Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Hi all!
I might not be able to email for a while after this so thought I´d take the chance while I have it.
So, Saturday night I´m waiting for the next person who will be sharing my room, and in the middle of the night two girls turn up ' and it turns out that they are both doing volunteer work in Tena, (which is where I´m going) and one of them will be staying in the same accommodation as me!!! ´They only met on the plane too, which is even more spooky. We all get on like a house on fire, so I´m really looking forward to my month in Tena with them!
So we spent Sunday together, doing a bit of shopping in the market and visiting the old part of town (again!) and in the evening we went out in Plaza Foch, which has some really cool bars and restaurants, and we made ourselves feel sick with not only cheese fondue but chocolate fondue too. I´ll never learn. We then had a mojito or two at a really busy bar called the Coffee Tree, I recommend it if you ever go to Quito!!
Monday, we were picked up by i-to-i (the volunteer organisation) and taken to a homestay here in Quito. I thought I was going to the jungle on Monday, but no, we don´t go until tomorrow. So I got all psyched up for nothing. Just shows how unorganised I am... I think I´m taking on the Ecuadorian attitude of not really knowing what´s going on and just not worrying about it and going with the flow... it´s working out quite well!! So, at the homestay, met another three girls, one Kiwi, one Irish, one Brit. Two of them are also going to Tena! We´ve been looking at what we can do in Tena, and there are two discotecas, one of which we believe is a Rollerdisco!! I can´t rollerskate to save my life but I´ll have a good laugh trying! Or the others will have a good laugh while I´m trying ha ha!! Tena looks quite small, they say it´s a city but I´m envisioning it as more of a village. We get the bus there tomorrow at 8am, it takes 6 hours!! At least there´ll be a few of us taking it together, so we can have a good ol´chinwag on the way.
In the meantime however it´s back to our homestay, which it has to be said is quite an experience. It´s a penthouse, and quite big with about 5 bedrooms, but it´s like a window into the 50s/70s - there is stuff everywhere, photos, ornaments, knick knacks - it looks like a jumble sale. It´s all really flowery and chintzy and burnt orange and forest green... and smells a bit musty... but the lady we´re staying with is so nice, she´s well into her 60s if not 70s, and she is truly lovely and very welcoming. In a separate part lives her brother in law, Arnold (yes, the English way) and he is a little bit on the creepy side. The others who have been there a few nights more than me said that he hugs them and gives them kisses on the cheek, and worst of all, SNIFFS THEIR HAIR!!!! So everytime he´s near I leg it. This morning at breakfast he was just hanging around, and I was eating pineapple, and he told me it was pineapple. I didn´t really know what to say... he kept pouring me out water and telling me what things were which was very nice of him and I´m sure he had the best intentions, but it was quite offputting having someone watch you eat breakfast... we had a good laugh about it though!!! He´s perfectly harmless... anyway, moving on...
So that´s about it really - oh today we went to Mitad del Mundo, which is the equator line. It was quite interesting in an odd way - we looked at water going clockwise in the southern hemisphere and anticlockwise in the northern hemisphere and straight down the plug on the equator line! This was all within a meter of the equator line! I also balanced an egg on the equator line and got a certificate for it!!!
This afternoon we had a briefing for our projects - I´m quite excited about mine, I´m the only volunteer who´ll be working there, and they told me no one speaks English so it´s a good thing I speak Spanish!! Hopefully I´ll improve as I´ll have to speak it so much!! I´ll be doing conservation work and looking after animals in Parque Amazonicos, an island in the river next to Tena. Apparently they´ve created a mini Amazon on the island so that people of Ecuador and tourists can appreciate the jungle more. I´ll eventually be giving guided tours there - in English AND Spanish!! I hope I improve quickly!!!
Best be off, our homestay lady (who has a maid!!) is expecting us for dinner.
Hope you´re all well, thanks to those of you who have emailed me back, I loved reading them and when I have more time I will try and reply individually! Please keep emailing me with news and general chat!
Love and miss you all.
Caroline xxxxxxxxxxxx
- comments