After being in Ecuador for 2 months, it was really nice to have a taste of Canada, which came in the form of Eric, a good friend from school, coming to visit me! I was able to take a bit of time off work and so we spent some days seeing parts of Quito I hadn’t seen yet, going to the Amazon Jungle (see next entry), and then checking out Mindo (see next next entry!). Eric’s trip unfortunately started out a little badly. After battling snow storms to get from London to Pearson airport, he flew to New York and [View Full Entry]

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My experience of Quito has been so incredibly diverse thus far. As you can see, more often than not I am out of the city for the weekend, travelling to the far and thrilling corners of Ecuador, but when I do stay in Quito, I always find something interesting to do and new things to see. A bit of history to whet your appetite: the city of Quito began to be established in the 1500’s, not long after Europeans began to immigrate to the Americas. It was an indigenous town before the Spanish arrived, but the colonists turned it into [View Full Entry]

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Well! Pierre (guy from Peterborough) decided that in his last few weeks in Ecuador that he’d like to climb a volcano. Not one to say no to an adventure, I willingly said sure, let’s do it! So, we asked around for the best volcano to climb, and settled on Imbabura, a mountain just outside of Otavalo, just about 2 hours from Quito. After a usual Friday night of debauchery, we headed, rather late, to Otavalo. The bus picked up its regular assortment of roadside people along the way, of course making it seem like hours to get out of Quito [View Full Entry]

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It’s CARNIVAL!! In my head carnival was going to be a huge thing with dances and parades and enough craziness for all. Well, this notion mostly came from the pictures I’ve seen of Carnival in Rió de Janeiro and as I discovered, this is the place where Carnival DOES go wild. Since we had neither the money nor the time to go to Rió, we opted instead to follow seemingly all other Ecuadorians and go to the BEACH!! About 8 hours on the bus and 45 minutes in the back of a truck got us to Canoa, a beautiful little [View Full Entry]

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Here’s to writing things on time!! Salud!! Our fine trip to Río Bamba took place on the 10th and 11th of February. With the anticipation of carnival looming, we decided to take a trip to this town to get out of Quito for a bit, you know sometimes, it’s just necessary. Due to work schedules and the need to plan the trip at the last minute (yes, it was planned Friday night at around 11:30) we left on Saturday morning at about 6:00 ready for adventure. This soon wore off as we all fell asleep on the bus. Río Bamba [View Full Entry]

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Lesson of the day from Ecuador: always watch your back near the time of Carnival, which is two weeks away, as people and especially kids LOVE to throw water on you!! I am currently quite wet from walking outside my apartment; luckily it’s a sunny day (about 28 degrees, goes down to around 10 at night) so it felt really nice!! I couldn’t be happier with my job, the people who are working there, and my apartment (!), which is fantastic. Overview: I started teaching at the Quito Master Centre of the Wall Street Institute (yes, it sounds incredibly American-centric and [View Full Entry]

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Hemmed in by luxuriant green peaks, blessed with steaming thermal baths and adorned by a beautiful waterfall, Baños is one of Ecuador’s most enticing and popular tourist destinations (Lonely Planet Ecuador). I traveled to Baños for the weekend with two of my coworkers, Jehanne a teacher from New Brunswick who arrived in August, and Joanna, one of the centre’s administrators from Ecuador. We had a great time!!! Baños is one of those places that you feel you can do anything, related to adventure sports that is, and it hasn’t become TOO touristy yet, so the l [View Full Entry]

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So, where does the name Ecuador come from? You guessed it; the equator passes right through it!! So, what would be a trip to Ecuador be if you didn’t have the fun of straddling the hemispheric line and hop back and forth from the North to the South??!! Because I got fogged out from climbing Quito’s big mountain, I decided it would be a good idea to visit the Mitad Del Mundo (the Middle of the World), the spot of Ecuador’s namesake and just north of Quito. In a word, touristy; but it was really fun to jump in and be [View Full Entry]

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Hola mi amigos!! Well, I have finally arrived in Quito! I have I been talking about this for far too long it seems and after a lot of hurdles to jump through, I’m getting settled into my job and enjoying the sights and sounds of Ecuador. The trip started off rather in a bad way, however. I was just putting the finishing touches on my packing last Wednesday night, when I decided it would be a good idea to check my email. As it turned out there was an email from the guy who I’ve been in contact here in Ecuador [View Full Entry]

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