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Published: February 17th 2008
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Qutio
Houses clinging to the mountains that surround Quito Well, we are back in Canoa relaxing on the beach, enjoying wonderful breakfasts and fruit drinks. This was by far the most chaotic week we have had in Ecuador. After losing our camera and going on a search for a replacement that landed us back in Quito, we found a great replacement camera after an exhausting six-hour search through two gigantic malls in Quito. We spent most of the day looking at Kodak and Sony cameras, all the same models at every store. After a couple of hours, we found an Olympus camera for a good price in the basement of one of the malls. We then decided to head to another mall to price out other cameras but ended up coming back to the original mall to buy the Olympus. When we went to buy it and use a credit card, we were told that they add 8% to the price if you buy with a credit card! Frustrated, we went and found a bank machine and stealthily took out the cash required for the camera and the upcoming week. Walking around a place that is notorious for theft with a whole wack of cash is definitely something I would
Lalo Loor
Our cabin at Lalo Loor in the jungle not want to do again. We never felt in danger of getting robbed but the stress of having that cash on you in case you do was enough to wear us down. After getting the camera in our hands, making sure it worked and buying it, we felt much better. We relaxed and had supper at the Magic Bean, which is a touristy, but tasty restaraunt in the heart of the Mariscal district of Quito. After supper, the stressful day and little sleep the night before from the night bus, we went to sleep early to catch the bus back to the coast the next day.
Going from sea level to 10,000 feet and then back again in 36 hours is tough on the body. Combine that with a punishing bus ride through ´highways´that resemble muddy backroads, we were both pretty drained. The further we got from Quito, the warmer it got. It was about 15 C when we left Quito and it slowly warmed up the 30 when we hit Pedernales on the coast. It was raining when we got into Pedernales at 6:00 and getting dark fast. Bus companies tried to get us to go in every
Canoa
Fishing boats hauled up on the beach at Canoa direction to take their buses but we quickly hopped in a motorcycle taxi who rushed us to a waiting taxi further into town. We spent the next 10 minutes negotiating the price of our half-hour ride into Tabuga. Soon after, we got into the taxi and headed for Tabuga. It was raining hard and was already dark. We waited for the Tabuga sign before getting the driver to let us out on the side of the road. He let us out and we set off into Tabuga. The power was out and it was muddy. We could hear people talking in the dark houses but really couldn´t see them. Gigatic frogs and other creatures jumped from the wet road into the grass startling us as we wandered through the dark streets of Tabuga. We came across a colection of houses with people trying to light candles. We asked where Lalo Loor was and we got confused answers. The only thing they knew of was a Peace Corps volunteer named Andrea. One of the people got a young boy to take us to the house.
So, back onto the highway for a 20 minute walk through the wet, humid and
Jenn and I in Canoa
Jenn and I walking along the beach back from the cliffs near Canoa dark night. We came to the house and saw the other ´gringos´visiting. With them was the volunteer coordinatorfor Lalo Loor, Maximo. We were relieved to have found the people we need to find. We were drained already though and had a bit of supper and some wonderful chocolate cake that was made for a friend´s birthday. After supper, we made the last hike to the reserve which is off into primary jungle in the hills near Tabuga. We were wearing ponchos to keep our stuff dry and it was about 25C and the humidity was stifling. We slipped and slided through the mud with our full packs along the trail. After 15-20 minutes we came to the cabin, which is a huge Quichua-style indiginous house with 5 or 6 rooms and a large kitchen/eating area. We quickly unloaded our packs under our mosquito nets. We were tired, wet and a bit shocked after that experience and soon, we were asleep.
We awoke to the roar of the howler monkeys above our house. That combned with the sound of the chuchurros, was deafening. We were up early that morning. Valentines day is a national holiday in Ecuador and Jenn spent it catching up on sleep. The place looks much different in the day. The forest canopy overhead had two or three layers in which the monkeys jump tree to tree. Lizards, anteaters and frogs are all over the forest floor. It is a humid place that is beautiful and green. We spent most of Thursday relaxing and settling into our new home for three weeks. It will be nice to have a much lighter pack after we leave here. Friday was our first day of work. We spent the morning putting up a barb-wire fence to keep the landowners cattle off of the reserve. It is worthwhile work and since noone here speaks English, our spanish is improving quickly. Maximo, the volunteer coordinator speaks clear and is patient with our broken spanish. We were able to communicate enough to get 500 metres of fence put up in the morning. Working in this humidity is tough though. Jenn and I were soaked with sweat after the morning. We ended up getting the afternoon off and heading to Canoa early to soak up the sun at the beach. We jumped on the bus which was soon packed with over 80 people all heading to San Vincente, south of Canoa.
We both love Canoa. We stayed at a wonderful hostel where we had an ocean-view private hammocked balcony and a comfortabel bed for a great price. We spent the whole weekend relaxing, swimming and walking along the beach. We have decided that our weekends at Lalo Loor are best spent in Canoa. We will be coming back here for the next two weeks.
Well, that is all I have to write for now and I will include a few more pictures from our new camera.
Cheers for now,
Lee
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