I uploaded some photos...

...but it took hella long and now I don't feel like captioning them. Check them out on the link to the right.

We took the two hour bus to Atacamas today. A good illustration of how every day brings crazy little adventures. We had been told by Sonya, the mother of one of the families, that buses left every hour. We thought we'd catch the 9 am bus, so we left at 830. Even though the bus stop is like 100 yards away we have to cross the river to get there, which was a little tricky this morning since it was pouring rain and the tide was high. We thought we'd walk up to a shallow spot to see if it was walkable, but the path was muddy, slippery mess, and the river was still pretty strong. Fermin, Sonya's husband, offered to take us across in his canoe, which got stuck half way, so we walked through the water anyway. Got to to the bus stop with plenty of time only to be told that there isn't another bus until 11. So we ambled around for 2 hours until the bus came. The buses for the little towns are the open-air, hop-on type, and this one was pretty packed so we climbed on top. Fortunately it wasn´t raining any more...Riding on top was actually really fun and very pretty. Mike managed to take a tree branch to the face, though. Busy, bustling Atacamas is kind of sensory overload compared to sleepy little Estero. We wandered around, ate some overpriced ceviche, and perhaps later we´ll enjoy a smoothie on the beach before heading back.

Other highlights from this week include visiting a beautiful beach in Tongorachi, being told by an old man who wanted me to come live with him in his house that I was white like a dove and needed more sun, drinking big, cold, $1 beers on the beach at night, and waking up yesterday morning vomiting AND having diarrhea. I feel much better today, though!

Livin' it up on the beach (when it's not raining)

Hola all,
Our life on the coast has been moving along. We finished the trail up to a beautiful ridge, and planted some little trees and bushes to create a natural fence so when children go up there they don't fall hundreds of feet to their deaths. The work has slowed down a bit, it is very hard to work on the trail when it is raining a lot, and it has been. About every other day it pours all morning until lunch. We have been brainstorming ideas about the interpretive trail, stations to set up, certain trees, insects, or ecological concepts to highlight. We swim in the ocean each day, and read and play cribbage in our hammocks. We have been eating a lot of rice and veggies, and tiny fish caught in the river right next to us. Plantains are the potato of Ecuador, we eat tons of em. We have been thinking of the next step and it seems that after this next week we will head back up into the highlands to work and play in Mindo for a week, before we leave Biomindo and head back to Quito for a few days.

Fast forward one week later...

...and life is good. Estero de Plantano is a TINY coastal village between Same and Muisne, where Milton wants to establish a private ecological reserve. A poor family owns the land and they don´t want to clearcut it, so Milton wants to help them generate some income by preserving the land, building an interpretive trail and creating a platform up on a cliff for whale watching. He basically wants to create an evironmental education center for school groups and tourists.
We are staying in a little cabin that the family built a few years ago. There´s not electricity or running water, but it´s right between the houses of the family that owns the land and another family. We can get water for cooking and dishes at a spigot at one of the houses (when it´s working), but we have to buy drinking water. Mike and I seem to be the only people concerned with drinking lots of water, so we feel a bit like whimpy gringos always needing mas agua.
The two families have been very nice and welcoming and they have a lot of really cute kids. Our situation has been very conducive for learning Spanish, especially with the kids, who like to teach us words. In one week we´ve already picked up a lot.
Our working days go something like this: someone wakes up around 6 (which is easy because we go to bed around 9), cooks breakfast, and we eat at 7. Work starts around 8. We´ve been working on clearing the trail for 3 days and will probably finish on Monday. This is our first time building a trail. And it´s hard. And hot. We hack away in the forest and drip buckets of sweat until noonish or one, then eat lunch and have the rest of the day free. The beach is really nice and deserted and the water is warm. We have hammoks for lounging and reading, and the kids usually hang out in the afteroon and they´re pretty entertaining...

There´s so much more to say, but time´s up for the internet here in Tochigue. The photo uploader thing wasn´t working, either, so those will come later. Anyway, we´re much happier than we were a week ago and every day brings its own fun little adventures. Hope everyone is doing well.

Ciao!

Vamos a la costa

We've been in Ecuador for a week now but it seems like much longer. I'll rewind to last Sunday...

We woke up early and piled into the Jeep that we had rigged with a tarp the day before. 5 of us made the trip: Mike and I, Stephan (another volunteer from Germany who had been with BioMindo for two weeks before us and speaks English and a little Spanish), Leo (an Ecuadorian volunteer who speaks no English and A LOT of very rapid Spanish), and Milton, one of the founders of BioMindo (also Ecuadorian). Leo´s little sister also rode for a bit of the way to Puerto Quito. Mike and I sat on a plank in the back with minimal leg room, and we were off. The trip took about 12 hours, including stops for breakfast in a town that I´m sure gets very few touristas, changing all of the tires in Puerto Quito, buying fruit on the side of the road, peeing on the side of the road, and buying fish from boats on the beach in Same. We also never went over about 35 mph. At first it was lots of fun--oh what a grand adventure we were on! But after 12 hours of sitting cramped up on a board, getting splattered with oil from the road, not fully knowing what was going on anywhere we went, trying to understand and speak Spanish, getting stared at, and feeling completely lost and clueless, we weren´t in the best of spirits upon our arrival in Estero de Platano. In order to get to where we were staying we had to drive down the beach and cross a little river, but of course the Jeep got stuck. Lots of people came out to help and after about 45 minutes the car was free and darkness was falling. We made it to the little cabin we´d be staying in and Mike and I set up our tent in the dark in the swealtering heat, then we all went to have some dinner at the only place in town. It was a good meal of rice, fish, and plantains, but we still didn´t fully have appetites, and felt bad about not being able to eat it all. After dinner we rinsed off a little bit in the public shower above the beach, then went to bed.

I had spent all day following along, not complaining or asking too many questions, and trying my best to go with the flow. But I was exhausted from all of the day´s foreign experiences, hot dirty, and my head hurt from trying to think in Spanish. As soon as my headlamp was out the tears started flowing and I officially had my first breakdown of the trip.

So. Here we are...

Only day 2 in Ecuador and there is already much to tell, but not much time. After 24 hours of travel we arrived in Quito. Slept. Ventured out for about half an hour, then slept some more. This morning caught the bus to Mindo after a couple exciting cab adventures, and upon arrival in Mindo realized Mike's backpack was stolen from right above our heads (not his big pack, just a day pack with not much in it). Met Milton and a couple volunteers from BioMindo, who informed us of their new project on the coast and convinced us to join them there. It seems to be too rainy and cold here (seems warm to us compared to the NW), and the folks at BioMindo are ready for a coastal holiday of sorts. So we leave tomorrow for a little town on the coast (the name escapes me at the moment). 5 of us and all our stuff in a little jeep! We helped rig up a cover for it this afternoon...A change of plans, but adventure all the same, and we'll be doing similar work (biodiversity indexes, building bamboo structures, clearing trails). Word is there's no internet in the town, so it might be a while before we're heard from again. But we're here, alive and well, and hope you are, too.

Ha! I am the first to post!

Welcome to our blog. Will we actually write in it? Perhaps. Will people actually read it, besides our mothers? Probably not.

We decided to start this blog because we are embarking on a trip to Ecuador for about three months. We have been holed up in a little cabin in my parent's yard for the last six months to save money for said trip. Now, after an amazing new year's week on the Olympic coast, we are actually leaving.

So, stay tuned for Ecuadorian adventures to come.

First, a little taste of pictures from the coast. For more click on the link to the right.