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Sunday
October 16, 2016
Jeff and LT decided that they wanted to go on a scenic ride today so we met at 11am and off we went. Jeff bought a GoPro camera to fit his helmet and he wanted to test it with some scenery footage.
They wanted to go south past Tarqui along the Victoria de Portete secondary road (pretty poor road) and come out near the town of Portete, which we did. It is a gorgeous picturesque valley along there, definitely cattle and milk country. I didn't dig out the Lumix until we reached the gravel bike path past Portete that takes us to Giron. We didn't go all the way to Giron, just to a couple of good lookout spots. There I took some shots with the Lumix and attempted two panoramas but the stupid operator flubbed it. I guess I didn't have to keep my finger on the shutter the whole time, so I ended up with 2 more still shots... Dummy! However I am very happy with the Lumix outdoors. It does a great job and has some handy features (like the panorama)..
With the Canon though, I did deliberately take 3 sets of 3 shots in 3 different locales to stitch into panoramas and those have worked flawlessly, thanks to the awesome (free) Image Composite Editor. Again it has done a superb job for me.
We went up to the Tarqui War Memorial on a mountaintop that has one of the most breathtaking views in all of Ecuador. Just standing there, in complete awe of being so high up in the Andes, is mind-boggling.
We then took a back road (apparently the old highway, also quite poor) through Tarqui and came out where we wanted, where we all went our separate ways. I had to get home to walk the girls...
Later I got an email from Jeff that he had his camera angled too low (we did tell him so) and none of his footage was very good. Too bad.
I hope you enjoy the photos. That was the day's
excitement, Cheers,
Al
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NOTE that
you may click on any photo for an ENLARGED VIEW.
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| This is the valley that we followed on the way down |
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| This valley was proposed once for a new Cuenca airport but that was quickly squashed down by the locals. |
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| This is an important indigenous farming area |
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| A lot of the milk we drink comes from here |
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| Some very old mud homes along this road |
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| Looking towards the Giron valley from the gravel bike path |
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| Some great views from this side of the valley |
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| Getting a glimpse of Giron in the center |
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| Someone is inside this stick hut on the mountainside |
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| What a great day to be enjoying this view |
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| The Tarqui War Memorial is to the left and the town of Giron is to the right |
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| Some shots with the Lumix |
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| How green is my valley |
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| The distant cloud comes all the way from the coast |
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| Using the Lumix at full zoom to Giron |
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| What a glorious sight |
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| Different vantage points along this road |
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| This is where we turned back |
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| The magnificent view from the Tarqui War Memorial |
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| Love this shot using the self-timer |
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| Awesome people to ride with, LT and Jeff |
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| This is somewhere south of Cuenca |
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| Another big valley behind the city |
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| Another great Andes view |
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| LT on her Vespa |
