Finished Volunteering

Montañita, Ecuador

So we finished volunteering and the end of our experience didnt end like the beginning of it. let me explain... Last Monday when we returned from our weekend at Montañita all the volunteers had our usual talk with the owner where he explains his master plan of the day. We weren´t going to say anything about our grievances with the volunteering programs because he doesn't speak English and our Spanish wasnt good enough to politely explain our issues. But the head volunteer thought we should and she translated our problems with the program we had into spanish.
Here were are main problems:

• Volunteers should not clean the public bathrooms
• Volunteers should have rides to the beach after work(it was a 40 min. walk and then a 30 bus ride to the beach)
• The Coordinators should explain the whole volunteering experience better in their emails and website

Well we didnt even get through our first problem when he started talking extremely fast and didnt have a happy look on his face. He thought volunteers should have the experience of cleaning the bathrooms and that it was part of the volunteering experience. He really didnt care about what we had to say (or that we were paying to be there!!!) and pretty much left it as if you had a problem you could leave. The meeting ended with the volunteers coming up with a list of jobs they would like to do around the grounds (ie making trails, cooking, giving tours). Well Jess and I mentioned that we would like to look at the water system to see if we could help make any improvements. This list was passed on to the owner and within 12 hours we were being taken away to Alandaluz to live in the lap of luxury.

The owner all of the sudden was very apologetic, and one night even bought us a round of drinks, and very much wanted us to take a tour of the main hotels facilities. Without making this go on too long, the first day we sat around and read, took long walks on the beach, went swimming, and had great food. Day two we saw their systems for the morning and then did the same things we did day one. Day three we did some research and calculations about system they could use to purify there water without boiling it.

With all that being said one of the most ironic things was that a maid cleaned our rooms and bathrooms for us at Alandaluz... What an experience.

This weekend we are back in Montañita to party with all the volunteers before heading south down the coast to Salinas. Salinas is supposed to be vey upscale so it will be a nice change for us. After that we off to the major city of Guayaquil to find a cheap Galapagos trip.

Anyways hope all is well

Justin

PS we forgot the camera but we will post pictures tomorrow

Volunteering Spot

Montañita, Manabi, Ecuador

So we safely made it to the volunteering spot which was quite an experience. The guide books we read said the trip from Quevedo to Puerto Lopez was not a common one and we now know why. The road up the mountain was fine and not too bad but once we started going down we descended into the a fog and went from about 13,000 ft to 1,000 ft in about 3 hours on muddy roads (i think i still have nail marks from Jess in my arm). Anyways everything was fine and we made it to Puerto Lopez after about 6 hours of busing around that day so we were pretty beat. We stayed at the closest hostel to the bus station which seems like a great idea at the time but we could have done better if we had looked around some. The town is nice and basically revolves around tourists, which was a huge change from Quevedo where we were the only tourists in the whole city.

We decided to relax in Puerto Lopez the night instead of heading straight to our volunteering spot. We met a local that ran whale watches who name was Winston Churchill. I think i laughed at him the first few times he said his name until i figured out he was serious, but i guess its common for some people to have names of famous people. Anyways he brought out his log book of guest he had taken out and decided to read off where all his passengers had been from looking for people that were from Boston, which there were none. Then he proceeded to tell Jess and I that whales around here were much bigger than our whales on the east coast. He was nice guy though and if anyone goes to Puerto Lopez look him up and he´ll hook you up with a deal.

Anyways we arrived the next day at Alandaluz where we thought we are going to be volunteering. Jess and I were really excited to be right on the beach and doing some work to help out the local community and learn some other interesting things about the local ecology. We´ll that wasnt the case... It turns out we are volunteering for a for profit psuedo-eco hotel satellite farming facility... Not cool. This place, Cantalapiedra, is used to support Alandaluz by growing various crops and bamboo that are many brought to Alandaluz. No Tourists stay there, they only come for Canopy tours which is just a set of 4 zip lines that are strung over the grounds. I think we would have been happy if we were giving Canopy tours but we are used as unskilled labor doing random mindless tasks. If you want to hear me rant more just email me and ill give you the goods but needless to say Jess and I will only be staying till this friday. The only reason were staying is because the other volunteers are cool and our spanish is getting a lot better.

Next week were planning on coming back to Montañita to figure out more of out trip and our next spot. We have added a couple of pipe dream places to the map so check that out. And Jess added some caption to her picture (picts 1... i think). Anyways i hope people are enjoying these posting and feel free to post some stuff up. I hope we´ll have pictures of the volunteering place next week. Until then

Best

Justin

ps our volunteering place is in the middle of nowhere so no more email or blog til this weekend.

Our second day in Quito and day at the volcano

Hey Everyone-

Justin and I are doing well. We are adjusting to different things, such as how much a taxi ride should cost and how to throw our bags under a moving bus. Our second day in Quito was nice. We took a gondola ride up a mountain next to the city and got a view of how expansive it is and of the mountains surrounding the city. The gondola took us up from Quito´s 10,000 feet to 13,000. We have not experienced any bad altitude sickness, just some light-headedness and shortness of breath. We also walked around the old city and had our last dinner at the hostel. It is a very European style hostel where everyone speaks English, but that night it was Ecudaorian night with classic Ecuadorian food and a band. For dinner we had a fried yuca (a potato) stuffed with cheese, and shrimp with coconut sauce and rice. The band came up to the hostel´s dining area which was on the roof of the hostel. The food was delicious and the band was good as well. They did not play for very long as they were probably booked at about 3 hotels that night.

The next morning we headed out to Cotopaxi national park, which is Ecuador´s 19,000 foot active volcano. At this point we got our first Ecuadorian bus experience. We asked the taxi to bring us to the bus terminal, which turned out to be a huge rotary with buses coming and going. As we got out of the bus a man ran up to us and asked us where we were going. We answered and he quickly ushered us to the bus closest to us which was driving away. He helped us with our bags and we ran onto the bus, all while the bus was moving. We were a bit nervous at first because we needed to let them know when to let us off, because if you aren´t getting off at a town then they will drop you off wherever you want on the side of the road. We had read that there is a place where you can get off and hire a truck to take you on the half hour trip to the campsite at the base of the volcano. Our spanish is passable right now, but not good enough to get us the local´s rate on taxis or to speak in complex sentences. So I tried to ask a woman next to us when the stop was for Cotopaxi, which is the name of the national park and the volcano. She looked very confused as I asked her this, and then the money guy for the bus (there is always a driver and a money guy on buses) came by as well and she told him what she thought I had said. They looked at each confusedly and laughed a bit. He asked me some questions I didn´t understand, and then he walked farther down the bus. Justin and I discussed what had happened and decided that they thought we were asking if the bus went all the way to the volcano. Turns out he eventually did understand what we wanted, and the bus stopped on the side of a major highway (and by stopped I mean it kept going but slowly enough for us to jump off). We hired a truck and drove up to the campsite we had researched. Turns out this place, Tambopaxi, was not the hut we had imagined, but a pretty nice lodge where older Europeans came and stayed before attempting to climb Cotopaxi. Camping was cheap enough but the meals were expensive, so we ended up cutting our stay there a night short. But while we were there we went for some walks. We were still feeling the altitude effects so we did not hike very far. I also wanted to go horse back riding, but when we asked they told us they needed 24 hours notice to find the horses which were out in the hills somewhere. Most people come to the volcano to pay a guide $200 to take them to the top, but this was not within our budget and we did not have the time to spend a few nights acclimatizing. Overall the area was gorgeous but a bit too expensive for us.

So tonight we are in the small city Latacunga and we will spend the next two days taking buses to get to our volunteering spot.

Check out Pictures 1 for the most recent pictures. If you are leaving a comment we added the word verification feature because we have gotten a couple spam hits.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Jess

Made it to Quito

So we arrived safely in Quito with no major problems. The flights were both very smooth with no problems, but i could feel the altitude right off the plane though. If fact just before landing they decrease the cabin pressure to match the air pressure at Quito... If they didnt the door wouldnt open.

Anyways on to Quito. We are staying at this amazing hostel called the Secret Garden in the Old part of the city. Its really nice and seems to be a popular place amongst the British Travelers. It also seems to host a great crowd of trekkers from 20 to 50 years old, and have all managed to get at least a month away from their lives and jobs. Today we walked around the old town up to the Basilica and it was well worth it. You can climb all the way to the top of the bell towers and the main tower that is over the center altar.

Cab rides seem to be $5 to $10 to pretty much anywhere but lunch only ran us about $1.25 each so it all evens out in the end. Were going to be in Quito another 2 nights then we are going to make it the coast to start volunteering.

Thanks for all your emails... We appreciate everyone telling us to be safe but feel free to try some new closing lines, such as best or have a great adventure or voice how disgruntled you are about your jobs and school.

Hope everyone is well!

Justin

PS check out picts 2... no captions so use your imagination

First of Many

Hi Everyone

Welcome to our Blog!! Jess and I will be departing on Monday at 7:00 am and will be back around the end of January (almost 7 months!!!). Email and this blog page will be the best way to talk to us while we are on our travels. We are planning on updating this page as often as we can to keep everyone in the loop. If you want to get a post card please send us your mailing address and we'll do our best to get one to you. We are always accepting visitors so come on down!

Hope everyone has a great summer

Jess - Jessica.Fosbrook@gmail.com
and
Justin - MrJustinRoy@gmail.com