31 de Julio, 2007: Nina
Just wanted to let you all know where we will be for the next few days. We found out about a co-op of nature reservations around a nearby lake called Laguna de Cocha. They are a group of farms and nature reserves that strive to live sustainably and protect their natural environments. We made arrangements to stay on one of the reserves, with a family, and spend a few days learning about their work and will hopefully be able to offer some help. We wont have internet access for a few days but can´t wait to share about it when we return. We are really excited about this opportunity!
31 July, 2007: Matthew
To put a whole new perspective on ¨fresh¨: Today as I was gazing out our third floor window watching the continuous traffic both on foot and motorcycle/car/bus/bicycle, etc. zoom by, I noticed and elderly lady walking down this modern city street with a pair of goats. Musing at the contrast of old and new societies I continued to watch the lady pass. I next noticed that another lady who was presumably walking with her 11 or 12 year old son stop and speak with the goat-lady. A moment later the goat-lady docks her goats on a shop door knob and proceeds to milk one of the goats directly into a little plastic cup which she subsequently hands to the young boy. All resume their directions.
30 July, 2007: Matthew
We found a direct bus from Baños to Otavalo, which was on our way as we were working our way north to Colombia, and so we left in the afternoon... the ride was only an hour and a half longer than originally anticipated, and probably the same amount of time as it would have taken if we had taken a bus to Quito, made a connection and continued, but it felt like a really long ride. I especially enjoyed being dropped off on the side of the Panamerican highway and knowing how to navigate through the city without consulting our maps, it was fun to return to a place that we know a bit, if not just for a night.
The next morning we took our time making our way out of Otavalo and were headed for a bus by 10:00. Our suspicions were confirmed that there were no buses direct out of Otavalo to Tulcán, which is the border town from which we were planning to launch into Colombia. We ended up standing out by the highway for 15 or 20 minutes without success at catching a bus that had originated in Quito and so took the next bus to Ibarra in hopes of finding a bus terminal that could serve our needs better...
No such luck. We arrived at the bus terminal in Ibarra, and after waiting for over three hours at the space where the buses were supposed to leave for Tulcán, we made a new plan. Now, we were only waiting there that long because we had continuously had promises made by vendors, fellow travelers, and even the bus company that a bus would be leaving in 10 minutes, however than never happened in the time that we waited. After talking to a guy waiting for a bus next to me we followed his suggestion (pretty much) and took a bus that was going to a town about 15 km or so south of Tulcán and then took a taxi to Tulcán. We were fortunate enough to be able to split taxi costs with two Colombian girls who were on their way back home to Bogatá and suffering from the same lack of buses.
All went smoothly and it was at least one of the easiest border crossings that we have made. No exit/entance fees or anything! We stayed the night in a little hotel in the town on the Colombian side of the border, which is probably not a place we´ll ever revisit, but that is for no more reason than the non-interactive receptionist, hard beds, and noise. Oh well, you´ll have that from time to time.
Today we made the bus ride between Ipiales (the border town) and Pasto, which was outstanding! We followed a river gorge almost the entire way and it had slopes, cliffs, and mountains all the way, it was a really beautiful ride. So, that leaves us here in Pasto where we will probably stay for at least a couple of days. There is a lake nearby which we will probably check out, depending on conditions... and take it from there.
Ok, so this has been kind of an detail-packed entry, but enjoy. We´re in Colombia and enjoying it. :)
27 de Julio, 2007: Nina
Hey all! Matthew and I are leaving Baños tomorrow and heading back up north with hopes of spending a couple of weeks in Colombia. We have heard great things about the country. Everyone says it is so beautiful and the people are the friendliest and warmest people ever. So, we doubt that we can find anywhere to study (it's not exactly a big toursist destination) but I am sure we will find some adventures. Don't worry yourselves over the sterotypes we all have heard about the country. Colombia is relatively safe now and we will be smart. We will spend a night in Otavalo on our way up there but won't really have time to visit our family we had stayed with before. We will however, see them when we get back and spend another week or so with them. We have a plan to hike around a beautiful crater lake in their area.
So, we wlll try to update again when we get a chance in Colombia. Until then, choa!
23 July, 2007: Matthew & Nina
Hi there Mom! Happy Birthday! click here for a special message :) We hope that you have a wonderful day!!!
19 de Julio, 2007: Nina
We have been blessed to spend this week with another encredible family! Liz, Jimi, Luigi, and Analia are simply delightful and wonderful hosts. We spend much time conversing at the table and playing cards. Bekah- have we told you what a HIT that card game you taught to us in Philly is? Everyone loves it, especially older kids! We haven´t known its name but Analia named it Joker and so far it has stuck. Analia (11 yrs) gets so amusingly giddy and adorable when she gets a good card and Lougi (14) never fails to make a joke about the Jack being "la mejor carta" (in reality it is the worst). Jimi prepares excellent food and Liz is probably the best conversationalist we have yet encountered on our trip. She has beautiful clear Spanish and is also the director of the spanish school we are attending and a teacher. She makes us feel like we have progressed emensely because we can understand her so well, but we think she is just very skilled at choosing words and sentance structure that we understand. :) Maybe it is a combination of both.
Classes this week have been a little disapointing because our teacher doesn´t really seem to understand the presice dificulty we are having when we approach her with a question. She answers it with a simple explanation (that is usually obvious to us) and misses the point of our question. So we have just learned to take this week with stride (even though we are paying the most yet) and wait until next week to approach Liz with our important questions. Because, next week Liz is going to teach us! We are looking forward to it because she is so intelligent and understanding of our particular struggles. Already we can tell this because we live with her and she corrects us when we speak wrong, and we can ask her questions about words and what not. Also, we have found that we prefer our teacher to have a background in English, not so that we can use them as a dictionary, infact we don´t need to speak a word of English, but because it gives the teacher an understanding mind of where our grammer structure is coming from. It is so much easier for them to explain things to us when they know what our english minds are thinking.
Appearently, Matthew and I have finished all of the basic grammer of the spanish language! We are completing the "presente del subjuntivo" (subjunctive tense) today. Which mean, we should be able to say just about anything we want! Haha, if only it were so! We still need a lot of practice and need to work on our vocabulary. But, I do feel that this week we have made a lot of progress. I feel like my mind is catching on the gramatical structure with better understanding and I am thinking in Spanish more often. We have also spent this week honing in on some problem areas that both Matthew and I struggle with in respects to two different past tenses. We have to totally retrain our minds because the transfer from English is difficult (for us anyway!). So all in all, it has been a great week of growth for myself, and for Matthew as well I believe.
NOTE for July 15th, 2007: Nina
Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know that we posted new pictures AND videos on the site today; check them out!
15 de Julio, 2007: Nina
Cool, I didn´t realize that Matthew had updated on the past week. It was good, I think we got a lot of practice speaking and being confused. If anything it showed us how much more we need to learn! We are glad to be returning to school this week. Language learning takes so much patience! Last week I had been frustrated with our level of communication. I felt like i could not engage with others on the "level" that I wanted to because of the language. I was venting to some of my friends through email about it and as I was writing, I was suddenly reminded of my dear Caleb, and how he could break down language barriers, among other social barriers, with just a smile. I was encouraged by that thought and inspired to simply be myself, be patient, and give what I do have now, whatever that may be at the time. Myself, my smile, my help, my love. Thank you my angel, your life continues to inspire.
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Travelling Books...
Many hostals and cafes in the travel world have book exchanges. You read a book, and exchange it for a new one later on down the road. Simple, cool. Well, I hadn´t thought about the life of these books until this strange encounter yesterday. We ate lunch at a vegetarian cafe (yeah, we are in gringo land for a little while) that had a small book exchange. I noticed a worn out "Slaughter-house Five" on the shelf. Hmm. I picked it up and thought... strange, it has similar wear and tear as the one I had left in Honduras. I open the cover and see the fimiliar faded green advertisement for a hostal in Livingston Quatemala, "the only hostal with hot showers in Livingston". It was the exact same book that I had been given in Antigua, Guatemala, and left in Los Naranjos (a tiny out-of-the-way town) Honduras! The book had been falling to pieces when I had the thing, some of the pages had completely fallen out, and I was amazed to see the same few un-bound pages still along with the book. Crazy, ya? I wonder how long it had been here, how many traveller´s hands it has passed, which countries it has known. Just shows that books have more than one story to tell!
12 July, 2007: Matthew
We have been priviledged to spend another week with a lovely family while participating in our volunteer program here in Mindo. We had some doubts at the beginning of the week as our being able to stay this week was saved by a chance meeting with a fellow volunteer, Greg. We met him in the street a couple of hours before we were to meet with Cléver, the local director. Greg had a couple of things that he was wanting to discuss with Cléver, and so he showed up for our meeting where we were going to go meet our family that we would stay with for the week. Well, as things go sometimes we were waiting for nearly an hour and Cléver still had not shown up, but fortunately since Greg was with us he was able to take us to his house. Once there, Cléver calls the family to notify them of our arrival... but things aren´t quite ready as they are in the middle of some home renovations/additions. We wind up staying the night with Cléver and his family and were able to go to our family the next day. It all worked out just fine, but we could have easily missed it all if we hadn´t met Greg earlier to find Cléver´s house. Anyway... as mentioned we have been with a lovely family. It is one of those homes where much of the family is there so we have had occasion to meet a number of family members and also especially enjoy the company of Carla and Jefferson, the kids of the house. Carla is 9 and Jefferson 5, both of whom are full of life and personality. The family is wonderfully hospitable and have been filling our bellies every meal! Again we are enjoying large lunches with a soup first before a full plate of rice, chicken, yucca, fish, potatoes... an array of food. Well, not all of those at once, but those are some of the choices at times.
The volunteer program is extremely open-ended. There are a number of different projects going on, and the challenge really is to decide what you want to do and then spend a little bit of energy pushing in that direction before being pulled in several other directions. Nina and I asked to work with the local kids as that had been mentioned as a possiblility. Well, as it turns out that doesn´t necessarily mean that there is an existing opportunity to do that, but Monday morning we went with Cléver to the school and he arranged an hour almost each day this week where we could spend some time doing a program with the kids. Now, this is a great opportunity, but I must say that it is a little bit overwhelming to have a whole class of kids for an hour given our language status.... but, it has been working out and we´ve been having a good time. Cléver kind of came up with a project for us, which was fine, and it has consisted of working with the kids on classifying different kinds of garbage: organic and inorganic. There is some existing program to compost organic waste and so we were trying to get in there and help educate some users!! I think that it went well, and you know, kids just enjoy the attention. So, all that has been pretty fun. This is a small town, so we see the same people all the time, and it has been fun to know several of the kids on the streets and there are even more who call out our names and say hello as we are out and about. That has been fun.
This weekend we are leaving for Baños. We have made some email contact with a school there and are expecting to start back to classes Monday as well as another family home stay. We´re looking forward to that.
7 de Julio, 2007: Nina
Okay, sorry that it has been a week or so since we had written, people. We will try not to let it happen again, and warn you ahead of time if it does. With that said, let me warn you, it might not be until next weekend that we write again! The reason being, we are in a tiny little town that happens to have some really cool nature and activities, and which fills up with toursits on the weekends (Ecuadorians and non). Appearently during the week there is not enough business to keep the internet place open! But, there may be one other place we can use internet if our timing is right. So, still check throughout the week!
To be honest, there is not a whole lot to update. Matthew pretty much summed it up. We have just been here in Mindo, hanging out. We have been studying some, reading a lot, hiking, napping, and scratching. Yeah, scratching. The first day in our little paradise we were made aware of some kind of tiny gnat/flea/insect thingy that one hardly ever sees but feels the result of for days afterwards. They leave a little blood speck surrounded by a red mark, like a misquito bite, but they itch tremendously more. I have only slept soundly one night since the initial attack, because other nights we wake up itching terribly and unable to think about anything else. Since then, we have been wearing socks and bug repelent and are more away of the little devils, so we have kept our new bites to a minimum and the old bites are starting to wear off. It was our feet and ankles that got attacked the worst. It looks like we have the chicken pox!
We have enjoyed the time we have been able to spend with the people here, other travelers and locals. Every night for dinner we go down the alley to where a lady grills chicken and we get a plate of rice, beans, salsa, and a chicken kabob for $1.50. Lately I have been adding a grilled banana for an extra 30 cents. Last night we helped Cecilia, the owner of the hostal, unpack a bran new oven and install it in the river-side kitchen that the family shares with us. She bought it so she could bake cookies and cakes for the grandkids. So to initiate it, Cecilia and I baked a chocolate cake with peaches and raisins! The kids (who live with her) abolutely loved it. It is not very common to have an oven in the home, often people will have just a gas range. So anyways, that was fun. :)
Tonight is our last night at Cecilia´s; tomorrow we are going to go stay with a local family while we volunteer for the next week.
Ok, well I´m out- keep the messages coming- you guys don´t know how much we enjoy seeing your comments in the C-box (on the main page)!! Thank you!!!
6 July, 2007: Matthew
Ok, this is going to be simply a brief update, because we are currently in a small town called Mindo and the opportunity to encounter a decent internet connection has proved to be all but impossible.
We arrived here last Sunday afternoon and found a little place to stay called ¨Casa de Secilia¨. We´ve been singing about how broken hearted SImon and Garfunkle are all week long. This little hostal is high on my favorites list as it is situated right by the river including a little open air kitchen by the river with plenty of space to nap, lounge, study, chat, eat and wash clothes. Also the house has that special feeling that each room and door was only added as an afterthought and so it is sure to be one of a kind in the world. Our room is on the second level just off of the large covered patio with hammocks. One of my all-time favorite aspects of the tropical climates is the open-air everything about dwellings. Windows and actual closed off walls are really just an unnecissary luxury that many houses altogether neglect.
Our hope was to find a small town where we could spend a week between Spanish schools and spend some study time - allowing the onlsaught of information to sink in. Mindo, although not a good place to base your happiness on high-speed internet, is a great place to pass some study time and chat with the locals and fellow travelers. So, our homework project has been going well throughout this week, and we have also managed a few naps and hikes. This area is famous for their butterflies and we visited a butterfly farm the other day and were able to watch two butterflies emerge from their cocoons which had been their home of transformation for the last 12 days!! It was a really awesome experience. There were plenty of other beautiful butterflies there as well to observe.
Ok, so the last bit of information for now is that we are going to stay an additional week here in Mindo, because we talked with a guy yesterday who is going to hook us up with a host family and for four hours a day next week we are going to work with a kids´ education program. We don´t know too many details yet, but we will post what is going on as soon as we know more. Finding a volunteer opportunity was our alternative to going back to school this week, and so we though that this level of involvement and language practice would be great.