Off to Peru

This morning I left for Peru after months of training and preparations. After a stop in Madrid, I settled in a window seat on the 11 hour flight to Lima. There, I will meet Douglas Beall this evening (or night Belgian time). Tomorrow we will continue our journey to Huaraz, the Chamonix of Peru.

As always, you will be able to follow my expedition from close by. With a few apps, I’ve set up an “Alpamayo dashboard”. On this dashboard, you can find the following information:

• Expedition duration: how much time has passed since the start of my first flight this morning.

• Peru time: this clock shows the local time in Peru.

• SPOT map: When I climb, I will use a SPOT device. This device registers my exact GPS location via satellite communication and sends this location every 10 minutes to the map on the Alpamayo dashboard. This allows you to follow my progress real time.

• Twitter messages: During the trip, I will keep you up to date with twitter messages. Be aware though, during my previous expeditions I could send these messages when I was not in reach of a mobile network through my Thuraya satellite phone. But Thuraya has no network in South America so I will only be able to send messages when I’m in an inhabited part of Peru. But that should still be quite often.

• Weather forecast: This shows the weather forecast for Alpamayo for the next 6 days.

• Comments: you can leave your comments and encouragements here.

I will also be blogging during the expedition, so come back often to this website if you want to follow the expedition.