DanielGoon

So due to poor wifi the past few days and my broken laptop, I'm writing this on my phone at the airport in Quito while we wait 8 hours for our flight. I'll be uploading this blog and the final one tomorrow when I get home. This past Sunday we departed from our time in Banos which I covered last time, and traveled to Misahualli, a very rural jungle area, and stayed at a super cool hotel with rustic cabins in the dead middle of the jungle. Monday morning we went to a boat tour place, and they took us out on the Napo river in some skinny canoe shaped boats with motors. They took us to a wildlife rescue facility called Amazoonico, where we were able to see animals such as parrots, anacondas, caimans, and ... read more

Hello again, today's topics to cover: chocolate, rock climbing, hiking, and a little bit more about dogs ? I am writing this on Thursday (1/23), sadly our last full day with our host families. Yesterday some people gave their image presentations, and after we visited a chocolate company called Pacari. It was founded in Quito in 2002, and is the first chocolate company in the world to receive a biodynamic certification from Demeter International. They are all about utilizing the Cacao plants from farmers to create quality products and they have a line of products that allows the farmers to know where their crops are going. They are all about environmentally friendly everything too which is awesome. We got to sit down and do a super fancy chocolate tasting with several flavors, all of which were ... read more

Volcanoes, Alpacas, Ice cream. What do all these things have in common? Not too much honestly. But now that I have your attention let me tell you about the past few days and some stories about those three things. First, a quick recap of Wednesday and Thursday. These two days consisted of another Spanish class, a presentation on indigenous people of Ecuador, an awesome cooking class, and lots of delicious ice cream from the mall near our school. The ice cream here is so much richer and tastier than anything I’ve had in the states. Friday morning we left for the city Otavalo, about 2 hours from Quito. We made several stops including a delicious biscuit and cheese shop, and a hike to Peguche waterfall. We got a lot of great photos from the hike and ... read more

And just like that, we’re back with blog number 2. A lot has happened since I wrote my first blog and I’m excited to share that with you. This post will cover this past Saturday and Sunday and because they were so eventful I’ll try to keep it to the big events and key insights as much as possible (along with lots of pictures of course). While we were expecting to go to Mass this past Sunday, we actually ended up going to a catholic-based service on Saturday afternoon with our mama and abuela. Many of the practices were representative of a catholic service, such as the way communion was prepared and administered by the priest and his assistants. It was much shorter than a typical mass service, however, and it was SO flashy and decorative ... read more