Puerto Lopez & Rostro de...Semillas?

This past weekend six of us decided to travel to Puerto Lopez, which is on the coast of Ecuador and is the gateway to Isla de la Plata, which is known as the ¨Poor Man´s Galapagos¨. Mark, Tasha, Tierney, Caitlin, Jon, and myself headed out to the bus terminal early Saturday morning to catch a 5:30am bus to Puerto Lopez. We got a quick glimpse of Montanita, the infamous hippie surf town, on our way, thanks to our cab driver Watcho´s advice on taking a more ¨scenic¨ (albeit more expensive) bus route. We got off the bus and found our way to Hosteleria Itapoa by 9:15, and then were literally on a boat tour out to Isla de la Plata by 10am.



We arrived and met our hostess, Maria, who told us that yes, she arranges tours with her guide so that if we hurried, we could hurry up and get on the boat tour that was leaving. Our guide´s name was...Cherry. He was amazing haha very knowledgeable but this like spitfire 60-year-old who took us out on our 7-hour day trip. We first walked through the fish market, which was held on the beach and consisted of fishing boats (like little, rickety ones) getting close enough to shore to literally throw the fish (including 4-foot swordfish and 6-foot SHARKS) to people waiting on the beach. Talk about a nice surprise, meaning we saw sharks being thrown from boats as we were being told we´d be snorkeling in the same water within a few hours!

It took about an hour to get to Isla de la Plata, which is part of Machalilla National Park, and we saw a humpback whale and a few dolphins on our way out. Apparently, we just missed the time when you can see tons of whales, but by last weekend they had pretty much all migrated (We were actually supposed to take this trip a few weeks ago, but the attempted coup kept us in Duran). We went on a three-mile hike and saw lots of Blue-Footed Boobies (countless boobie jokes courtesy of Mark) and other birds that I can´t remember the name of. After that it was time for snorkeling. By some miracle, I had found my underwater disposable camera that I meant to use on spring break in the Bahamas, but it made my way into my Ecuador suitcases and then into my backpack for this trip, so I think I managed to get a few snorkeling and MILLIONS SCHOOLS OF FISH pictures too. I also got stung by a jellyfish, which freaked me out more than it hurt haha but now it´s a funny story to tell. We saw giant sea turtles when we were back in the boat and starting to head back, so that was awesome too.

Back on the mainland, we showered up and went to dinner. We all ordered seafood (except Caitlin) and it was just really nice to be able to act like tourists and to order a few beers with dinner. (In Duran, drinking is synonymous with being drunk and beligerent, so it´s looked upon very poorly and we consequently have to be very secretive about if and when we have a beer with dinner. We basically have to buy it outside the neighborhood and sneak it into the house). We went to a beach bar afterwards, which consisted of five brilliantly-colored hammocks with colored lanterns and a grass hut. It was awesome, and very relaxing.

The next day we headed out to Los Frailes, which is the beach within the national park on the mainland. The thing to do here to get to the beach is barter with guys with pick-up trucks to drive you there. Six gringos walking down the street screams WE NEED SOMEONE TO DRIVE US SOMEWHERE so we didn´t have a problem finding a guy that offered to give us a ride for $11 roundtrip. We tried to be friendly and asked his name and he just told us ¨no tengo¨, which means ¨I don´t have one¨. We´re still not sure if this was an attempted poke at humor or what, but we just ended up calling him that. Los Frailes is rumored to be the most beautiful beach in Ecuador, and it was gorgeous. Just picture white sand beach between two cliffs, and clear water, with maybe four or five other people on the entire beach. There was a hike up to an observation point that we took advantage of too, which was pretty fun.





We booked it back to the more bustling part of Puerto Lopez to catch the 5pm bus back home to Guayaquil. We got back around 8:30 and Watcho was great in being able to pick us up again. It was weird getting back to Guayaquil, because we switched right back into volunteer mode, meaning we refocused to speak Spanish a lot more and just knew that we couldn´t act so carefree because we were representing a foundation, and representing an idea and a mission that was a lot bigger than ourselves. We love volunteering, and even through the really low times, we all know this is where we want to be. But being away for a weekend is a nice break and a chance to really just act like tourists.

This week back has been great. I feel like I have a lot more energy, so I´m assuming the weekend of relaxing can be deemed successful. The kids at Semillas have been great, wild per usual, but absolutely wonderful. Last Friday we took our nine best behaved kids on paseo (field trip) to the Malecon (where the free concert was) because there are playgrounds and also a temporary AQUARIUM! The kids actually really like the aquarium, and they got some playground time, a chance to feed the fish (one kid also took this as an opportunity to try fish food...we stopped that immediately after we stopped laughing uncontrollably) and they each got an ice-cream. They all showed up dressed in their best clothes with hair combed and gelled all nice. They knew that this was a special opportunity for them, and for kids that usually never get out of Duran, it was definitely a treat. They were so much fun, and Jon, Kipp, Daniel, Ricardo and I had as much fun as they did.

These are pictures from this past week at Semillas...





I also gave my septimos at Santa Marianita their big exam on Tuesday, so now I have a pile of tests at home waiting for me to correct them. Teaching is definitely a challenge, but I really do like it. All of our jobs are proving to be difficult in one way or another. And we all know that that´s ok. It´s the second that you start forgetting that it´s supposed to be hard and you stop laughing at yourself that you really start to slide down a slippery slope. Volunteering for a year in Ecuador is definitely not supposed to be a cake walk.

OH! And I was fortunate enough to preview Tim´s senior pictures, which proved to be very handsome, and also ridiculous haha (why does he need to pose lying on the ground like he´s in a lingerie photo shoot?). Mom, please use extreme discretion when picking which ones to order. All in all, things are going pretty well and I´ll keep trying to keep this all updated!

Paz, Amor, y Ecuador<3

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS MY FRIENDS!

In the spirit of attempting to actually keep this blog recent, I thought I´d give another quick update...

I went to the clinic this past week (yet again) to get the results from all my tests that I had submitted. The tests came up negative for typhoid, which is good because by the time I took the test, I had already been taking typhoid medicine. The doctor that had prescribed that medicine had decided all my syptoms pointed in only one direction, and since the typhoid test takes four days to process, she started me on meds right away. I guess we´ll never know whether or not I really had typhoid. On a more hilarious note, I did find out that I have three parasites...E. Coli, another amoeba, and roundworm! So I have a worm thing growing inside of me, which is disgusting, but I must say that having been down here for just two months, even this idea doesn´t make me squirm as much as it used to. We all knew that signing up for a year of volunteering also meant signing up for a year of possible parasites. It´s very normal, and there are two other volunteers taking medicine right now for the same thing. You can get all these parasites from drinking the water or from food not being cooked through well. "Drinking the water" doesn´t mean that you have to drink a whole glass of tap water; I mean I could have not dried off a plate well enough, meaning that even just that drop of water could´ve made me sick. Either way, this stuff is all pretty routine and volunteers in the past have gotten it and volunteers in the future will get it too. I realized when I told Joey over the phone that yeah, it doesn´t sound too routine to have a worm growing in your intestine, but here, it´s pretty normal. I´m on medicine now for it and feeling completely like myself again.

This weekend was hilarious. On Friday night all the volunteers got together to celebrate Beth-A-Palooza, affectionately named after the Birthday Girl. It was really great to just see everyone again, and we all ended up sleeping at AJS so we spent lots of time together. On Saturday, Arbolito minus Tierney and plus Tasha headed into Guayaquil to celebrate el 9 de Octubre, which is a sort of independence day for Guayaquil, complete with an artist show, music, a free concert (hilarious), and a parade. It was really fun. It was a gorgeous day, and even though it felt unbearably hot in Arbolito, being in Guayaquil on the Malecon (basically a boardwalk type thing by the water) was very comfortable. We walked around and looked at the parade, grabbed some lunch, and then went to an artisan´s market and looked at the art tents, which featured lots of very political artwork. We were taking a break and resting where the Malecon intersects with Las Penas when we discovered there was a free concert that night. Definitely had to stick around for that. We ended up getting a free tour of the Armada de Ecuador (looked like a pirate ship but the sailor was less than amused when Tasha asked if there were pirates onboard hahahaha) and had our first taste of Ecua-Chifa, which is Ecuador´s take on Chinese food (think lots of rice with oil, and some chicken thrown in).

This free concert was definitely the highlight of the day. It was hilarious, and there were people everywhere. When we were meeting up with Tierney, we happened to be where the bus with all the singers was pulling in. There were all these screaming girls running after the bus, and we almost got stampeded, except for Tasha and Caitlin who decided to join the running stampede haha. Fireworks were a pleasant surprise starting around eight (um fireworks are awesome), right before the concert started. The actual music for the concert was alright, but the atmosphere was just so funny. There were babies and little kids sleeping everywhere, with their parents basically standing over them so that they wouldn´t get stepped on. And then the host chick for the show was telling people to scream WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS, MY FRIENDS and it was hilarious because obviously, the gringos can scream that but nobody else wanted to because they didn´t understand what she was saying and they didn´t know how to pronounce the words, so it ended up being a group of seven gringos screaming WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS MY FRIENDS! followed by lots of stares and laughs. Then, they were pulling people on stage to dance and it turned into what Kipp so affectionately labeled, a "pelvic-thrusting competition".

It´s so weird because apart from all the pelvic-thrusting, we really did feel like we could´ve been walking around Quincy Market in Boston or down by the Seaport in New York City. It felt like a world away from Duran and Arbolito, but we were really just a bus and metrovia ride across the river. It was so easy to find ourselves forgetting where we actually were. Caitlin and I both got a mocha frappacino at Sweet & Coffee, which is Ecuador´s version of Starbuck´s (except that there is a securtiy guard in a bullet-proof vest manning the door here). That sounds so ridiculous here, but at home it´s a relatively routine purchase. There was more than one time throughout the day where we stopped ourselves and reminded each other that we were returning to unpaved roads and a neighborhood of cane houses that night. Even though we spent more money than we otherwise would have had we stayed in Arbolito, we still only spent $13 for the day, including transportation. It´s weird to think how far that much money would take you in a day in New York City or Boston. It was a very strange feeling, and I´m sure it´s not the last time I´ll experience it.

Paz, Amor, y Ecuador <3

Baby´s first coup (thanks Caitlin) and...typhoid?

Just wanted to send a quick update saying that everyone was completely fine during the events of last Thursday. There was an unsuccessful coup of President Correa, and all of the police force went on strike because of a bill or law that Correa was trying to pass. When this happened, people were rioting in Guayaquil and blocking the bridges, meaning that getting from Guayaquil to Duran and vice versa was near impossible. A lot of the volunteers work in Guayaquil, and so Wellington (one of our guards and friends) went around picking people up from worksites and bringing everyone back to the AJS house. The Mundo teachers did not go into work, and although I work in Duran and probably would have been picked up from my site as well, I was home sick and was already hooked up to a bring-home-your-own IV in AJS (this is actually hilarious now looking back...wasn´t so funny when I was still sick). All of the volunteers were safe and our guards did an amazing job of keeping us as informed as we could be. To be perfectly honest, our neighborhoods didn´t seem any different than any other day, besides for the fact that less people were out and about. We didn´t feel unsafe, but our guards still asked us to stay within the neighborhoods and to only go out when we needed to. Everything has calmed down now, and we´re all doing great.

Paz, Amor, y Ecuador <3