Our week in the Amazon was very rewarding and very challenging. Through extreme heat, bugs, fire ants, butcher wasps, and spiders, we were working on reforestation with our contact, Robin. We spent every day on his farm, which used no electricity save for a solar panel-powered satellite phone and chicken coop electric wire, and learned about the natural biodiversity of the Amazon and how vital it is for the area… Read More

Rolling along with the food blog theme (considering food is one of the things we're enjoying most in South America), I wanted to share some of the weirder foods we've gotten to taste down here. Cuy: I tried Guinea pig, which is a famous Peruvian dish but is available basically everywhere, in Pucara, Ecuador, where my homestay mother slaughtered one of her own guinea pigs to eat for dinner. Despite… Read More

Though I can´t speak for everyone, I think I can safely say that the group´s experience in Baños has been a potent combination of exhaustion, exploration, and chocolate. Exhaustion because of our daily four hours of Spanish class, one on one with an instructor at Raices, Lorena´s spanish school. For those of you who don´t know, Lorena is our Ecuador contact/instructor/cook/homestay mom/all around superhero. As someone who came into this… Read More