September October 2017

11 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org Geodesy assumed we all knew how to ride because we started out without any instructions, but again I had watched cowboy movies, what could go wrong? We strung out sin- gle file on an old dirt road and I was near the end of the line which was fine with me, but apparently El Diablo (that was one of the printable things I called him) decided he wanted to be in the front. He caught me by surprise when he took off at a butt-busting trot hell bent on getting to the front. I remembered my cowboy movie training and started sawing on the reins hollering “Whoa you son of a bis- cuit,” but I guess he didn’t understand English. All the sawing and hollering got himexcited and confused because he kept darting right and left nearly unseating me. SSSaaannnttiagooo help me!! Like I said, I can’t say enough good things about Santiago. He switched mounts with me and rest of the ride was very pleasant. One of our more technical tours was to the Instituto Geografico Militar. We first met in their conference roomwhere they introduced themselves and explained their duties using an interpreter. Then it was our turn and Ken went first but he forgot to pause for the interpreter. Mark nudged Ken and reminded him to pause. We all got a good laugh out of that and everybody relaxed. We then left the con- ference room and stopped in front of a huge wall mural for a group picture be- fore visiting their work stations where they showed us examples of their proj- ects. This was very relaxing because we all were speaking “Surveying”,”GNSS,” and “Geodesy.” At the end of the tour we regrouped and they gave each of us a packet of information and I gave them one of our commemorative disks which they planned to put in their display case. One of the things I like to do when I travel is try the local cuisine. They have a dish called Cuy which is a guinea pig. It was tasty but there isn’t much meat on a lit- tle guinea pig! They are served splayed out flat on your plate with tin foil socks on their little feet. We spent several years planning this trip and it seemed like it was over in a flash. We saw innumerable brightly colored birds and other wildlife and incredibly steep country covered with thick vegeta- tion. If you ever go down there, be sure to visit our disk at 0º00’00”N & 78º10’30”W and whatever you do, don’t ride a horse named El Diablo! Be sure to read Gavin Schrock’s article about both the French expedition and our trip at http://bit.ly/2xNNF7p Photos Sign in a park. The statue in the distance was just above our motel. Cotopaxi volcano. We climbed to just below the snow line. The avenue leading up to Mitad del Mundo with busts of the members of the French expedition. Commemorative disk. Group photo at Instituto Geografico Militar, IGM. View from the top of Mitad del Mundo looking down the avenue.