Blogs from Tena, East, Ecuador, South America - page 2

Hola Amigos! This Blog will document a 15-day adventure I took recently with my good friends, La Familia Simonello (no, that's not salmonella!) Julia, Michael (hubby) & Michael (son, age 12) were repeat visitors to the coastal hotel I manage here in Ecuador, but they hadn't seen much of the rest of the country. I planted a seed when they came last November, setting forth ideas for an itinerary which would include Andes & Amazon adventures. They took the bait and flew into Quito on July 9th. My friends Annie & Orlando who started up "The Laughter Club" convinced me to join them in donning a clown wig to meet Julia & family at the airport! Since Julia & her two Michaels are all great photographers, I didn't bother shooting any photos of my own. The ... read more

Ein großer Affee begrüßte uns nach einigen Stunden Busfahren. Wir folgten einer Auffahrt zu einem bunten Garten aus Bananenpflanzen, Lulosträuchern, Papa-Chinas und vielen anderen nützlichen Pflanzungen. Es begrüßte uns ein Haus das mit seinen Hängematten im Verandabereich gleich sehr einladent aussah. Die obere Etage bestand aus den getrennten Schlafbereichen für Mädchen und Männer und einem Terrassen-ähnlichen Bau für Yoga. Wir waren auf der Yoga-Farm bei Tena (Ecuador) gelandet und würden nun 7 Tage hier zu Hause sein. Das bald servierte Abendbrot, ohne Frage vegetarisch, war der Start für Sophie in eine Rauch-, Fleisch- und Ei- freie Woche, natürlich auch für mich ;). Am ersten Morgen ließ sich dann gegen 5:30 Uhr von der Yoga-Terrasse das Mantra der Krishna-Bewegung entnehmen. Um 6:30 Uhr wurden die sterblichen Überreste von uns wieder in Einklang gebracht und der Start in ... read more

Our original plan for today was to take a canoe trip to the zoo before an afternoon and evening of training with the health promoters. However, even though we are in the rainforest, it has not rained since we’ve been here. In fact, it hasn’t rained in a week and the locals are getting worried because the river is so low. Instead of canoeing, we went spelunking. It was awesome. I’ve been to Mammoth Cave before.. that is nothing. We were completely underwater at point during this adventure. It was crazy. At one point, our guide rubbed mud all over our faces because it was said to help with wrinkles and zits. While we were down one of the tributaries, we all turned out headlamps off while our guide told us stories. It was so dark ... read more

Today is our first day of clinic in Tena. Tena is much much much more rural than Quito. This trip is cool because we get to see an urban setting and a rural one. Every day in Tena we will have breakfast at 7am and dinner at 7pm. Needless to say, by 7pm I am ready for bed. We pack so much into one day but I like it that way. Three of the ten students are sick.. hoping I make it at least until we get home! Today was really great. We took two pick-up trucks out into the middle of the jungle.. okay we were already in the middle of the jungle.. so further into the jungle on gravel roads for about an hour. It was like off-roading; pretty fun actually. We got to ... read more

Day 23 : The jungles of Tena Day 5: Another similar start to our day, except this morning I was up even a little later. After a breakfast of eggs, little sausages, and pancakes with syrup, we loaded up the boats and headed upstream for our day with the community. Because of the low water situation, we had to get out of our boats twice and walk across land or beach so the boats could be dragged upstream. Today, our walk thru the jungle wasn't that far or rough. Probably because we were going to the community center that gets a lot of traffic. The community center is basically a large open field, small playground, and a white cement structure that can be used for meetings or whatever. Some kids were already there, so we started ... read more