Beach Weekend!

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Hello from the small beach town of Canoa! What? Why aren´t we at La Hesperia? Right after we got there we were told it was a long weekend (every other Friday you don´t work) and most of the volunteers were headed to the beach! So naturally we went too.

The bus ride from Quito to La Hesperia was exactly the type of bus ride my mother told me not to go on! Oops. I think they´re all like that Mom. I think it could have been worse, but we were definitely careening up and down windy roads on the edge of several mountains in the Andes passing people in the opposite lane. Any wrong move could have sent us down a massive cliff. But, hey, this way of travelling is apparently working for them. Despite the crazy ride, we really got to see how beautiful Ecuador is. As we moved further away from Quito we got into some farm land, where the cows stand and graze teetering on the edges of cliffs too, and then just beautiful forest-covered mountains. When we get a chance we´ll post some pictures.

The hike up to La Hesperia was difficult and we (well, I) stopped a few times along the way. Luckily, we were able to leave our bags at the bottom and someone drove them up later. Along the way we ran into the other volunteers who were working on some coffee trees. One of the volunteers who has been at La Hesperia for 4 months walked the rest of the way up with us and showed us around the place. It´s really nice and pretty much what we expected. They have about 60 cows, a vegetable garden, medicinal garden, pigs, a nursery, and more that we haven´t seen yet. We ate a delicious lunch and decided to get right to work. We spent the afternoon using machetes (ooo!) to clear weeds around the vegetable gardens. Dinner was also good and Zack and I shared our first nightly duty of washing the dishes and feeding extras to the pigs. The other volunteers are mainly from the U.S. and Canada, but there is one from the UK and one from Australia. They are all really nice. One girl is from Shelburne, VT! Again, small world. We are quite interested in a stray puppy that´s shown up in the past week. His name is Señor Misterio and we are becoming fast friends.

Yesterday morning we hopped on a bus to Santo Domingo, then another to Perdernales, and then another to Canoa. Unfortunately the trip took about 8 hours when we thought it would take 5. Also, the bus to Perdernales broke down like 4 times and finally we just got off and waited for some sort of ride. We ended up cramming onto another bus that came along. The bus system here is great...you can always depend on a bus to come and they will pick you up and drop you off anywhere you want along the route. For the 8 hours it took us to get here it only cost about $8 per person.

Canoa is a small beach town, which is sort of touristy, but not really. Everyone is really relaxed and nobody pesters you to buy stuff. Hopefully we´ll have a chance to come back later in our journey. Our hostel is owned by a lady from Alaska and the beds cost $5-$7 per night. Although it´s cloudy out the water is warm and we are happy! Zack is actually surfing right now. I´m about to go back and see how much luck he´s having. We haven´t used the internet at La Hesperia yet, so we´re not sure how good or reliable it is, but we´ll keep in touch as often as possible!!! ¡Adiós amigos!

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Comments

[Joe]

Thanks for your update
Zack and Emily, Thanks for your news and sharing the adventure with us. So far so wonderful..Glad you had a chance to travel a bit and see the country some more. When do you start hugging those trees and doing the real work you signed on to do. I imagine today you were out in that cloud forest enjoying that mild mountain air. Stay away from Brazil and Honduras as the people there are doing some anti government demonstrations against political injustice. I got that picture Zack sent on the cell phone, beautiful...We are fine..The dogs are well, Molly is having her 20th birthday this Friday, we are going up to BU for a short visit. keep on blogging, Dad.