Santa Elena & Salinas - And The Presentation

This Is Where I Did My Presentation On Volcanic Actvity At Tungurahua

The time had finally come. A while back, way before my trip to the United States, I was asked to do a presentation for a conference that was coming up. Most of my time in Ecuador working on monitoring active volcanoes in this country was dominated by making a database on explosion events at the Tungurahua Volcano. Once it was complete I was using the data that I had collected to perform a statistical analysis on this information - to understand better the distribution of explosions at this volcano and what it essentially tells us about the volcanic system in general. The presentation was to be on my results and findings from this analysis.

The conference was between the 24th - 26th November and was organised by SENACYT. They are basically an organisation which funds scientific and research projects in Ecuador, and this conference in particular was associated to natural hazards and risk management. The conference was taking place at a university down on Ecuador´s south coast, in between Salinas and Santa Elena.

On the 23rd of November, myself and few others took a flight from Quito to Quayaquil and then a short car ride to the conference area. We were staying in Salinas - its a beach town, but is different to any other coastal location that I had seen in Ecuador. It sits out on a peninsular, with tall high-rise hotels lining the beach-front - it looked more like Miami Beach than a coastal town in Ecuador. We were put up in a grand hotel, located on an Ecuadorian Naval Base. We were well protected out there. Our rooms were like mini apartments, looking out to the sea and everything was paid for. It was good living.

I stayed there for three nights - the duration of the conference. Others came and went - mostly just to do their bit and then head back to Quito. A few days before the conference, Tungurahua Volcano had started to show small signs of activity after a repose of about 4 months. Most therefore, made their contribution and left. I however stayed for the duration - as it was my first conference in this country and my boss, Mario, thought it would be a good experience to stay.

The conference was hardcore. It started every day at 8am and generally didnt finish until 8pm. There were many presentations and poster displays, obviously all in Spanish - but it was an interesting experience overall. I did my presentation on the first day. My talk was in English and it went well. I spoke in front of perhaps 200 Ecuadorians and all of them seemed to understand what I was saying - or at least they gave that impression. The talks are only 15 minutes so I wasn´t up there for too long. At the end of the day all the scientists who had presented had to go back up on stage as a panel and the audience would fire off questions to us.

The majority of people at the conference were scientists, military personel and government policy makers, and a whole host of students from the university. While there I was introduced to an Ecuadorian consultant who went to Southampton University in 1978. I had done my first (bachelor) degree at Southampton - although that was done a little after the 1970´s!!!

There were a number of presentations from the Instituto Geofisico, as many of my colleagues came and went over the three days. It was an interesting experience.

At lunch time we would often head to the town of Santa Elena, a small dusty town in this dry region, just 20 minutes ride from Salinas and the beach. At night, we would head back into salinas and stop for great restaurant food along the coast. We would often be eating at 9pm and so by the time we had polished off a few beers and made it back onto the Naval Base - most of us collapsed at 11pm.

On Friday afternoon I took a bus back to Ecuador´s big southern city - Guayaquil, and then took a flight from there back to the capital. It was a great three days - but the work wasn´t over for me. After a short weekend - it was back to the Institute on Monday.....................