Places on the El Pianista trail and beyond the Mirador
Here I gathered information about places where Kris and Lisanne took their photos. The next step is to compare times of girls's hike with times of another hike. EXIF times of photos from the wikiloc website are used for this purpose.
I use the following sources of coordinates:
A. Coordinates from EXIF data of a photo that I found on the Internet.
B. Coordinates from a wikiloc website. Such coordinates are obtained as follows: you find an individual photo on a wikiloc website. The photo resembles the place you look for. You position the mouse cursor at the arrow at the photo on the list on the wikiloc website you found. See here, for example. That is the arrow inside the rectangle containing the sign "End (and start) of the trail at restaurant El Pianista". There is the sign "Elevation. Coordinates lat, lon (WGS84): 8.8083540 -82.427796" in the hint (or tip) which appears after you position the mouse cursor at the arrow. The hint contains the coordinates you look for.
1. The start of the trail (the restaurant "Il Pianista").
Coordinates: 8.808354,-82.427796
The coordinates of the place are the coordinates from EXIF data of the photo. This is a map that shows the location of the place.
I assume that Kris and Lisanne were at that place at 11:08:00 according to the list.
09:37:20 is assumed as the time at that place during the hike described on the wikiloc website (that is EXIF time of photo 20927626Master.jpg, see here).
2. The iron bridge.
Coordinates: 8.812337,-82.425839
The coordinates come from the wikiloc website (search for the group of photos called "Otro puente sobre El Pianista. El sendero sigue muy próximo al cauce del río"). This is a map that shows the location of the place.
I assume 11:18:24 (EXIF time of photo 476) as the time at that place in the comparison of times below (girls's hike). 09:50:38 is assumed as the time at that place during the hike described on the wikiloc website (that is EXIF time of photo 20926954Master.jpg, see here).
3. A bend in the trail.
Coordinates: 8.815315,-82.425166
See here how I tried to identify the place.
These are the coordinates of the point that lies at a distance of 21.5 m from the place determined by the coordinates of the photo from the website. (These are the coordinates in EXIF data of the photo: 8.815303,-82.425361.) This is a map that shows the location of the place determined by the coordinates 8.815315,-82.425166. There is no photo at that place on the wikiloc website, so the place does not occur in the below comparison of times of hike.
4. Before the forest.
Coordinates: 8.821349,-82.421317
The coordinates come from the wikiloc website (search for the group of photos called "Aproximándonos a la zona de selva"). This is a map that shows the location of the place.
See here how I tried to identify the place.
I assume 11:42:14 (EXIF time of photo 487) as the time at that place in the comparison of times below (girls's hike). 10:16:48 is assumed as the time at that place during the hike described on the wikiloc website (that is EXIF time of photo 20927710Master.jpg, see here).
5. A stream (the place near a tree trunk by a stream in the forest).
Coordinates: 8.825974,-82.425622
The coordinates of the place are the coordinates from EXIF data of the following photo. This is a map that shows the location of the place.
See here how I tried to identify the place.
I assume 12:03:08 (EXIF time of photo 491) as the time at that place in the comparison of times below (girls's hike).
The nearest place to that place (coordinates: 8.825974,-82.425622) which occurs during the wikiloc hike is the place where the photo was taken. 10:37:26 is assumed as the time at that place during the hike described on the wikiloc website. I added 1 minute to the EXIF time of photo 20927994Master.jpg. (Check here the EXIF time of photo 20927994Master.jpg). The place where photo 20927994Master.jpg was taken is at a distance of 52 m from the place where photo 491 was taken. That is the reason why I added 1 minute. These are the coordinates of the place where photo 20927994Master.jpg was taken: 8.825533,-82.425452. The coordinates come from the wikiloc website (search for the group of photos called "Cruce. Atención, el sendero verdadero gira a la derecha. Por la izquierda también se puede ir, pero pasa por zona privada"). That is a map that illustrates the distance between the two places.
6. An ancient ravine.
Coordinates: 8.831068,-82.424892
The coordinates of the place are the coordinates from EXIF data of the following photo. This is a map that shows the location of the place.
See here how I tried to identify the place.
I assume 12:42:25 (EXIF time of photo 493) as the time at that place in the comparison of times below (girls's hike).
The nearest place to that place (coordinates: 8.831068,-82.424892) which occurs during the wikiloc hike is the place where the photo was taken. 11:34:32 is assumed as the time at that place during the hike described on the wikiloc website. I subtracted 2 minutes from the EXIF time of photo 20972351Master.jpg. (Check here the EXIF time of photo 20972351Master.jpg). The place where photo 20927994Master.jpg was taken is at a distance of 97 m from the place where photo 493 was taken. That is the reason why I subtracted 2 minutes. These are the coordinates of the place where photo 20972351Master.jpg was taken: 8.831181,-82.424885. The coordinates come from the wikiloc website (search for the group of photos called "Continúa el sendero, con muchas cárcavas"). That is a map that illustrates the distance between the two places.
7. Mirador.
Coordinates: 8.834823,-82.423736
These are the coordinates of the point that lies at a distance of 9 m from the place from the wikiloc website (search for the group of photos called "Fin del sendero ordinario. Límite del Parque Internacional La Amistad (PILA) y línea Divisoria Continental."). This is a map that shows the location of the place.
I assume that the girls reached the Mirador at 13:00:23 (corrected EXIF time of photo 495).
The time 11:56:40 is assumed as the time at that place during the hike described on the wikiloc website (that is EXIF time of photo 20972531Master.jpg, see here).
8. A ravine beyond the Mirador.
Coordinates: 8.835537,-82.423688
I assumed that the place is about 80 m beyond the Mirador. This is a map that shows the location of the place.
See here how I tried to identify the place.
9. The first stream crossing beyond the Mirador.
Coordinates: 8.843,-82.424
The coordinates come from the map. This is a map that shows the location of the place.
See here how I tried to identify the place.
The below table contains times of hike from the wikiloc website. The start and end times are taken from here. Two times were corrected, see above.
segment on trail | start time |
end time |
time of hike |
start of trail - iron bridge | 09:37:20 |
09:50:38 |
00:13:18 |
iron bridge - before forest | 09:50:38 |
10:16:48 |
00:26:10 |
before forest - stream | 10:16:48 |
10:37:26 |
00:21:32 |
stream - ancient ravine | 10:37:26 |
11:34:32 |
00:57:06 |
ancient ravine - Mirador | 11:34:32 |
11:56:40 |
00:21:14 |
The following table contains times of Lisanne and Kris' hike.
segment on trail | start time |
end time |
time of hike |
start of trail - iron bridge | 11:08:00 |
11:18:24 |
00:10:24 |
iron bridge - before forest | 11:18:24 |
11:42:14 |
00:23:50 |
before forest - stream | 11:42:14 |
12:03:08 |
00:20:54 |
stream - ancient ravine | 12:03:08 |
12:42:25 |
00:39:17 |
ancient ravine - Mirador | 12:42:25 |
13:00:23 |
00:17:58 |
The table below contains distances of individual places from the start of the El Pianista trail. The information comes from the website. The photo illustrates how to obtain such information.
place on trail | distance from startof trail [km] |
elevation [m] |
restaurant Il Pianista | 0 |
1287 |
iron bridge | 0.3 |
1313 |
before forest | 1.6 |
1437 |
stream | 2.4 |
1555 |
ancient ravine | 3.4 |
1763 |
Mirador | 4.0 |
1850 |
The table below contains a comparison of speed of both hikes. "B/A" denotes the quotient of B and A in percentages.
segment on trail | speed of hike (wikiloc website) [km/h]A |
speed of Kris and Lisanne's hike [km/h]B |
B/A[%] |
start of trail - iron bridge | 1.353 |
1.731 |
128 |
iron bridge - before forest | 2.981 |
3.273 |
110 |
before forest - stream | 2.229 |
2.297 |
103 |
stream - ancient ravine | 1.051 |
1.527 |
145 |
ancient ravine - Mirador | 1.695 |
2.004 |
118 |
start of trail - Mirador | 1.722 |
2.136 |
124 |
I do not see any suspicious speed of Kris and Lisanne's hike on individual segments of the trail. The speed of the girls's hike varies from 103% to 145% of the corresponding speed during the compared hike. That is not especially unusual.
I do not claim that EXIF times of photos taken by the girls were not manipulated. It is suspicious that Kris and Lisanne reached the Mirador very quickly. It was mentioned in the article. In addition, there are times between individual photos that seem to be suspicious. An example of that is the analysis carried out by Juan Perea concerning photos 499 and 500 (see here). A similar situation occurred in photos 501 and 502. In this case, the time between EXIF times of the photos is 5 seconds, which is shorter than the time between photos 499 and 500. Kris had to go to another side of the Mirador during those 5 seconds. Another example is the analysis of the time between photos 500 and 501 described in the article. It would be good to carry out a similar experiment on the whole sequence of photos 499, 500, 501 and 502. Another suspicious sequence of times is the sequence of photos 480-486. That is 7 photos in 40 seconds. That is the fastest sequence of photos during the hike.
Further analysis should be connected with EXIF data, the camera settings and EXIF times. An example of that is photo 504. The photo combination illustrates that photo 504 should have been taken with a different focal length, because photo 504 has a different angle of view. The red rectangle in photo 502 contains the view in photo 504. The difference betweeen EXIF times of photo 503 and 504 is 5 seconds. If photo 503 and 504 have different angles of views (as I write this, photo 503 is not known in public), then the focal length had to be changed between the photos, and that requires additional time for the change of the camera settings.
Now it is worth to estimate the time at which the girls started to go beyond the Mirador. Let's start with the time from the Mirador to the place where photo 505 was taken. Here I estimated the time at about 2 minutes. That is the time that I estimated for photo 506 (492 according to the old numbering). We know already that photos 505 and 506 must have been taken at places that are close to each other. That would mean that the girls started to descend after the Mirador at about 13:18:30 (about 2 minutes before EXIF time of photo 505, which is 13:20:33). That means that they reached the first stream crossing after 36 minutes and 20 seconds. It took Kris' parents 45 minutes to get from the Mirador to the stream crossing (see the film 11:25). In this case, the quotient of speeds is 124%, which is the same (!) as for the above comparison (see the table above, the segment "start of trail - Mirador").