Gap year & Travel News

News just in from Ecuador…

You can breath easy, the Leapers in Ecuador have all survived their first week in the jungle! In fact, we are all doing pretty well copying with all aspects of ´jungle life´, such as bugs and spiders and bathing in the river.

Hair & beauty - the Amazonian way!

We are living at a cultural centre in Búa, a community at the base of the Andes, with the T´sachila people, many of whom still dye their hair red with local plants and still wear the traditional coloured skirts. We are re-roofing the cultural centre so we have spent most of the week travelling out to local farms to chop down the leaves needed to weave the roof. It has been loads of fun travelling to and from the farms in pickup trucks with the locals. We have even managed to learn some new Tsafiki words (as well as a bit of Spanish).

Tasting the local cuisine!

_

Home for the next 3 weeks, Bua de los Tsáchila

Everyday the community organises a different cultural event for us such as going out to the farms and learning about harvesting traditional crops such as casava, peaunuts, passionfruit and plantain. Some of the girls have been helping out with the cooking too so they now know how to cook the plaintain in a number of different ways… and some ways are definitely better then others!

Emily (Team Leader, Summer Leap 2009)