It's been very nice to "settle down" for a month in one particular city for a while. I have been keeping myself quite busy by attending Spanish classes, which are about a 5-minute walk from the hostel. I feel like I have been progressing well during my time here, mostly because I have been studying like crazy. Getting the most out of the lessons this month has definitely been my top priority. My teacher is very intelligent, and he generally likes to talk with me about Ecuadorian, world, or U.S. politics. Today we talked about such light, breezy topics as the controversy over the mosque going up in New York and the war in Iraq; this was after we talked about why Ecuador is an ungovernable country (my teacher's opinion).
Kait has been volunteering at the animal refuge, a place outside of the city that has all kinds of wild animals that they are rehabilitating. I haven't been there yet, but I will go this Wednesday on my "day off" from classes. (I arranged with my teacher to add those hours on to a different day.) She also just found another refuge located here in the city where she will be volunteering for two days per week.
The weather here has been quite rainy throughout our entire stay here. I guess it is supposed to be like the Corvallis of Ecuador in that it rains a lot, and the weather is just as unpredictable by the week as it is by the hour.
We do enjoy, however, going to the nearby food market, a large indoor warehouse sort of building with two stories - raw produce and meat on the ground level and cooked food and fruit blends on the top. This is a nice way to get out of the hostel and eat some good food. I personally enjoy the roast pig that they have in one section of the upper level. Once you come up the stairs, you immediately see about seven whole, roasted pigs sitting out on the counters waiting for you. The vendors serve the pork on a bed of rice or some kind of cooked corn mixed with vegetables. Yum!
To get out over the weekend, we went to our nearest ice cream/coffee shop and sat for a while to study. After that, we found the local shopping mall (wherein could be found a cinema) to watch a nice romantic action movie. Other than that, we have been keeping pretty busy by cooking for almost every meal, studying in the hostel, reading our newly purchased books from a nearby English bookstore (a rare thing in Ecuador) and just getting to know the city.
Hopefully next weekend, we will take a trip to Cajas National Park and we'll let you know how it goes. We wanted to go this weekend, but the weather was so rainy that we decided to stay in town.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Weeding in Paradise
After returning to civilization, we were at a bit of a loss of what to do. We knew we wanted to settle down somewhere for a month so Ace could take Spanish classes, and we knew we liked Cuenca when we passed through. We also knew there was an animal refuge there that might be fun for me to volunteer at while Ace studied- the problem was that the only info we could find on the refuge was through a volunteer agency that wanted me to pay them several hundred bucks to work for free, and that the office would be closed for the next 4 days anyways due to Dia de los Santos and Cuencan independence day.
We were wandering around Vilcabamba aimlessly when we bumped into the two men who came to look at purchasing El Condor when we were up there. We chatted a bit, and they mentioned they´d just been out to another farm that accepted volunteers, and invited us to come visit it with them the next day. We agreed and went out to Garden of Paradise the next day, where the two very interesting owners invited us to stay with them through the holidays starting Monday. We agreed and headed back to our hostel, where we discovered that the 30ish American guy staying next door to us had just bought a farm and was accepting volunteers. We had a fun Halloween evening eating fries and drinking beer at the local expat hangout with him, his twin brother, and some other of his friends. Yay networking!
The next day we headed out to Garden of Paradise, where Norie and Richard put us up in their beautiful guest quarters. I won´t even get into the missions of the anti-nuclear activist/archealogist/bestselling author/motivational speaker/ multilingual owners or the many things the future will hold for their property…their website will tell you all about it if you´re interested!
http://www.gardenofparadise.net/Garden_of_Paradise/Garden_of_Paradise.html
We spent Monday through Saturday there, sanding railings, digging trenches, watering countless trees and plants, weeding, and more. We had a lot of fun conversations and good meals cooked together, but the highlight for both Ace and I was definitely getting to edit the first half of the book Norie is currently working on. So cool! On Thursday we went into town and made some phone calls. I did manage to get a hold of the animal refuge on my own, without the expensive middle man- yay!
On Saturday morning we said “goodbye for now” to Norie and Richard and took the extremely curvy 6 hour bus ride back up to Cuenca. Fortunately, the bus driver was much less insane this time and we weren’t fighting back nausea for the entire trip like last time. Once in Cuenca, we set about looking for a decent hostel that would cut us a good deal for a one-month stay. After checking out a bunch, we ended up at La Perla Cuencana, a cozy little family-run place with a kitty, kitchens, internet, and one decent shower with gives hot water (as opposed to the other 5 freezing cold showers). We’re keeping that hidden-away jem as our little secret.
We’re settled in very happily here now. Ace started his classes today (he’ll be doing 10 hours a week of private lessons in the mornings, and hopefully volunteering with me on Wednesdays) and I’ll start my 4 hours a week of after-volunteering lessons tomorrow. I’ve been out to the refuge twice now, and am really enjoying getting to know the wonderful owner and his family and getting to get up close and personal with so many amazing animals. I haven’t felt super useful, but hopefully that will change as I learn more and am able to take on more tasks on my own.
We were wandering around Vilcabamba aimlessly when we bumped into the two men who came to look at purchasing El Condor when we were up there. We chatted a bit, and they mentioned they´d just been out to another farm that accepted volunteers, and invited us to come visit it with them the next day. We agreed and went out to Garden of Paradise the next day, where the two very interesting owners invited us to stay with them through the holidays starting Monday. We agreed and headed back to our hostel, where we discovered that the 30ish American guy staying next door to us had just bought a farm and was accepting volunteers. We had a fun Halloween evening eating fries and drinking beer at the local expat hangout with him, his twin brother, and some other of his friends. Yay networking!
The next day we headed out to Garden of Paradise, where Norie and Richard put us up in their beautiful guest quarters. I won´t even get into the missions of the anti-nuclear activist/archealogist/bestselling author/motivational speaker/ multilingual owners or the many things the future will hold for their property…their website will tell you all about it if you´re interested!
http://www.gardenofparadise.net/Garden_of_Paradise/Garden_of_Paradise.html
We spent Monday through Saturday there, sanding railings, digging trenches, watering countless trees and plants, weeding, and more. We had a lot of fun conversations and good meals cooked together, but the highlight for both Ace and I was definitely getting to edit the first half of the book Norie is currently working on. So cool! On Thursday we went into town and made some phone calls. I did manage to get a hold of the animal refuge on my own, without the expensive middle man- yay!
On Saturday morning we said “goodbye for now” to Norie and Richard and took the extremely curvy 6 hour bus ride back up to Cuenca. Fortunately, the bus driver was much less insane this time and we weren’t fighting back nausea for the entire trip like last time. Once in Cuenca, we set about looking for a decent hostel that would cut us a good deal for a one-month stay. After checking out a bunch, we ended up at La Perla Cuencana, a cozy little family-run place with a kitty, kitchens, internet, and one decent shower with gives hot water (as opposed to the other 5 freezing cold showers). We’re keeping that hidden-away jem as our little secret.
We’re settled in very happily here now. Ace started his classes today (he’ll be doing 10 hours a week of private lessons in the mornings, and hopefully volunteering with me on Wednesdays) and I’ll start my 4 hours a week of after-volunteering lessons tomorrow. I’ve been out to the refuge twice now, and am really enjoying getting to know the wonderful owner and his family and getting to get up close and personal with so many amazing animals. I haven’t felt super useful, but hopefully that will change as I learn more and am able to take on more tasks on my own.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
