the weather can't be perfect all the time

the clouds rolled in while we were getting out of the cars at the college. ominous clouds, big and black and angry looking. it hasn't rained since we got here and the clouds seemed disturbed by that. it could also be that even the weather hates cranbrook. blaine, the guy who runs the hostel, said that the lonely planet is always ragging on cranbrook, that it's the ugliest city in the world and such, that buddhist monks find it tedious and boring. i've been here all of a couple hours, the vast majority of that spent inside ruminating on the ominisity (?) of the clouds, but it does seem to lack a certain sense of charm.

cranbrook is pretty small, about 20 thou according to the brochures, and it doesn't really have much of a historical downtown or majestic gardens or waterfront to point to. instead it extolls itself as a gateway to the kooteneys (not, as i had originally feared) a disease, but rather a region of b.c. in which kimberley lies. kind of the okanagan's ugly sister, only it's not ugly at all. ok, bad analogy. anyway, i have yet to hear a nice world said about cranbrook, perhaps beyond the fact that it's nestled in the mountains and the views heading out of town seem extra special.

mila, our spanish teacher, lives here and runs a restaurant by the name of 'cancun'. of course this makes perfect sense because she's from el salvador. we're heading there for dinner in a bit and are now just killing time on the net.

a day of spanish

just wrapped up a day of spanish... most of it was spent lounging over lunch and postres at a cafe in the platzl in town. found this cute little 360 degree view of the tourist district online... check it out. they've revamped it a bit since the page was put up but you get the jist of it. the spanish went well, only a few times did my mind wander to other exploits.

also thought it might be fun to post a few pics of the city in which i'll be living... guayaquil. the main tourist site for the city is visitaguyaquil.com and is loaded with pics and info on the main tourist draws. the biggie - the malacon is pretty impressive. i'll post some pics later tonight after i load them on the web. gonna play a little bit o basketball and perhaps try and phone mom tonight...

waiting on the lasagna

it seems that evenings around here just fly by. there's no tv - one of the supposed perks of the hostel, and therefore i can't fall into my usual boob tube stupor by 8pm and just coast all the way through the local news.

the ropes course was a blast - it's held at this place along the road to st. mary's lake where we've been doing the rock climbing. a couple of guys - cam and dave - set us up and led us through the 'ropes' as it were, a series of obstacle courses where we were to learn various aspects of team spirit and the like. it's all good. one of the set-ups involved crossing a tight-rope perched a mere two feet off the ground but strung between two trees about twenty-five feet apart. a rope was affixed to each tree and met in the middle of the tight-rope forming a kind of tee-pee in the middle. anyway, we had to cross the entire tight-rope without falling, and maneuver our way around the middle part - not an easily accomplished task. after teetering back and forth for a while i did manage to make my way across but my knees were jelly.

anyone else have interesting training exercise activities they'd like to share?

well, the coup de gras of the ropes course was the blindfolded obstacle course. we all went up in order, hitched into a climbing harness and belayed to terra firma, in total blindness. perched about ten feet above the world we made our way across a series of tight-ropes. first there was the single line... then the double, and finally the long single without guide rope but a series of rope loops hanging in the ether above our heads. i took a header on the final stretch - bobbed for a minute and then righted myself and finished the course. apparently there are pics so i'll be posting them when available.

One week down

one week in to the training process. today we're apparently going on a 'ropes' course... what this is i can only guess but i've been given some heads up that this probably means a team building obstacle course of sorts with net climbing, balance beam walking... that sort of thing. it's a half past seven and the sun is just making it's way over the eastern mountains. that's the thing about living in a bowl like kimberley - the sky lightens for a long time before it actually fills with sunlight.

the College of the Rockies is pretty funny at times. all around the kimberley campus (the pint-sized building at the bottom of the hill) there are posters of people snowboarding, camping, kayaking... all extoling the virtues of a COTR education. gotta love it. here's one of the ads without the copy on it...



oh, and here's a shot of happy hans...



ok, off to breakfast.

Prepping in Kimberley

It's sunday, a gorgeous B.C. end to the weekend. I'm looking out the window of the hostel right now, watching the leaves drift about, catching a breeze as they fall. About 14 degrees out, in the sun of course, and nary a cloud in the sky.

Been here a week now, soaking in the B.C. air and such, partaking in the various 'training' assignments on offer from the College of the Rockies. It's a tiny building at the bottom of the hill, about a two minute scamper from the hostel.

So far the training has consisted of a half day of spanish mixed in with meeting with previous interns and going over the mountain of paperwork that's required for this thing. the spanish is coming along, if slowly, and the teacher is pretty relaxed and fun to be around. she has this fixation with beans, always using her childhood in El Salvador and her love of beans as examples of various past tenses. fun stuff - good times as lauren would say.

yeah, the other interns are a motley bunch, mostly from out west here, and pretty hyped about the opportunity to travel once again. the aforementioned lauren is from, um, well not really sure although i think she calls b.c. home (ominous start eh?). jane is from vancouver and will be working with me at the ecoclubs office in guayaquil. meagan is originally from somewhere else but now calls whitehorse home. that's pretty cool. sasha and alec will be headed to mozambique and are from oakville (the outskirts of the t.dot) and kelowna (?) respectively. anyway, they're all pretty gung ho about the opportunity, travelers all who have already traversed much of the planet.

went rock climbing on the weekend (friday and sat). first time doing that and didn't freak out from the height which was a welcome relief (had thought that i wasn't afraid of heights but wasn't positive...). it was particularly cool to hang free from the rock ledge and just sort of hang there, overlook the valley and such. we were already about thirty metres up the hill when we started so the views were impressive.

if i remember i'll write a bit about kimberley - the bavarian city of the rockies (i'm not making that up!) and happy hanz the beer chugging coo-coo clock guardian.