Last Week in Ecuador

Hi Everybody,

We last left off in Otavalo and so much has happened since then. Last time we blogged we were about to go to Cuicoche (thats how you actually spell it) a crater lake right outside of Otavalo. To hike around the whole thing it takes a number of hours so we only hiked a portion of it to get spectacular views. After hiking for an hour or so we had delicious sandwiches and jumped back into the bus to go to hotsprings. Though the water made everybody´s bug bites super itchy and also caused many people´s skin to peel it was very relaxing.

That night we celebrated Claire´s 21st birthday. We went to a pizzeria and suprised her with a cake and some cinnamon. The cake was delicious and although it was hard to not be home for her birthday we all had fun together. Sunday was her actual birthday so we suprised her in the morning with handcrafted journal paper birthday cards. Its the thought that counts.

After a delicious breakfast at the hostal we left Otavalo for Intag where we spent the last week. We lived again with families in San Antonio de Pucara, a village within the region of Intag. The community greeted us with a number of song and dance presentations and also forced us to participate in some embarassing games. It was a great way to start our time there. We also met Peter who led our reforestation projects with an organization called Canopy Co. He is originally from the US but lives in Pucara working to help the community. We were all split into pairs for our homestays (the three boys were together) and all of our families were incredibly nice. The homestays weren´t as luxurious as Cuenca but they weren´t quite as rural as Agualongo.

Monday we participated in a minga with the community. A minga is a community project. Generally they pick one day when everybody works together on a certain project. We worked with many members of the community to plant a thousand trees to help reforest land in their region that had previously been used for pasture. We didn´t really know what we were getting into but we all packed our backpacks with little baby trees and hiked forty minutes aka an hour and a half up in the forest. It was hard work but very important. We didn´t reach our goal of a thousand but we planted around six hundred trees.

Tuesday we woke up early to hike down to the river. We borrowed canastas (woven basket backpacks) from our families and collected plants. After we had collected enough plants we took them all back to Peter´s farm to bag them for later use in reforestation projects. Later in the afternoon we participated in a soccer game with some of the kids from the community and practiced our acroyoga and handstands. Then we got to spend some quality time with our homestay families.

On Wednesday we went to Peter´s farm again to finish bagging and planting some trees. A portion of our group slaved away on the side of a mountain for hours digging holes, avoiding giant poisonous spiders and planting trees. Although it was very difficult, the trees we planted offset the carbon that we used to fly from LA to Quito and back. That afternoon we ate another wonderful lunch at Peter´s house with a group of highschool students visiting from Atlanta. We also got a tour of Peter´s farm and learned about Permaculture and organic farming. That evening we had a despedida (farewell) with the community with more singing and dancing. We even prepared a song to the tune of ¨Wonderwall¨ by Oasis.

Thursday we left Pucara early in the morning. We couldn´t believe how quickly our time had passed and we were all very sad to leave our host families. Peter took us on some tours of local farms and we learned all about fair trade coffee. After lunch we hiked down the face of the Inca it was a really steep trail and many of us fell multiple times. It is called the face of the Inca because when you look at it from the opposite side you can see a face in the mountainside. That night we stayed in a hostal near some hotsprings.

Friday morning we took a tour of a forest reserve and got our last views of the Ecuadorian country before heading back to Otavalo to catch our bus to Quito. We spent last night in Quito and we got a taste of the city today. In the morning we went to Shungoloma which means heart of the earth in Kichwa. It was a small museum that represented many facets that make up the orientation and importance of Ecuador in the world including the mountain ranges as the heart of the world and the rainforest as the lungs. After that we headed the the old part of the city and visited an amazing basilica along with other important sites. We had a delicious lunch for $1.50 and also stopped at an amazing ice cream place. In the afternoon many of us went to the Guayasamin museum.



The next moring we had to leave our hostal at 5AM to catch a flight to Lima, Peru. After landing in Peru we took an eight hour bus ride to Huaraz where we will begin our week of free travel. The group has organized a four day trek. We are all so excited to be in Peru and we will update you when we finish the trek!