, we didn't catch enough satellites to measure the position or we were just too tired....

15/2. Monday. At 9:30 Eduardo comes and fetches us for a trip in the direction of Zamora in beautiful wheather. We stop on the ridge of El Tiro mountain (Parque Nacional Podocarpus), where we walk up and see the transition between the wet and the dry Paramo, just as Antoine Cleef had explained to us. We saw many beautiful plants and flowers, a strange, large bird (long neck, white beak(?) and a long falcon-like tail) sailing above the mountain and we measure our position: S 3° 59' 40''; W 79° 8' 50'' and 2927 m high.

The Paramo vegetation of El Tiro; different from that of the Cotopaxi.

We continue our drive to the San Francisco Scientific Research station (Estacion Cientifica San Francisco), wher we are kindly received by Jürg Zeilinger with a nourishing soup. The total Institute comprises some 200 people, most of them German (they call themselves Humboldt's successors!). Many Ecuadorian students can follow here a master study and even do their PhD! Jürg showed us around and we went down to the river. He told us how important the natural landslides are (see picture). These superficial landslides, occuring at random and probably because the growing trees became too heavy for the thin organic layer lying on the steep slopes of slippery "schiffer" (weak-metamorph), necessitate the forest to adapt and give new opportunities to other plants and trees during reforestation  (there are about 600 tree species). Because of this continuous "mixing" and adaptation the forests show their high biodiversity. And humans contribute to it although the (anthropogenic) landslides they cause (by making roads and pastures) are wider and deeper, inducing a different kind of reforestation.

Left Jürg Zeilinger in the Esyacion San Francisco.

In the background two natural landslides.

After having returned to Loja we fetched Carlos Iuan Espinosa, a botanist of the Universidad tecnica Particular de Loja, who hopes to defend his thesis this year in Madrid. He specializes in the "Cascarilla" tree, Cinchona condamine, the tree La Condamine describes as having found in Cajanuma and as being the richest in quinina-content. Humboldt gave the tree this name because he had found another species in Colombia which he called Cinchona officinalis. However this has become the official name of the tree in Loja.

Carlos Espinosa standing under a young Cascarilla-tree at the site (Cajanuma) 

where La Condamine describes that the best trees could be found there.

In the evening Eduardo and Anna showed us a deserted Loja: almost everybody had left town for the warmer Zamora or Vilcabamba towns to celebrate Carnival. But we found a pizzaria, where we had a nice dinner with their sons Abram (12y) and Paul (7y).

From Quito to Cuenca.

11/2. Thursday. Also when going north, Quito appears to be a big city with a lot of traffic. This time we went down and up through a large valley surrounded by deforestated mountains containing many quarries; along the road one cement factory after the other. After 1.5 h we reached a kind of tourist parc: "La Mitad del Mundo". There was the monument and the red line and also a table where you could try to balance an egg on the tip of a nail: it would stay in balance on the line and tumble on either side of it. On Youtube it can be seen how many educated tourists believe the trick. Our GPS gave as position: 0^o 0' 9'' S; 78^o 27.2' W and 2817 m hight. So, we were slightly below the equator?

Sebastián and Hilbert balancing on the equator.

12/2. Friday. This morning we prepared a box with stuff we didn't want to take down the Amazon (books) for the post to Holland. After also having bought batteries for GPS and camera, Sebastián took us to the airport. We had lunch and then said goodbye to our wonderful "anfitrión" (host), who had helped us with so many things in Quito, who had been correcting all the time our spanish gibberish and who had so many times suggested: "Why don't we go to eg. Otavalo, La Condamine was there...?"

Thank you Sebastián and goodbye Pichincha.....

Goodbye Pichincha! The tip of the Cotopaxi from our airplane.

The Chimborazo from the airplane; Ecuador highest mountain.

In the airplane a man sat next to me who helped me to take a picture of the Chimborazo vulcano through the window. It was a neurologist and we talked about brains and La Condamine. We landed in Cuenca on what seemed a road in between the houses. Once outside, the taxi driver had to ask many times his "companieros", sometimes stopping, sometimes while driving, for our hotel La Casona, according to him in the véry rich part of Cuenca. But also in the south of Cuenca, not far from the road to Tarqui, where La Condamine started his voyage.

13/3. Saturday.  "Sounds from long ago"

It was still dark when I woke up with the sounds of the crowing of far-away cocks and of what must be an oriole. Sounds of rain, the song of a blackbird and crickets woke me up again and reminded me of Sutz...

Left: View from our room in hotel La Casona; in the morning it had been raining...

Right: View on old, colonial Cuenca and the Rio Tomebamba.

Walking to the big cathedral, La Imaculada, in the center of lovely, colonial Cuenca, we came to Parque Calderon. It is carnival and everywhere people become sprayed with water or other stuff; Hilbert became twice a victim.... In the parc a boy called us. Turning around we saw the person we met in the airplane yesterday: Dr. Galo Cuesta, with son and daughter. He could not stand up because his shoes were being polished. So, I set down and allowed my sandals to become shiny also, for 30 cents; the face of the small boy looked quite old and seemed not capable of producing a smile. Afterwards we drank a coffee and talked about brain trauma's in young children, football and many other things. When coming back to Quito I promised to contact him.

Left: Hilbert proudly (?) showing his carnival spray.....

Right: Galo Cuesta, whom we had met in the airplane, 

with son and daughter; small children polishing our shoes....

In the evening Eduardo Tapia came with his wife Anna. He will be our guide to Sarameriza, past the Pongo de Manseriche. We had a nice "get-together" in the restaurant El Maiz. Tomorrow the real journey will start when we will be in Tarqui, from where La Condamine started his voyage: "Je partis de Tarqui, terme austyral de notre méridienne, a cinq lieues au sud de Cuenca, le 11 mai 1743."

First encounter with Eduardo Tapia, director of Tourism in Loja, and his wife.

La Compañía de Jesús, the Jesuit College and La Condamine's bronze rule

10/2. This morning Sebastián had come by bus; so, we walked to thé bookshop of Quito: Libri Mundi to look for a bird guide, which they didn't have. We took a taxi to the historic center of Quito, the Plaza Grande o de la Independencia, where Daniel, the friend of Sebastián joined us. Nearby we visited the Church of the Society of Jesus (Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesus, an impressive baroque building built by Jesuits. Once inside, a young guide started to explain us its design of naves, transepts, crossings etc. But I was more interested in where the Jesuit College was, about which I had been reading in Neil Safier's book. Somewhere there La Condamine had placed a bronze rule with inscription on one of the walls (see p. 42 in "Measuring the New World", 2008). 

The beutiful building (all gold inside) of La Compañia de Jesús

Our guide was not offended and brought us past the gold-leaf adorned chapels to a kind of office, where we met - Oh, ¡qué suerte! - Juan Carlos Pinas, a museologist who's hobby was....La Condamine! He knew all about the subject, but was nevertheless pleasantly surprised when I showed him the book of Neil Safier. So, he showed us around in "el salon de Grados de la Universidad San Gregorio Magno de los Jesuitas", once a chapel, now a beautiful exposition hall with many old maps and instruments of the time of La Condamine and later: a microscope, compass, telescope, octant, barometer, but not......a pendulum. For both the bronze ruler (which La Condamine had originally placed on one of the walls of the Collegio Maximo) and for pendulums we had to visit the Observatório Astronómico in the Alameda parc.

Left: The museologist Juan Carlos Pinas of the Unidad de Conservacion, Fundación Iglesia de la Compania.

Right: the beautiful exposition hall, once the Salon de Grados de la Universidad San Gregorio Magno de los Jesuitas.

After having seen this beautiful exposition, which also impressed Sebastián and Daniel, Juan Carlos Pinas brought us to his office in the Colegio Maxima de Quito, past the rooms where La Condamine had resided (incognito) for many years.

Behind those windows La Condamine found hospitality of the Jesuits for many years.

In his office Juan Carlos showed us a beautiful book with information on La Condamine's stay in the Jesuit College. One of the things I briefly read in the book (which I bought; I sent it by post to Holland) was the acknowledgement that the presence of La Condamine had greatly stimulated the scientific activities of some of the Jesuits there. An interesting story, told by Juan Carlos was that one of the members of the expedition, the technician and mapmaker de Morainville, had made paintings (see below) which were sold in order to get some money. Apparently the expedition members run out of money several times during the 7 years of their stay.

Left: When the upper floor was built in the 19th century, the bronze rule of La Condamine was displaced, but not lost.

Right: One of the paintings of Monsieur de Morainville.

On the roof of the Colegio, Juan Carlos pointed out where the meridian went through which the expedition had measured. Satisfied, we left the Colegio and went to the nearby plaza, Palacio del Gobierno for a good lunch.

Left: From the roof of the Colegio the Iglesia Sicalpa(?), one of the points of the measured meridian.

Right: Lunch with Hilbert, Daniel, Sebastián and Conrad.

After lunch we walked to the Parque Alameda, where we took pictures of the principal expedition members and visited the Observatório. Here again there were many interesting old tools exhibited. We saw several ingeneous pendulums, but all seemed to be of a later date. An official told us that the pendulum used by La Condamine to measure the gravity had been lost. But at least we saw the bronze rule (varilla metalica) of the length of the pendulum on a marmor stone with inscription on observations on the pendulum's motion.. It doesn't seem to be the same rule as shown in the book of Neil Safier (p. 42), but the inscription described in his book must be the same. I hope my friend Henrie W. will, once again, help me to translate the latin text.

After heaving read for years about the statue of La Condamine in the Alameda parc,

we are finally there!

Statues of various expedition members. La Condamine is not represented very intelligently.

Would the artist have known that La Condamine was not popular among the Quitoenians?

Left: a 19th century pendulum in the Observatório Astronómico.

Right: the bronze rule giving the length of the pendulum used by La Condamine. 

It is probably the precursor of the standard meter in Paris.

Camino de Orellana and the valley of Yaruqui

9/2. The taxi driver looked at the address and promised us that he would "bring us down". And down we went from our hotel in Quito's center to Guápulo, down an old bumpy road named the Camino de Orellana. This was the very road Orellana took when he went on his expedetion in 1581 to the Rio Napo and then down the Amazon.

The Camino de Orellana

The taxi stopped in front of the old church of Guápulo and with a lot of excuses the driver explained that we had to walk back up the road, a good exercise in breathing. But there we were cordially welcomed by a tall, slender figure, the friend of Norbert Vischer, the first couselor of the German Embassy, Raymond Dequin, who had invited us for breakfast at 7:30 h. "Dequin" is not a french name but a Prussian word for dike. Although we first entered a huge but empty room, it soon became clear why he had asked us to come there. The house on a steep slope, was surrounded by balconies overlooking the valley of Cumbaya, where we had been yesterday. Raymond showed us around in this beautiful villa and in his fantastic garden with the highest palmtree of Quito (a "wax palm") and many other interesting trees like the Quito-palm and the "tomato-tree" (see below).

The beautiful house and garden of Raymond Dequin

Raymond agreed that the way Quito was built on many hills resembled Jerusalem. It appeared that he knew a lot about Israel, the Arabic world, where he had lived in his youth and about the Islam. So, while enjoying the delicious yoghourt, porridge and huevos fritos Marguarita served us, we discussed the "legitimacy" of Israel and whether and whether this legitimacy was slowly fading or not. We talked about the Ecuadorian political reaction towards "Copenhagen" and could have talked the whole day, if Raymond did not have to bring us back to the hotel, up the steep Camino de Orellana.

At the breakfast table: Hilbert showing Raymond where to find La Ciénega,

a múst for a German counselor....

Back in hotel Antinea, Sebastian came to bring us again to the University in the Cumbaya valley, where we had an appointment with the geographer Carlos Mena. Because he could only receive us in the afternoon we decided to drive to the valley of Yaruqui, where La Condamine had erected his controversial pyramids, both for his triangulation measurements ánd for the glory of "European science". 

Daniel Carrasco, a friend of Sebastián who had joined us, asked the owner of a house under construction with a high, flat roof, whether we might take pictures from there of the Yaruqui valley. This time we were less lucky, but the friendly owner showed us where the Cotopaxi was lying behind the clouds. But at least we could see the Pichincha!

Sebastián, Daniel and Hilbert on the roof of a house

overlooking the Yaruqui valley

While Hilbert was taking pictures of the panorama, the heat and the noise of the nearby traffic prevented me from having the philosophical reflections Humboldt had when overlooking this valley: "How many things exist that man cannot see" (Chapter 1 of Neil Safier's book "Measuring the New World", Chicago University Press). For us, however, at this stage of the trip, there were too many things we cán see, with too little time to digest.....

Our view of the panorama of Yaruqui valley.

To the left the Cotopaxi behind clouds; in front the Pichincha mountain.

Upper frame: "Vue de la Base mesurée dans la plaine d'Yarouqui, depuis Carabourou jusqu'a Oyambaro" (1751). Note the roof of a house similar to our roof above.

Lower frame: a recent overview taken from the same point, somwhere near the town Yaruqui.

(from "Los Caballeros del Ponto Fijo", A. LaFuente & A. Mazueco(?). Libreria de la P. Salesiana).

Back at the University we were received by an enthousiastic Carlos Mena, who confessed that he would very much like to join us on our trip. He borrowed us a real GPS, the robust GeoExplorerII of Trimble Navigation Lim., 1996. So, finally, we know our position: 0^o 12.2' S; 78^o 29,4' W and 2799 m hight.

Hilbert and the geographer Carlos Mena 
(Director, Maestría en Ecologia Tropical, Universidad San Francisco de Quito), 
who kindly borrowed us his GPS  GeoExplorerII.

Back in the hotel we had a rest before Sebastián came to drive us to his parents house. There we were cordially welcomed by his father and mother, an uncle (painter) and another uncle (silver smith) and their wives. They showed us a movie about indian life in the Esmeraldas, the province governed by Vicente de Maldonado at the time of La Condamine.

We sat at a beautiful table with very colourful and tasty dishes, most unknown to us. Here, we also ate the sweet fruit of the "tomato tree", we had seen at Raymond Dequin's house.

The parents thanked us very sincerely for the way we had received Sebastián in Holland; thanks I accepted also on behalf of Tanneke and Bart who supervised Sebastián in the Molecular Cytology Laboratory. We left the house with the warm feeling of having experienced a South American hospitality so cordial and different from our European one (see also the blog "Bogotan experinece" posted 15-4-2007).

The colorful feast dish. In the center the parents of Sebastián.

Universidad San Francisco

8/2. Throughout the night, after visiting the Cotopaxi yesterday, I heard the full concert of the frogs in the nearby swamps from 10 in the evening till 5 o'clock in the morning. Then the birds took over, a sign that it would soon be light. Apparently, one has to get used to sleeping at a hight of 3200 m. In the morning the Colombian coffee and the fried eggs made us soon feel better.

Sebastian came to bring us to the Universidad San Francisco near Quito. Now the sun was shining and we hardly recognized this road we had driven two days ago in the rain: it was a beautiful road through a Switzerland-like landscape.

The campus with nice gardens and buildings and the many students reminded me of that of Be'er-Sheva, also with respect to (and Hilbert agrees) the many elegant students.

The beautiful campus of the Universidad San Francisco

This would be the "science-part" of our trip: Telling an interested audience how we think that the cells in a bacterial population keep their average size constant, I had to breath deeply between the slides. 

Between the slides I had to breath heavily....

At right our host Sebastian Robalino Espinosa, former student at Molecular Cytology

After the talk we had lunch with Gabriel Trueba, the director of the Instituto de Microbiologia and with Sebastian. As Gabriel was not only interested in the bacterial cell cycle but also in our trip, he kindly introduced me to the geographer Carlos Mena. He explained to me that my new touch screen google-telephone did not have a GPS. He then offered me a real GPS for our trip. We should come tomorrow again to fetch it.

Sebastion Robalino, myself, Gabriel Trueba and Hilbert 

Sebastian brought us to Hotel Antinea, an old villa close to an area in Quito with small pubs and restaurants.

An impression of Hotel Antinea