Blogs from Tena, East, Ecuador, South America - page 11

Living in Watchimak South America » Ecuador » Tena By tonyandkerensaFebruary 15th 2007Tony 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 met three other volunteers: Jessica, Ken, and Susanne and learned a... read more

Ecuador’s Rainforests Through friends in Quito I had the opportunity to be an Expedition Leader for a British group of Gap year students, taking them into the Jungle where I would spend a week and half helping with conservation with all expenses covered not to mention pay as well. So naturally I jumped at the opportunity. The Tropical Rainforests of Ecuador are unique among the World as they contain so much variety of plants and animal species, not in great amounts but in great diversity. There are 300 different species of trees found in one hectare alone compared to North America which has 500 species in its entirety also there are around 25 000 species of plants present in the country, which represents approximately 10% of all plants in the world of these plants two ... read more

The 1st day of activity for the Kumuka Foomar gang. Foomar is the name of our truck, name is based on some story about being near cows and stepping in manure... Never sure if/when our driver is have one over us. The river was a class 4, we were originally scheduled for a class 3, but due to heavy rains, the road and two bridges were washed away closing access to the other river. The 1st part of the day was completed by going for a swim in a near by waterhole. Our leader Tim, led us up to a water fall, up a ladder to a ledge, overlooking the waterhole. Standing before us was an 9m drop below. Oh, we jump, shit, courage was gathered, and shaking legs were ignored as the majority of the ... read more

So, we have now been away for 100 days. My how time flies. Having said that, we've done tonnes already and let's hope this continues for the next 265 days. On this milestone day, Gemma set a milestone of her own... On our 100th day, Gemma visited her 40th country. What a well-travelled young lady. And that number will certainly be growing over the rest of our trip. Ed is marooned on 30, having never been abroad during his schooldays as he was forced to work down a mine during the holidays. It is worth pointing out that this blog entry is the second attempt. It was mostly written when something inexplicable happened and the text disappeared for ever. Add to this the fact that the internet cafe we are in has speakers for each PC ... read more

The Golden Rule for today was to remember that the correct term is 'indigenous community' rather than 'natives'. We started by crossing the river in a dugout canoe. It had room for 6 and takes a month or more to build. We were thinking how annoying it would be to make a mistake late on; a single careless swing of an axe 4 weeks in could be disastrous given that it's constructed from just a single tree. Ed knows this feeling - when the guide left us for 15 minutes on yesterday's jungle walk, he also left his machete. Ed took the opportunity to build himself a spear, but just as he was putting the finishing touches to the sharp tip, the finely crafted tip was accidentally sliced off. Anyway, we had an hour and ... read more