So after being kidnapped by a native American, managing to escape and then getting caught in an earthquake, I have finally arrived! Only joking….but I have now arrived in Puyo!

After leaving Heathrow at some ungodly time I caught a flight to Madrid, the flight was literally almost empty with perhaps about 40 people on one of those 6 seater across planes! I then had a few hours to wait in Madrid airport before catching the connecting flight onto Quito. During the wait I sat and chatted to a man from Quito who was studying electrical engineering at Birmingham University, he spoke about general life in Ecuador and when explaining where I was staying in the Amazon he suggested that i took half a clove of garlic each morning like tablet to prevent any mosquito bites...i have to say I wasn't too sure, but he reassured me that it wouldn't taste horrible at all! All 11 hours of the second flight weren't too bad at all, I slept for most of it and spent the rest of the journey watching a man with his dog in a cage, that he took this onto the flight as his hand luggage....I didn't even know that was allowed! I arrived at Quito about 5pm their time and by the time I had gone through customs and sorted out the faff with the correct taxi company I was well on the way to the first hotel in down town Quito at 7 pm ish. Quito airport is located a long way out of the city centre and therefore it took just over 45 minutes to get to the hotel, where I met Dan and Sophie- two other volunteers working on the same project. On the journey to the hotel we passed through may suburbs of Quito littered with transport police, got stopped by few street sellers just walking in the road selling fresh fruit and vegetables and finally arrived at Hotel Adino just as it was getting dark (it gets dark so early here). I have to say I was knackered, even though I had slept almost the whole way on the flight over! I spent an hour or so getting to know Dan and Sophie and then after deciding what time to meet in the morning for breakfast and our taxi to the bus stationwe went to bed ready for our early morning start.

We started the next day having breakfast (a burnt croissant) and went back to our rooms to finishing packing before the taxi driver arrived. The journey to the bus station made us realise how spread out Quito actually is. It really didn't feel like a capital city as all the suburbs are interspersed with outcrops of lush vegetation. The lady who collected us (Pamela) explained all sorts of things about living about Quito on the journey, most Ecuadorians' who live in the city catch the bus everywhere as it only costs $0.25, everyone who drives is only allowed out on the roads at rush hour on certain days according to their number plate to reduce the amount of rush hour traffic, and failure to comply with this results in a $80 fine, and that the average monthly Ecuadorian wage is $300. We had almost arrived at the bus station when the police approached Pamela's car, baffled she opened her window and started speaking very quickly in Spanish to the police officer, she then produced two documents which later turned out to be her driving license and the vehicle registration documents. After the police officer was satisfied with Pamela's explanation she drove off and explained to us that she had been stopped because the police officer couldn't see my seatbelt, and that in Ecuador there is so much corruption with the police that they will stop anyone even without reason and issue them with a fine, luckily this time we got off without a fine. Pamela bought us our bus tickets which were $5 for a 5 hour bus ride and we were soon on our way to Puyo. At first the bus stopped every two seconds, as there are no bus stops. Sometimes the bus stopped to let more people on, but more frequently it stopped to allow street sellers to bring their produce onto the bus to sell to the passengers. This produce ranged from bags of crisps, to pots of freshly prepared mango and wraps. The bus journey seemed to take forever, but the landscape quickly changed from urban shanty towns to more sparsely populated settlements, and ultimately to tree lined valleys with the occasional wooden hut. We arrived at Puyo (where we are to being staying for the next 4 weeks) at about 4 pm where the project co-coordinator Laura picked us up from the bus station and took us to the volunteer accommodation, located right on the outskirts of Puyo. The volunteer accommodation is located above the mayor of the towns house and contains 4 bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen, communal area and finally on the third floor a balcony overlooking the rainforest BEAUTIFUL!

After sorting out our rooms and unpacking a little bit we had an orientation meeting where Laura explained a bit about the organization (Arajuno Road Project) and that whilst we are staying we could participate in a variety of other activities other than teaching including a community development program, running community classes and finally conservation management. Following our orientation meeting Laura's husband Rodgrico (who is Ecuadorian) cooked us a traditional dinner of prawns, rice and plantain DELICIOUS and we went to bed as we had to leave for school at 6.30 the following morning.