Happy New Year to all from Quito, Ecuador. Right now the city is rioting on the streets to welcome 2009. Some friends here explained some of the weirder traditions of the New Year. For one, make sure you have yellow underwear on at the stroke of midnight to guarantee money in the new year. I even passed a store open just now festooned with bright yellow underwear. I was tempted.

All through the streets cars are selling grapes. Supposedly you need to eat one grape for every chime of the clock at midnight.

If that weren’t enough there’s the crossdressing and the dummies. Throughout the city today teenage boys and men are dressed as women and have strung lines across the roads to stop the car. You have to give them some coins which they collect to pay for the New Year’s party. The crossdressing  me drape themselves on cars and dance lasciviously and generally have a lot of fun while their friends and family sit on the sidewalk with a couple beers.

The dummies have been on sale for a number of days now made of paper and woodchips depicting political leaders. At midnight the populace burns them. On Avenue Amazonas larger than life puppets are on stages on the streets and a carnival like atmosphere is ready to bring on the new year.

Some of the most unique New Year  traditions I’ve witnessed for sure. Oh yes, the tradition of getting drunk and partying, well, that seems universal.

It’s almost like it’s Halloween really…

Crossdressing men stop cars for change

Dancing on Avenue Amazonas

Giant puppets on stage on Avenue Amazonas

I wanted to test the camera I bought for video quality so that I can (with some luck) use it on various parts of this trip. Be warned, the descent is long and extremely boring. If you want to hear me talk and fall for 8 mins, then fine, otherwise only watch if you are somewhat masochistic

Summit of Rucu

Descending Rucu

Whoever said there are easy mountains needs to go have their head examined. The plan for Monday was to go to the top of the Quito Teleferiqo when it opened (to 4100m at a cost of $4) and the hike the three hours to the summit of the now extinct volcano, Rucu Pichincha at 4680m.

The cable car is pretty awesome. I’m pretty sure that that’s the first time I’ve ascended over 1000m in under 15 mins. Certainly felt a lot safer than the cable cars on Mt. Elbrus in Russia (we had a game in spotting the plaques for the deaths caused by cable car and/or chair lift crashes while you passed over them).

From the top of the cable car you walk a ridge line to behind the mountain peak and then up a scree slope to a rock outfall which you then scramble to reach the summit. By the time I reached the scree slope I could feel the effects of altitude, I was doing the pressure breathing, forcing air in and out as I climbed. Despite that, I felt little other effects. By the time I scrambled to the top I was starving but generally feeling quite good.

Now, you must remember the last time I was at 4600m I was at Diesel Hut on Mt. Elbrus. Well, imagine my surprise at being joined on the top by a group of Russian climbers. There was the requisite attempts at each other’s language, an appreciation for Siberia and the plains of Canada and then photos under the Russian flag. There was however no view to speak of as the clouds rolled in and didn’t budge.

Then it was time for me to go. After all, I had work to do for Sun/MySQL that day. One of the effects of altitude is that you don’t always think carefully. Coming down the rock scramble, I took a wrong turn, before I knew it I was half way down a vertical rock slope. Because of my boots, climbing back up seemed very dangerous. Going down was equally unappealing. My only option appeared to be for me to leap across a 3-4 foot gap with one foot to a rocky spire while crossing to an adjacent wall with better hand holds that I could come down on. Typically not a problem if you are sure of the quality of the rock. Well I did it. I got down looked at two Czech climbers on their way up and wryly said, “this isn’t the way, go around”. Let’s just say I knew right afterwards that I had escaped being injured.

Of course with that excitement out of the way, the rest was pretty simple but by the bottom of the scree slope I had a massive altitude induced headache. Plus, my knees were hurting and mindful of the many climbs ahead of me, I came down slowly. Even then, I managed to do Rucu Pichincha in the alloted time of six hours and was back to work as I had promised. However, by the time early evening hit, I was collapsed in bed trying to sleep my headache away.