Mikabu

well we made it back to the US, safe and sound! it's been a few days, but we figured we'd update about the last leg of the trip before it all slips our mind.. so here goes: we got up for our last day in banos, and spent some time wandering the shops and markets, acquiring gifts for ourselves and for some people back home. we then headed over to the bus station and got ourselves on the next bus headed for quito. it amazes me how nice the busses in ecuador are. we weren't even on anything special, but it was equipped with a flat panel TV that picked up signal as we were driving and were actually able to watch the Columbian hostage situation unfold on the news as we travelled. It also had ... read more

We´ll start off by saying banos is an awesome place. sadly, when we woke up yesterday for our first full day, it was pouring. we had plans to do some hikes and what not, but the weather just didn´t seem to cooperate. so instead we spent the morning wandering around the town, visiting the cathedral, and checking out places to eat. we stumbled across a really cool, cooky little place called casa hood, and had their lunch special, which was amazing. banos has a reputation for being gringo land, and this restaurant certainly fit that description. the vibe was more like one yoúd find in a hippy town somewhere back in the states- but we´re ok with being on what some of the more snobby travelers refer to as the ´gringo trail´ since there´s a lot ... read more

i know we said we wouldn´t post again until sunday, but we´ll have plenty to talk about then, so we figured we´d go ahead and update a bit more about our time in quito this past day. we haven´t even left the hostel.. we got back close to dark (which is about 6pm at the equator) so we just settled in and went to dinner. last night was ecuadorian night, so they made ecuadorian food (which, i must admit, we´ve had plent of) but it was really nice. but we were shocked when a local band came up, that apparently comes every weds, to play traditional andean music. they were in jeans (as opposed to the full costume garb), so it wasn´t cheesy or anything.. and they were having just as much fun playing as we ... read more

So we are wrapping up our final weekend in port, which is bittersweet. We really love being down here but at the same time, it is a small town of only 5,000 so there´s only so much you can do on the weekends. Saturday was a really good time though. We went to the local beach, Playa Mann, where there was a bartending type competition going on. We watched that for a bit and then rented a kayak and headed out for a bit. We paddled around the harbor and started to go around the coast some- but quickly ended up in open ocean which was pretty rough so we turned around and headed back. After wards we went to our staple place for lunch.. a restaurant called La Playa where you can get a chicken ... read more

so after a fun four days, we had to go back up to the reserve. something is going around the whole island because many of the volunteers, myself (mindy) included, and a lot of the town have been really sick this week. ryan seems to be immune to whatever it is. i think it was probably an infected shipment of food from the mainland, since so many people have similar symptoms on the island. so ryan has been doing a lot of work, i´ve been doing a lot of laying around in the hammock reading books and trying to keep food down. for some reason though, my symptoms cleared up for friday´s hike and i was actually able to participate. we walked to the top of the island to see the windmills, which power about half ... read more

hi everyone, sorry for our long delay in response. we got back from our tour last sunday night... walked into an internet cafe.. and as luck would have it.. the power on the island went out right as we were sitting down. by the time the power came back on (10 minutes later) all the cafes had closed up shop for the night.. so we had to head back up to the station sans internet. were planning to post some updates today, but just wanted to get that note up incase the power goes out again.... read more