Friday, June 17

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7:00 am. ¨Portoviejo!¨ Woke up to blinding lights as our bus from Quito pulled into the bus stop after a seven-hour ride. Here, Stephen, Julia, Royal, Sandra, Paige, and I began our three day trip to the coast. As we all groggily emerged from the bus, we greeted Olga, our guide for the day, and the driver of our own van, who would take us around town. We piled into the vehicle and headed for breakfast. After uselessly asking us what we wanted to eat, Olga ordered something for us all and we began to wait for our food, blankly staring around; still asleep. After what seemed like an hour, we all received breakfast: a plate-sized egg pancake and fried plantains with orange juice and instant coffee.

Stuffed, we walked out into the drizzle and humidity back into the van and headed for the small village of Santa Ana to meet Kendall, a fellow volunteer who will be living there for two months and teaching English at one of the schools.

Honestly, I thought we would all die as we literally put-putted our way down the highway at about 15 mph, cars passing us on all sides, the exhaust exploding several times (what we thought at first were gun shots), and gripping our seats, thanks to the lack of seatbelts. Fertile, green mountains stretched all around us, vegetation growing wildly in every direction. Directly beside the road were lopsided homes that looked like brightly painted tree houses, held up several feet off the ground by wooden sticks. Dozens of fruit trees and sugar cane grew adjacent next to each house, while in front of some hung pigs´ heads, in plain view of every car that drove by. It was a lot to take in right after breakfast.

After about a half hour, we arrived at Kendall´s new home. A world away from Quito. Santa Ana is a very small, rural town, where everyone knows everyone and lives are led pretty humbly. We were guided to his room that contained only a small table, a mosquito-netted bed and a bathroom that only runs cold water. There we changed and attempted to freshen up - the long bus ride and humidity clearly having their affects on us, already - and we walked through the streets to the school where Kendall works. The school (grades 1-4ish) consists of about five rooms, where two or three grades are sometimes taught in the same room.

From there, we went to see some other schools that had just been fixed up by other volunteers and paid a visit to another host family. Little piglets and chickens ran around the house while we took a muddy walk to a nearby river/stream. Trees of all sorts encircled us, some containing cocoa beans, others bananas, oranges, and a variety of other fruits.

Lunch on the main street of Santa Ana consisted of banana chips, rice, fish, shrimp, oysters, and Inca Cola (my first!). Dessert was enjoyed at a nearby panaderia, where we could taste a variety of local treats, each costing only 10¢ - 30¢.

We then headed to a horse farm, that has competed in and won multiple horse shows and competitions. Everyone got the chance to ride a horse and attempt to practice the rapid prance-like steps that the horses have been trained to perfect.

Olga and our driver then took us for a ride through the nearby hills and stopped at one of the ¨balnearios¨ (what they call spas). From what we saw of the said spa, was merely 20 hammocks hanging around a cluster of trees on the opposite side of a huge river. Regardless, we found a bridge that led us to the other side, and took the opportunity to swing and relax for a bit. Soon after, we had to return to Kendall´s home to meet his host family and then hurry to catch the bus to take us to the coast town of Puerto López.

Well....not yet, we decided it would be cheaper to just pay our driver (who had luckily fixed the van by this point) to Jipijapa (pronounced Hippyhapa) and from there scrambled to catch the bus that was already on its way out of the bus station to Puerto López.

We arrived about an hour later to the coast town, where Royal and I headed to the host family that lived there, and the others headed to a nearby hostel. We were greeted by Elsa, our host mother for the weekend, and Sara, another volunteer living there for three months. After finally getting a chance to shower, we headed to the beach to take part in the dancing and festivities that would kick off what was the start of one of the biggest weekends in Puerto López; for the Festival of the Whales.

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Photos

Me and Louie
My new best friend from Santa Ana. He cried when we waved good-bye and left merely a few hours after meeting him.