Three days in Cloud Forest

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I can almost hear the choruses of ‘I told you so’ about my hopes of lasting four weeks in the forest with no electricity or hot water - surviving days consisting only of hard labour.

After a rapidly ascending bus ride up into the Cloud Forest all I knew of my destination was that I should meet a man called Klever who would drive me to my home for the next four weeks. I would be spending my weekdays mornings working in the forest before walking on the mountain trail an hour to the closest village where I would be helping the local artisans group with jewellery making.

Unfortunately Klever turned out to be have a particular aversion to communication. He didn’t say hello when I arrived, just grabbed my bag and threw it in the back of the truck. The first snippet of conversation I got from him was when we turned up at what I thought was our destination - but it turned out there was another steep, rocky mountain trail to traverse before I could finally unload myself of my 22kg pack. Being 8pm it was pitch black and he told me to turn my torch on - the one that was safely secured at the very bottom of my backpack ;( Instead I staggered and stumbled the kilometre or so down the muddy trail with only my iPod to guide the way.

The farm itself was just beautiful, shrouded in clouds which would part for a few hours at a time to reveal a breathtaking vista.

What I had hoped would be a full community of volunteers, sharing tales and commiserating at the end of a hard day’s work, however, was actually one other girl, who, to her credit, had lasted more than 2 weeks when I arrived.

What really made up my mind to leave was the work, which, I had been told, would be in the forest, working for the community. In reality, the ‘forest’ was the farm I was staying on, and the ‘community’ was the rather wealthy farm owner who I was paying for the privelege of doing his work 😞

What was worse though was that the ‘volunteering’ largely consisted of hacking away at native rainforest with a machete to make more pasture space for the owner’s increasing posse of cows. The same owner who had driven me to the bus station in his Peugeot… hmmm

On top of this, I got the impression that there was little communication between the owner and the locals and that the community gained nothing from the volunteers. In most cases weren’t even told when ´volunteers´would be turning up on their doorsteps.

Many people come to Ecuador to volunteer and there are lots of organisations that make plenty of money out of them by charging four of five times the local cost of living to join. I had originally thought that by choosing a very low cost project with direct contact with the project coordinators I was immune to this. Seems not. Next time, I would definitely wing it from the beginning as there are reams of worthy projects crying out for help and, once you are here, it is much easier to guage whether they are sound or not.

Anyways, not wanting to add deforestation to my list of environment sins, I hotfooted it back to Quito (with my new friend Sarah who was happy for an out to her volunteering experience.) After a slightly extended bus ride due to a landslide on the road in front of us we arrived in heaven - or the Quitian approximation - the Secret Garden hostel. Run by an Australian man and his Ecuadorian wife, it’s an amazing place to regroup, meet other travellers and plan the next part of the journey.

As a result of this experience, I have decided to curtail my time in Quito and instead head off to volunteer at the Secret Garden sister establishment in the mountains. The hostels stands at about 3500 metres at the foot of Cotapaxi Volcano.

I will head off in a few days to spend two weeks teaching English at the local school - again without electricity but thankfully with hot water 😊

I’ll keep you posted.

Becx

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