We all arrived, some of us early some of us mega late. We all had dinner together apart from Naomi who arrived at 10. We were debating the idea of eating her dinner but she came just in time.
Our leader Frankie gave us a quick intro on life in Quito, mostly the dos and don’ts, but he saved most of it Monday, before our city tour.The Inca capital offered a mix of traditional and colonial architecture in the old town, whereas La Mariscal (in the new town) offered a cosmopolitan mix of new and old. The heights of the basilica made us all gasp with its view and sky scraping walk up its many spires; not to mention seeing the president in the main square. We were pretty sure he saw us and waved. We did all of this in just one morning. We came back to our hostel for a quick bite to eat and start our Spanish lessons. Ananya did Spanish at School so she had a head start. However poor Joe didn’t have such a feel for the language and had to dance salsa because he couldn’t remember Simon says...embarrassing for him... funny for us.
After four hours of Spanish we thought the Inca market was due a visit. After walking around bargaining for local handy crafts we all decided to just go next door and buy DVDs instead. Jo got more dancing practice courtesy of a salsa lesson we all had. Hannah loves to salsa. But to her disappoint, Jo was her partner to which all she could say was Noooooo!. We had dinner and then argued about people’s film choices for the evening the inevitable row over action movie verses chick flick. Chick flick won that time. Four girls to two guys. Girl Power !!!
We got our first experience of the equator when we went to the Mitad del Mundo. We got to try out various experiments such as balancing an egg on a nail and watching water spin in the other direction...mind blowing! When we got to the official equator line, the northerner vs. southerner jokes started coming out....according to Naomi, everyone north of London was classed as a northerner. The tour moved to a guinea pig pen where we got to pet them. Unfortunately Joe and Ananya spent a good 5 minutes concentrating on catching one so much that they were oblivious to Hannah’s antics.
Our first week of Spanish lesion held us in good stead for things to come especially for the otavalo Inca market on Saturday. This time we all perched our Inca goods such as jumpers all with lama print, our granddads would have been proud, also Inca bracelets and necklaces and last but no means least happy pants. These need to be seen to be believed bright stripy trousers that make the 80s look dull. Some of us wore our new purchases out to an Irish bar in La Mariscal called Finn McCools. Being at an altitude, most of us didn’t quite realise that altitude may have affected our alcohol tolerance level a fair amount. The bar was such a hit, we returned there a total of 4 times during our time in Quito.
All with a Chuchake everybody apart from the leader Frankie stayed in for a Sunday morning lie-in. We decided that the Teleferico was a good idea. This cable car takes you up to 3500 from 2800 in a matter of minutes. And all suffering from the after affects of Finn mc cools this was maybe not the best idea. The ride up made Jo a little queasy, luckily he just made it. Once at the top it was well worth it. A clear day on top of this mountain really makes all the difference a stunning view of Quito well worth getting over a chuchake with .
Last Spanish lessons followed by a local cooking lesson for ceviche ( a prawn soup). After lunch we got the bus to Mindo . Mindo is only a few hours away, just a stunning but in a more scenic way. Lots of birds, butterfly’s combined with zip lining , cannoning, and swimming in a massive pool, fresh Ecuadorian coffee and tubeing along the river. The only problem was that that we only got the weekend to stay here . A few days more would have given it justice
Sunday morning was the bus journey from hell where 3 children decided to empty the contents of their breakfast onto the floor of the bus, while the next bus broke down half way to the coast, which meant we had to get on a new one that was full of chickens. 8 hours later, we arrived at Lalo Loor, an a-seasonal deciduous tropical dry forest. Greeted by our hunky coordinator Jason, we had a quick tour of our jungle lodge with the dos and don’ts and later settled down to a candlelit dinner while being serenaded by howler monkeys.
Monday morning we were woken up at 5am by howler monkeys which was not the best start as we had a 3 hour hike around the reserve to look forward to. On our morning walk, we saw toucans, a vine snake, more howler monkeys, huge conga ants, and about a million spiders. In the afternoon, we spoke about our projects which we would be working on, such as trail making/building and reforesting.
Our first week, consisted of using jungle materials to carve out and build steps into the forest floor to encourage tourism to the area. For most of us this was the first time we got to use machetes. The initial excitement wore off after about 20 minutes when everyone started developing blisters through cutting stakes. Our other volunteer coordinator and resident compulsive liar/comedian Maximo entertained us in our time off with stories of how he dated Shakira (which he hadn’t), how he worked as a bodyguard for George Bush and his Thai heritage, which he nearly had us convinced about before we realised nothing that came out of his mouth was true.
Wednesday was a complete washout, meaning we spent the whole day indoors, cabin fever started to set in until we heard some trees falling in the evening. Frankie gave us a safety talk, in between running in and out of the house every time we heard a tree crack, about what we should do if the lodge did get struck by a tree.
The next day, Joe, head of the Sabre foundation, discovered a new bird for the reserve. After an early morning, Jason arrived with the materials to complete our steps from Monday. Everyone got to use their lumber jacking skills, sawing up wood and hacking pieces of wood into stakes. During this time we all got given our jungle names, Naomi the foghorn of the group got appropriately named after the foghorn of the jungle, the Chatcha Laka. Maximo had a soft spot for Ananya, naming her after one of the prettiest birds in the jungle, the Mot Mot. Jenny, Jennifer Lopez according to the compulsive liar, was named Armadilla, Joe was given the name Tarantula and Hannah with her piercing look was named Eciz, Federlance in English. Finally Frankie our leader was called the most manly of things Mariposa ‘Butterfly’.
Friday morning started with more wood preparation for Monday, sawing planks and cutting stakes. The afternoon was free with everyone taking a trip to Pedernales for supplies for the weekend. The weekend we spent sunning ourselves on the beaches of the local area, where the sand was too hot to walk on, making trips to the ocean interesting. Even after lathering on factor 50 we still ended up like lobsters. The evenings were spent toasting marshmellows and learning how to make smores from our American amigos..
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