Reviewing new or noteworthy gear from my trip in Ecuador and Peru.
- Olive Oil Ramen Bomb ★★★★★
- Vincent Greus — Équateur et Pérou ★★★★★
- Rab — Neutrino Pro ★★★★★
- Marmot — Lithium ★★★★☆
- LDNIO — PQ10 ★★★★☆
Olive Oil Ramen Bomb ★★★★★
140 g — 640 kcal — 2€
I kept hearing people I admire, like Jason Beaumard, rave about olive oil in their diet. Unlike Kilian Jornet, I’m not ready to drink it straight from the bottle yet. I’m now adding some to my ramen bombs. Olive oil is usually easy to buy in smallish amounts, even in the Andes.
Ramen bomb is the best invention of gringo cuisine since the hamburger. If mixing instant mashed potatoes in a cheap ramen sounds like a step too far into dirtbagging, please be aware that traditional Italian cuisine has pasta e patate.
It took me a while to get to a recipe that has a good texture, works at different temperatures, and saves gas. So, here is mine, as silly as it might sound:
- Put 450 ml of water in a titanium pot on high heat just to get started.
- Open an 80–85 g ramen bag, dump the stock power and the noodles in the pot. Food usually risks sticking and burning when added to the pot while the fire is on, but this works fine.
- Add 25 ml of olive oil (or more).
- Lower the fire to the minimum. The noodles don’t need to boil.
- Wait until the noodles get soft, almost to taste. Turn off the fire.
- Add 30 g of instant mashed potatoes.
- Mix and set aside for a moment.
Vincent Greus — Équateur & Pérou ★★★★★
23€ × 2
Someone from my group on the Huayhuash Trek asked me where I learned about my hikes. It turns out they almost exclusively came from these 2 good-old books by Vincent Geus (in French).
In addition to the most famous hikes, he includes less obvious ideas (like the great connection from Panzaleo to Cotopaxi) and provides just enough details to evaluate the difficulty and help with logistics. It was good to refine them with tracks from Wikiloc, but I’m so happy I started with a curated list. I still have a long bucket list for another trip…
Rab — Neutrino Pro ★★★★★
570 g — 340€
I wasn’t sure what temperatures to expect in the Andes, especially when sleeping above 4000 m every night. So, I went safe and bought a down jacket that I could also use in winter in Europe.
In the end, I hiked with my normal clothes for European summer during the day and would have survived the evenings with my Rab Microlight Alpine. But I enjoyed being always toasty in the Rab Neutrino Pro. The difference between the 700 and 800 fill power of the two is noticeable.
Marmot — Lithium ★★★★☆
1380 g — 410€
In Ecuador and Peru, night temperatures at 4000–5000 m never dropped below -5ºC. I never got cold in my Marmot Lithium, even though I’m a pretty cold sleeper.
I’ve used this sleeping bag up to 5000 m in Mexico since 2023, and the down is still lofty.
I’m giving only 4 stars because of issues with the accessories: the zipper slides open on its own and the drawcords need knots to resist my reckless moves.
If I hadn’t found a very cheap deal, I might have gone instead for the equivalent Rab Neutrino, which has the same ratings of 800 fill power for -10ºC/-18ºC. I’ve had better accessories on Rab bags.
LDNIO — PQ10 ★★★★☆
222 g — 10000 mAh — 20€
Sometimes it’s OK to stop obsessing about the most fancy gear… I lost my Nitecore NB10000 Gen 3 in the silliest way in Quito and replaced it with this generic LDNIO PQ10 power bank at the last minute.
It’s 50% heavier, but 3 times cheaper. Capacity feels similar, even 3 months later. The USB A output is outdated but saves me some cabling or an unreliable adapter with my Lixada solar panel. The precise percent indicator is a real plus when you don’t get to see a power socket in a full week.
Downsides are that it’s not waterproof and cannot charge my laptop — that’s fine for hiking. Pass-through charging works as bad as with the Nitecore: it doubles the time of charging my phone and the battery one after the other.