Photo Blog of Mindo

Mindo was so beautiful, peaceful and relaxing.While in Mindo, Amy and I went on a chocolate tour, hiking  up to Cascada Nambilla, the largest of seven waterfalls there, went to a butterfly garden (which also had hummingbirds), went tubing in the river, and Amy went zip-lining. I stood on the sidelines for that one! In this photo blog, I hope you get a tiny slice of just how beautiful this litte town was. I also hope to add a couple of video clips to this blog as well. Unfortunately, I am unable to do it now because the place where I´m currently using the internet doesn´t have the capacity to upload the clips! Hopefully, in the next few days I can get them up!

Now, I know why Mindo is also called the Cloud Forest

Hiking

Amy swam like a little fish in that freezing water!

We got to see a butterfly hatch from his cocoon. Afterwards, they slowly exercise their wings for a good 30 minutes before being ready to take flight.

We learned that butterflies have a life expectancy of about a 1 month. But the larva takes about 3 to 4 months to become a butterfly. Crazy!

Lenin, a nice Ecuadorian we hung out with 

Emilio, equally nice and super funny!

Cuenca

I love Cuenca! It's probably my favorite city in Ecuador. I'm a sucker for the beautiful cobble streets, the beautiful churches and the panaderia (bread/dessert) shops on every corner. I met up with my friend Amy, who I originally met while volunteering on that farm in Vilcabamba. She is a really funny and out going girl and makes a great traveling companion. Although, we are so different in some aspects we have a lot in common.

Amy my favorite travel companion

The first day in Cuenca we went to a Musuem called Banco Central. It had some really cool ruins behind the actual building. At night, we hung out with a young German guy. There seem to be so many Germans traveling. Anyway, he was an interesting sort of character. He was 18 years old and on a pretty high horse about himself. He wanted to talk about German history (seems like every German I've met along the way wants to do this). When my friend Amy and I couldn't really converse on that particular topic.....besides knowing about Hitler, he started on about how poor the education was in the US. Which I can´t totally disagree with but after about 20 minutes of this and how Germans know at least three languages and so many Americans only know one and yada yada yada.....that conversation was becoming tiresome. So, we cut that evening short.

Part of the ruins behind the museum

Over the next couple of days, Amy and I visited several of the markets in town, went to the Museum of Modern Art, a hat museum and met up with some friends that Amy had previously met in Vilcabamba. While in one of the markets we met an interesting Ecuadorian fellow by the name of Coconut Man. He had a Tagua jewelry shop and was very eager to talk to us about the history of Tagua and how it´s used to make handicrafts. The material used comes from the tagua palm tree which grows in the swampy parts of the forests. The nut or fruit is left to dry out in the sun for a few weeks and then the interior turns into palm ivory which is then carved into jewelry, figurines, chess pieces, buttons, or other useful things. The best part about the tagua is that its harvest brings an economic use to the rainforest and therefore helps protect them.

Nut from the tagua palm

Jewelry made from Tagua

Coconut Man

Hat Museum

From Cuenca, Amy and I took an overnight 8 hr bus to Quito and then another 2 hr bus onto to Mindo.  The town known as the Cloud Forest. I´ll fill you in my time here next time as well as upload some pictures onto the previous posts!

Peru

I spent most of last week in Peru. Since the farm I was volunteering at was in the Southern part of Ecuador, I figured I should dip into Peru, it being so close to the border and all. And not to mention it was only a $10 bus ride to get there. Who could refuse that? Anyway, I planned to just spend a couple of days in Mancora, which is a touristy town on the beach where people from around the world come to surf. Honestly, the waves were lacking and I found it difficult to believe that people actually go there just to surf. I met a traveler from California who said he flew there specifically for the waves. I could see he was disappointed that there wasn't much action in the water.

Mancora was an interesting place for sure. The first day I arrived, I was really exhausted from the bus ride. The first leg of the journey took about 9 hours (rode on an overnight bus) then I had to change buses to get to Mancora and that ride was an additional 3.5 hours. Within the first 5 minutes of arriving at the hostel (which is the nicest place I've stayed at to date) I met a new friend. A German girl named Nora, who said she was 23 years old and in her last year of school studying Dentistry. She had come to Peru with a group of friends from Germany to volunteer for two months with the Red Cross to do free dental work for the locals. Her friends had decided to go to Bolivia for their last two weeks abroad and seeing as she only had one week left she decided to spend that time relaxing and reading on the beaches of Mancora. She had just arrived a day before and she said that she was lonely and bored and asked if I wanted to hang out. I said sure and so began my friendship with Nora. I learned all of that information about her before I even had a chance to set my belongings down.

Nora, the cutest German I´ve met to date

We met two other German girls that day and below is a list of some of the activities in which we partook during our stay:

-Relaxed on the beach
-Ate lots and I do mean LOTS!
-Hung out at the bar
-Played Beer Pong with the owner of the hostel (to which I only observed....and played "cheerleader" which was actually quite fun)
- Read/Took naps on the many hammocks
-Walked the touristy strip, shopped a bit and spoke with some of the locals
-Flirted a little with all the young Aussie surfers
-Tried to practice our Spanish with each other as well as everyone else we came into contact with

All in all, it was a really nice time. I do have to say though that I was really surprised to see that the Northwest coast of Peru was like a desert. Super dry and sandy. Like Ecuador, there were a load of mountains, unlike Ecuador they were far from lush!

My last two days in Peru were spent in Trujillo (the third largest city in Peru). I didn't do much there, spent most of the time near the main square. I ended up connecting with a friend there that I had met previously in Vilcabamba. An Irishman named John who had been riding around South America on a motorcycle. He's really into movies as am I and to our surprise there happened to be a nice movie theater in town. We saw a new film called Abduction which was actually pretty good.

Me, John and his motorbike

I just arrived early this morning to a city called Cuenca in Ecuador. It's a colonial city with a lot of churches (52 according to Loney Planet). I am meeting up with another friend that I met while volunteering at the farm. I'll tell you all about my time here in the next blog :-)

Farm Work for a City Girl

I spent last week volunteering on a farm. Yes, you read correctly, a farm. It was a really interesting experience and I got to meet some cool people from around the world. An Aussie, a Kiwi, 3 Brits and a few other fellow Americans. The farm is up on a mountain in the Southern part of Ecuador, just outside of a village called Vilcabamba (which is called the Valley of Longevity. The two oldest people in town at the moment are 98 and 100 years old. They're on billboards and posters around town). The goal of this organization is to create sustainable living conditions for the natives within a functioning ecosystem.

Yves

 Just getting up to the farm was quite a journey. It's about a 2 hour hike from Vilcabamba.The path is super steep and very narrow in areas. It had rained a few days before so it was also slippery. There were a few moments when I wasn't certain I was going to make it up, but eventually we did. The next day, we received a tour of the farm and Yves (the guy who started the project) gave us a run down of the tasks and projects that needed to be accomplished. My duties consisted of weeding, digging rain diverters, cutting trash for cob (small pieces of trash mixed with mud to make walls, benches, and other things),watering plants, and helping in the kitchen. I was willing to lend a hand wherever needed but I did feel a bit lost up there. Some of the other volunteers seemed to know a lot about permaculture, nursery care, and farming techniques which made me feel completely out of my element and a bit inadequate, to be honest. But a good attitude and a willing pair of hands seemed to be all that was required....and those I did have!

Using the bathroom was interesting. We all had to pee outside in the bushes. If anyone had to go number 2, you had to use this toilet made from cob with a bucket underneath, which we all had to take turns emptying. Absolutely no pee in the poop bucket! Otherwise it would be soggy and even grosser to empty. Each time you go poo, you cover it with sawdust, which seemed a bit more sanitary than the outhouses I used in the Republic of Georgia. The contents of the bucket were used as fertilizer. It was amazing how they use absolutely everything for something. Even the trash is used for cob building.

Yves made a 15 year commitment to this project. So far he's been here for 7 years and although a lot has been accomplished, there is still so much to be done.

Hand carved stairs

S

Sleeping quarters

Kitchen

Wash stand for brushing teeth, washing hands, and washing clothes

Shower

View from the shower

Toilet made from cob

Chill out spot in front of the kitchen

Open deck that's attached to the sleeping quarters. Gorgeous views every morning and evening

Baby Kerly and The Sound of Music

Well, summer time is officially over here. Yesterday was the first day of school. We had a ton more kiddies come. One in particular is a baby named Kerly about 8 or 9 months old. She is super adorable and when I passed by her for the first time, someone was holding her and she reached her little arms out for me to take her. "Awwww, how precious!" I thought. Well, let's just say she turned out to be a screamer. Hours upon hours of screaming. I think I saw the inside of her mouth more than anything else. It was her first day at the Guarderia and I was starting to suspect that she's used to being held. (Yes, all 8 or 9 months of her little life!). She cried and screamed most of the time, but if you put her down, OMG, I've never heard anything like it! I knew when she was getting hungry, because she kept tugging at my chest and was making a sucking sound. I just tried soothing her and told her ....."No tengo leche aqui" (I don't have milk here), to which the Tias (Aunties, as the women workers are called) roared with laughter. They just thought that was the funniest thing ever. So, all day they teased me about that.

The mothers of the infants come and breast feed their babies every few hours (as they work on the rose plantation which is on the premises). One of the mothers came to feed her baby and heard what a ruckus this little Kerly was making. The next thing I know, she takes her from me and starts to breast feed her! I was like..."Whoa! Is this even legal??!!" But nobody seemed to mind. It took me a whole hour to get over this! This was a big reminder that I am in another country. In the States, you just don't breast feed children that aren't yours! Anyway, she was fine for a little bit after this and then went back to her wailing. Poor thing. Her face was so red at the end of the day! I felt badly that there was really nothing I could do for her. Apparently, if I did have breast milk, I could have fed her. Actually, I think I'm still not over that incident!

Also, yesterday we received a new volunteer. She is from Austria. I didn't get a chance to talk too much with her yet. But as soon as she said she was from Austria....I just kept thinking of my dad and the Von Trapps. All of you Sound of Music fans out there will know what I'll talking about! My dad just loved that movie and was set on calling our family the Von Stotlers!

Ecuador

Well, it's been entirely too long since I've written a post. As most of you probably know, I am currently in Ecuador. I've been here for about 6 weeks now and have seen some pretty marvelous things. Like huge, lush, green mountains, snow capped volcanoes, and llamas to name a few. I've also met a number of people from all over the world. To date, 2 women from Taiwan, 2 girls from France, a girl from Honduras, a girl from the Czech Rep., 2 other American girls and a guy from Australia. These are the other volunteers who have either come and gone or are still here at the moment. I've been to a number of cities as well such as Otavalo (known to be the biggest indigenous market in Ecuador), Quito (the capital), Baños (city know for it's waterfalls and hot springs), Ibarra (known for a special type of hand made ice cream called Helado de Paila), Riobamba (known for the Devil's Nose train ride you can take-which was booked out when I went). I've visited a number of sites such as Lake Quilotoa (home of a crater lake formed inside of a volcano, Cotopaxi National Park (home of a gorgeous volcano) and the Middle of the World (a place that landmarks the equator). I've been white water rafting and horse back riding in the mountains. I must admit, I'm awfully blessed to be here experiencing all that Ecuador has to offer!

All of these adventures take place on the weekend as I volunteer during the week at a Nursery/Kindergarten. The place also has a school, a rose plantation and 2 volunteer houses on the premises. Many of the children's parents work at the plantation. The elevation is pretty high (not exactly sure how high) and it's super cold here. Who knew roses needed cold air to thrive? Any how, me being from Florida and not doing much research on the weather before I came, has left me wearing my blue, Victoria's Secret sweatshirt here daily. I figured 'It's South America, of course the weather will be warm!' Ha.That's funny!!

My daily routine at the Guarderia (as it's called) goes like this:

7:00- 7:15am -   Walk next door to the Guarderia and wait for all the children to arrive.

7:15- 8:15 -   Help the children to undress, shower, brush and style their hair (using intricate braiding techniques that I have yet to master for some of the girls. Every one can tell whose hair I did as it's always a single pony tail or sometimes pig tails which are often lop-sided and/or have cow-licks going on...the kids are so squirmy what can I say??).

8:15-9:00 - Breakfast (which includes helping to feed the tiny ones) and then brushing of teeth.

9:00-10:30 Indoor activity (which varies from simple indoor play with puzzles and games to coloring, singing and dancing, or doing some sort of art craft).

10:30-11:00 Snack time (usually fruit or yogurt).

11:00-12:15 Out door play on the playground (where I've learned you have to be super attentive as children easily fall off swings, slides, monkey bars and the like).

12:15-1:30 Lunch (Which always consists of soup and usually rice, lentils, some sort of meat, and sometimes salad or plantains) and then brushing of teeth and mandatory potty time for everyone before nap time.

1:30-2:30 Nap time (Haalleelujjah!!! :-) Free time for me. One whole hour of no biting, hair pulling or screaming!! :-)))))  I usually stay in the room with the kids and read silently or sometimes I fall asleep too!

2:30-3:00 Snack time (usually yogurt sometimes with crackers) and then gather belongings and leave for the day.

So, that sums up my time here up to date...I will certainly keep you posted as well as fill you in on some previous details of some of my funny/exciting times here!

Teresa, the Big Scaredy Cat

So, two night ago it was raining cats and dogs. I mean it was pouring! (The next day, I learned it was actually hailing). And we have a metal roof so you can imagine how loud it was. It was around 11:30 p.m. when the family decided to go bed and that's when the rain started and the power went out. No big concern there since it was time for bed anyway. I lay in bed for a good twenty minutes or so thinking to myself "Geez, this is some serious rain!" All the while, great bolts of lightning were illuminating my room and thunder could be heard in the distance. All of a sudden, I hear my bedroom door creak open and the light of a cell phone is peering at me from the doorway. It's my 14 year old host sister Keti. She says, "Tereza, don't be afraid. There is very big noisy weather outside."  To this I reply. "OK, thank you." And then she is gone.

I lay back down and smile to myself. Awww. She was concerned about me. Well, with just cause too as I have cowered into her room in the middle of the night on more than one occasion. All because of the strange noises of country life. I remember one night in particular I was deathly afraid after hearing some loud noises in the attic. I seriously thought someone was up there! As I ran out to the living room, certain that everyone else heard the noises too, I was greeted with snoring from every direction! Everyone was knocked out cold! I just couldn't go back to sleep after this. Especially, when my room has access to the attic. No way, Jose! Well, let's just say this was a scaredy cat moment and I ended up in my host sister's room. The next day, my host parents said it was a mouse. I guess because the walls are a little thin and I had abruptly awaken from a deep sleep it had sounded like something 10 times the size of a mouse. Anyway, as you can see, my host sister had ample right to be concerned about me....The Big Scaredy Cat!