Gap year & Travel News

Making new friends at the school!

So, it´s been a while…

As of the last post, we´ve sweated a lot, tanned a ton, and had some fun weekend activaties. I shall expand:

We caught the overnight bus from Quito to Atacames at about 11:30 and arrived at the coast a little before 7-ish. The night was extremely hot, noisy, and the man in front of me had his seat so far back that I was unable to move my legs the whole trip. On the plus side, I can see the ocean from where I am typing and I also watched (and completely understood) a movie dubbed in Spanish called Black Dog 2, starring Patrick Swayze and Meat Loaf, yes Meat Loaf the singer. It was awesome.

We made it to Caimito, a small section of unpaved road with about 40 residents where we have been working on Cacao farms for the past two weeks. We use machetes to clear the grounds to make terraces and we climb the mossy, ant-covered trees to prune dead sections, diseased branches, and various abnormalities. Not too difficult, except Caimito sits on the ridge of some giant hills and all of our work is done on slops greater than 45 degrees. It´s tiring but rewarding. We are helping the local farmers recieve their organic certifications which will help them make more money (most make well under 1000 dollars are year).

Ben gets into cacao farming!

It´s pretty hot work, but it was nothing compared to Wednesday and Thursday this week. On Wednesday we spent the entire day chopping down massive shoots of bamboo then carrying them about 20 minutes through the jungle to the beach. On Thursday we ended up chopping down 400 large leaves that will make a roof for a small house next to the beach for tourists to eat under (in an attempt to bring some more money into the area).

We have spent nearly every afternoon at the beach (much to the delight of Rosie). We hitchhike about 10 minutes down a steep hill and back to the closest town to Chinge. There we have made some friends with the kids who love to play soccer with us. Life is good.

This weekend is about to be a doozy. It´s a public holiday, which means that all of the Ecuadorians flood to the coast (namely Atacames, where we are at the moment) to celebrate one of about a dozen days devoted to the independence of Ecuador. Today celebrates the independence of a city in Southern Ecuador. Good tiemsa as Fran would say.

Ben's impressive war wound

Oh, Almost forgot, Ben got two stiches on his shin from a (minor!) machete accident. Nothing to worry about. According to him, “it was awesome to see the doctor pulling dirt out of my cut.” The kid´s a tank. I hope I didn´t just break the news to his parents…

Hope to blog more tomorrow.
Much love,
Alan.