In early May, Kerensa´s friend Christa visited us for a month. We wanted to share some of our favorite parts of Ecuador with her and to use her visit as an opportunity to visit other parts of Ecuador we (or Tony) hadn´t seen yet. We first spent a few days in Quito and saw some of the sights there, then went south to Riobamba to take the famous train ride down the "Nariz del Diablo," or Nose of the Devil - a steep part of the Andes. One of the highlights of the trip is riding on the top of [View Full Entry]

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Besides research and working in Watchimak, there are opportunities for fun outings. The biggest two are the Watchimak Waterfall (Cascada) and the Giant Tree (Arbol Gigante). Initially, Kerensa and I did a combination of both destinations, beginning with the Giant Tree and then going to the Waterfall. We left at 9:00am and got back after 2:00 with lots of hard rainforest hiking in between. We felt spent at the end of the day, and our guides, Jacobo, Nelson, & Bolivar, decided that the two would always be seperate day trips. The day of my second trip, Kerensa was a little [View Full Entry]

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On Saturdays, there is a market in Cruz Chicta. We usually make the hour-long walk to the beach around 7am and catch a water-taxi downriver about 15 minutes. Our community members were excited to point out how much bigger Cruz Chicta was - they have a church and a colegio (high-school). We usually buy fresh fruits and vegetables as well as other foods (ketchup, salt, sugar, etc.) and sip on a warm Pepsi. In the market, you can also buy clothes, electronics and batteries, home and kitchen supplies and other misc. items. Later, we can stop off in one of [View Full Entry]

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Living in Watchimak South America » Ecuador » Tena By tonyandkerensa February 15th 2007 Tony Allison We first heard of Watchimak when we were in Quito and thought it might be a good community for Kerensa´s research. We decided to visit the community in a Community Volunteer capacity for a month to learn more before making any decisions. We left Tena on a three hour bus ride to Comuna Los Rios where we caught a river taxi a half-hour down river where we met members of the community at the beach. They helped us carry our things on the hour-long hike into Watchimak. We [View Full Entry]

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We went to Tena to make contact with the representative from Watchimak. After we heard from him, we had to wait for a few days until we could get to the community. While we were waiting, we took a day to return to Santa Urku where Kerensa had done all of her classes the past two summers. I got to see everything I had heard all the stories about. We had a chance to visit the people Kerensa had met and become friends with and help one family whose child was in the hospital with a burn. It was a [View Full Entry]

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To get our Ecuadorian Visas that will allow us to stay in Ecuador for more than six months, you have to leave the country and file the paperwork in a consulate located in another country. (They prefer that we do this paperwork in the states before we come to Ecuador - The closest US consulate was in San Francisco.) The closest consulate to Quito is in Ipiales, in Southern Colombia. We had heard mixed remarks about the border crossing into Colombia, so were a little nervous. We rode a bus from Quito to Tulcan (in the very north of Ecuador) [View Full Entry]

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Every Thursday there is a public market in the town of Saquisili. We went to the market with our Spanish teacher Silvana and one other student from Germany. The market is famous for being slightly cheaper than the Otavalanian market to the North of Quito. The Otavalanian market is more artisan based. The Saquisili market has more household wares. They both have animal markets. [View Full Entry]

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After three days in Canoa and remembering our very long journey from Quito, we decided that a night bus from Bahia de Caracas would be nicer than the day bus we took to St. Vincente. Plus we heard that this town was an "ecocity" and we wanted to see what it was all about. We took a bus from Canoa to St. Vincente in the morning. We met a nice gentleman who helped us to catch the water taxi across the bay to Bahia. We spent the day walking around the peninsula and watching the amazing waves hitting the shore. We [View Full Entry]

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We (Janel, Tony and Kerensa) went to Canoa for three days. We wanted a relaxing trip on the beach. Tony wanted to try surfing and he did. We thought the trip to Canoa would take 6 hours, but in actuality via St. Vincente it took over 10 hours. It was an uncomfortable bus and it was hot. Once we got to St. Vincente we took another 20 minute bus to Canoa where we were dropped off in what seemed the middle of no where. A very nice person could recognize we had no idea where to go and helped us find [View Full Entry]

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We visited Banos for a second time in January while Tony's sister, Janel, was visiting. We were there for two days. While there we explored the town, did a Chiva (an open-bus) Tour of several waterfalls, and went horseback riding. The first day in Banos was rainy, so we did a Chiva tour of the "Ruta de las Cascadas," the Road of Waterfalls - that included five large waterfalls. The most exciting parts of the tour were taking the cable car across a wide gorge directly over one of the waterfalls, and hiking in to the see the dramatic "Pailon del [View Full Entry]

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