gonflable123

We're back in Ecuador now after spending a few days at the beach and a really nice week in the highlands of Peru. After a grueling 30 hours of bus travel (cramped, sweaty, yelling Peruvians, and a broken bridge), we arrived in Huaraz in the Cordillera Blanca ('White Mountain Range', Andes) at around 3am. From Huaraz, we did a day hike 'almost' to Laguna Churup ... the altitude (around 14,000 feet) really got to us (me, Emily) and we ended up just walking around the mountainside, which had some spectacular and satisfying views anyway. Next we went to Caraz, a smaller and more pleasant town about 2 hours north of Huaraz. We checked into a nice hostal (Hostal Chavin) where we were pleasantly surprised with an extremely friendly and helpful dueño (owner). He helped us with ... read more

hmm. thought we´d put a blip up. we packed our bags up after a month and some in the galapagos and are headed back to quito on monday. last update i think emily mentioned we found a cheap boat to hop on to tour the islands. we had intended to just spend a long weekend on santa cruz (another island with a larger town and bigger harbor) to look for ways to get around the islands, but a few hours after we got off the ferry, we happened apon a tour that was leaving that afternoon. they had two places left, and we are two people, and we got the trip at pretty much 50%. we took our small weekend day packs and hopped on ´rumba´. it was a proud little ship. it held ten guests ... read more

We just finished our second week of work at the reserve...the time is flying by! This week included a lot of machete work, clearing some land for the organic garden. Other than that, we did some seed planting, watering, and a trip to the Interpretation Center where we read all about the history of the Galápagos. During the week we had the chance to go on a authentic Galapaganian pig hunt! We ventured into the dense island woods at night with a flashlight or two, a sling shot, a bucket of rocks, a few guys speaking spanish, a quite german girl, a friendly little black dog (the supposed pig hunter) and a machete. Three hours later, after an extended battle with pricker bushes, we walked out of the woods with a live chicken and an orange. ... read more

thought i´d put a blurb in my blog. yesterday i climbed mt cotopaxi. 19,300 some foot active volcano. one of the highest in the world. it was a very radical experience. probably one of the most physicaly intense experiences of my life. a friend from la hesperia (matt) and i decided to go for it. most people acclimate near the base of the mountain for a few days, but we heard you can do it with out and we didn´t have much time... so we just went. we got rental gear and a guide and headed out. went to the base of the mountain on friday afternoon and hiked with a big bag of gear up to the base camp. we both felt the alitutude a bit then, but nothin wild, just tired. we did ... read more

We´re about to leave Quito to go back to the reserve for our last week there. We came to Quito with a few of the other volunteers to go to the Ecuador vs. Uruguay fútbol game. If Ecuador won, they would have qualified for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, but sadly they lost! It was a very close game, with some unfortuneate events (getting scored on). We were really anticipating Ecuador winning for obvious reasons, but also that the city would have been crazy the entire night! It would have been quite the experience, but instead it was just a regular night in Quito. Now I´m just going to have one of the Ecuador chants stuck in my head for about a week.....¡Vamos!...¡Ecuatorianos!....¡esta tarde!...¡tenemos que ganar! Not much more interesting to say. Back to ... read more