Training Archive: stoneIn the 7 days ending 2006-12-10:
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Sunday Dec 10 | ||
| Note | |
| heading back to Santiago on another 10hr ride. Again lots of party with Bob Marley II :-)
I didn't speak much spanish this weekend, as most people were from Switzerland, Germany, Holland and the US. I've been here for only one week, but it's amazing how many people I've gotten to know in this short period of time. Probably more than I get to know in 2 years back home! The coolest thing of all is that there are totally different people here at the school, people I'd wouldn't meet anywhere else - for example the girl who worked at the London Stock Exchange, the guy from NASA, the 46yr old woman who owns a bar in Luzern and travelled for 7 yrs in China back in the 80s, the guy who hasn't done anything in the last two years (if hanging around and drinking beer doesn't count as 'doing smth') and doesn't have any plans for the near future, the 19yr old who just finished high school, the guy fighting forest fires up in Alaska and the Rocky Mountains, etc. Definitely very interesting, also to realize how different a person I am now compared to when I was 20 or 25 ! some more pics: our guides: http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... | ||
Saturday Dec 9 | ||
| Running 2:00:00 [1]+1500m | |
| Together with 3 other people from our group (all of them swiss...), we got up at 6 in the morning after a short night after the azado to climb up to the Volcano Villarica. The volcano is very well known here because it has a perfect conical shape and there's always some smoke coming out on top. Furthermore, it's covered with snow all year long all the way down, even though it's only 2800m high. Quite strange, so I asked the guide why this is so, and he said something about the southern hemisphere having less landmass and therefore there is supposedly more snow in the south than in the north at equivalent latitudes, but I'm not sure I (or he) got it right.
We booked a tour, and when we arrived at the bottom of the volcano, I saw what I somewhat expected to see: dozens, no, hundreds (I am not exagerating) of people wanting to go up there. So we basically walked up there, REAL slowly, one after the other. It took us more than four hours for 1400m climb, and we were one of the faster groups. To be honest, it was quite boring and also annoying when people were complaining already halfway. And in my opinion, also careless, since they basically pulled some people up there who were already dead after 200m of climbing. I don't want to think what would happen if some guy has a heart attack up there, I didn't see any helicopters anywhere. It is quite steep in some places, and it's all in the snow. It's simply a huge business for the people here. BUT: besides all this, it was a GREAT experience! The weather was fantastic, and it's quite impressive to look into a crater on top of an active volcano!! I wouldn't want to do it again this way, but for this one time it was a great experience. And also, it felt pretty good to see once again that even in 'bad' shape I can climb this mountain faster than 99,9999% of the world's population ;-) views from the volcano: http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... | ||
Friday Dec 8 | ||
| Note | |
| Arrived after a 10hr ride during the night in buses which were shaking like hell whenever there was a small stone on the ground... not much sleep this time... but it was quite cool, one of our tour guides was smth like the reincarnation of bob Marley, he played reggae music the whole time and we partied during half the ride :-)
Pucon is one of the most touristic places here. It's really beautiful, in many ways it reminded me of places in the Alps. Definitely not what I expected to see in South America. Same thing with the prices in restaurants or for tours... We went river rafting in the afternoon, which was quite cool. In the evening, we did an 'azado', which is the chilean version of a barbeque: mountains of meat, meat and some more meat. If you're a vegetarian, you'll have a hard time here. azado: http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... | ||
Thursday Dec 7 | ||
| Running 1:10:00 [2]12 km (5:50 / km) +300m 5:11 / km | |
| easy evening run with Victor up to el Cerro. He seemed to be a bit tired today ;-) but I also felt already much better than yesterday.
Heading off for a weekend trip with the school to Pucon in the south, about 800km from here. | ||
Wednesday Dec 6 | ||
| Running 1:05:00 [4]14 km (4:39 / km) +300m 4:12 / km | |
| morning run up to Cerro San Cristobal, this time from home. Felt ok in the beginning, and couldn't resist pushing harder uphill, but after 3k I had to slow down, as I felt real heavy in the 30deg heat and I had to realize that it really is 5k up there, seemed shorter last time. Tired after the run, I'm in really bad shape. | ||
| Dancing 1 [5] | |
| Salsa class. Yeah, this is cool! Wasn't really a class, the teacher just showed some moves and then let us dance something... it's not so hard, most important thing is to turn off your mind and stop thinking (which is not so easy for a computer geek like me) and just go with the rhythm, just do it.
I'm not sure if my legs were actually doing real salsa ;-) but at least the girls seemed to like it and didn't run away ;-) right now, my repertoire of different steps and moves is quite limited, so I hope to learn more in the future. Salsa classes will definitely be a fixed part in my comeback plan in the spring. Tango is up next in a week. | ||
