Hello to everyone back home, from Cali to South Cackalacky. It’s hard believe that it has been almost two weeks since we first arrived in Ecuador. It seems as though we have been here for months and also like we just arrived yesterday. We are now in our third location: Baños, and it is simply beautiful. The town is a bit touristy with outdoor sports companies and currently with Carnival, but nothing diminishes the sheer majesty of the Andes mountains, visible from anywhere downtown. There are many nice cafés and stores geared towards hippies.
But first, let us start at the very beginning. Everyone seems to have had the same apprehesion about what the other people would be like. In retrospect, such worries seems so dumb. We totally got along practically immediately. We were sharing things that most of us don’t share right away. Maybe it was sleep deprevation, but we think that we just have a really tight group.
We arrived in Guayaquil after a long, tiring day of travel. For the three days that we were there, we spent a lot of time at the hostal, recuperating from jetlag, going through orientation, and chilling with one another. The hostal had three mango trees (how’s that for fresh and local) and a swimming pool. We had many late nights of talking about our lives, interests and philosophies.
Our cultural dip came with a scavenger hunt in downtown Guayaquil. We were split into pairs, and each group had to complete a series of tasks like finding out an interesting fact about Guayaquil by talking to a person in the city (in Spanish of course) and buying a roll of toilet paper for each person because you’ll need it when going to a public restroom. Tucker was paired up with Kai who knows a lot of Spanish, and Seth was with Lizzie who is a bit more outgoing. Most of us struggled to express our questions to people in Spanish, sometimes providing comic relief. We ended our quest at El Parque de Iguanas, the Park of Iguanas. Yes, there are iguanas, in the city. Across the street is a beautiful cathedral that we went into to awe at its beauty. By the way, Lizzie and Seth: the winners.
Our next stop was a brief visit to the beach town of Canoa. Some of hung out on the beach, while others took the opportunity to have some serviche and batidos (fruit juice and milk blended together) for lunch. It was a nice time to relax after two long bus rides. A few hours in Canoa was enough for us to want to come back.
Then we went to Rio Muchacho, an organic farm just outside Canoa in a very beautiful but hot and humid jungle landscape. We were never short on things to do. In the mornings we had farm chores, either working with los pollos (chickens), las chanchas (pigs), los cuyes (guinea pigs), working in the kitchen or cleaning around the main house and dining area. We learned about food systems, sustainable agriculture, coffee, the moon´s effects on agriculture, and much more from Nicola and Dario, the owners of the farm. We had many activities from shrimping and climbing a giant Strangler fig tree to creating rings from palm nuts and jewelry from tagua nuts which look like ivory. But it was not all fun and games. We wish we were talking about the farm work, but this was really a downer. Tucker vomited during his morning chores, and he was only the first victim. Half the group went down with a stomach illness with all bells and whistles that you probably don’t want to read about. We don’t want to sugar coat the situation, but sickness really brought the group closer together. People responded with care and compassion for the less fortunate, gastro-intestinally speaking. Everyone’s not totally better, but much better than several days ago.
We spent a day in Canoa. We all took advantage of an internet café to contact friends and family back home after no access to computers or phones for a week. We checked out the street venders’ jewelery and crafts. Some of us went surfing and others strolled along the beach. We got to drink fresh coconut water from the coconut and then eat the meat. We ended with a wonderful meal together and a dance party on the beach in the rain. Unfortunately, some stomachs expressed wrath once again.
Sorry to skim over everything, but it´s a lot of events to cover. Anyway, the stories we tell when we get back will be much better than any blog. Now we’re in the Andes mountains, going Raíces Spanish school for four hours a day. AnIt’s great to learn so that we can communicate with people without making fools of ourselves every time, but it’s kind of messing with our heads. Tomorrow, we begin volunteering at the school in the mornings to help teach English to elementary school students through games, music and art. It will be bomb. Bomb, indeed.
Seth & Tucker
PS To avoid confusion in this joint blog, we used the third person throughout in case you thought it seemed a little weird.