Last weekend in Baños and Saturday in Quito

Today I am staying in Quito. Tomorrow I will probably travel again, I am going with Giovanni and his friends to visit a typical "hacienda" (sort of old farm/ land from the times of indigenous exploitation), but today it's - for once- quiet time.
I woke up late, left 4 kgs of clothes in a nearby laundry place (basically ALL my clothes!) and then went to finally visit the historical centre of the city. I only walked around, didn't visit any museums or churches yet, i just wanted to get a feel of it and take it easy. I got lost a couple of times, and in some lonely streets I didn't feel completely safe (especially since i seemed to be the only blonde around!!), but it was just a feeling cause absolutely nothing happened. I like the "old town" a lot, it reminds me of Spain a bit, however I must say that it looked nicer at night. What I really love is the view you get from anywhere in Quito: mountains and volcanos so close you could virtually touch them, you really feel right in the middle of the Andes here. As for the rest, the city looks like any southern spanish or italian city, i.e. modern parts mixed with rough parts, but i don't find it chaotic at all (nothing compared to Rome or Naples, believe me!)...of course you see a lot of rural people, mostly reinventing themselves as street vendors, but that is also somehow their culture...i think the rural people here live exactly like rural people used to live at my grandmother's times, and in a way they remind me a little of my countryside childhood.
People here invent all sort of jobs, you have to give a "tip" to everyone, from the guy who supposely "looks after" your car when you park it in the street, to the guy who packs your purchase in a supermarket (who asked him????) :) and they continously cook and sell food on the streets and on the buses, which I find really interesting and sort of handy sometimes, when you don't feel like cooking and you' d rather eat a typical dish (although contaminated with cars pollution!)

Prices in Ecuador are somehow ridicolous for someone who lived in London her last 5 years: i can have a full breakfast with jam, eggs, coffee and fresh juice for 2 dollars, a dinner for 6-8 dollars, a mojito cocktail for little more than a dollar. I am spending a lot for Ecuadorian standards due to all my travels and the accommodation ($10 a night), but it's been a month and haven't reached the price of a week in Ibiza yet :)

Last weekend my volunteer friends Kayla & Anna, Giovanni and I went to Baños, a town 3.5 hrs south of Quito, set close to one of the most active volcanos in the world. Baños is really famous for nature seekers and travellers, as there is plenty on offer from sports activities to bars and discos at night. We ended up staying from Friday to Monday cause we really loved it. On Saturday we did an organised day trip to the Amazon forest (which is not very far) and then finished up with a visit to a local cave. The Amazon forest is absolutely amazing, despite worrying a bit at first about mosquitos and other insects, I ended up loving it and will definitely return to visit it more in the inside. This tour was in fact a bit "touristic", although for the price and the lovelyness of our guide it was a perfect first "bite" of this incredible world.
On Saturday night we danced till 2 am and the following morning we hired some bikes and went off to get see some waterfalls and bathe in a river, and on the way back we stopped at the thermal baths of the town...there are basically 2 pools with extremely (naturally) hot mineral water and all you do is enter and "cook" like a chicken in the soup, then get out and scream while you shower in freezing cold water, all this with the beautiful night view of the sourrounding mountains and volcano...all for 2 dollars! surely they could develop the pools into something more fancy, but I must say that even like this, it works perfectly to relax your tired muscles at the end of an intense day!!
I didn't have time to upload the videos, but here you can see the pictures from this trip http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=343524&id=872710289&l=7e61f795f1 , soon I will be back with more, with some videos and with more details about the nursery and how your fundraising money was spent!!

Have a great week everyone!

Ecuador bits & pieces

Hi friends,
I am still in Ecuador and still loving it to bits. Of course there are plus and minuses like everywhere, but I am really happy to have chosen this little paradise for my trip.
In the last two weeks we have experienced daily power shortages of up to 7 hours, with all the consequences you can imagine: no light (=eating in the candlelight and walking down the street with the light of the mobile!), no power to use hairdryers, internet or even charge your phone, quite annoying to be honest but what can you do, we are experiencing one of the dryest times of the last 40 years, so no water for the hydroelectric power centrals, hence no power. It's supposed to be winter since October in Andean Ecuador, which means rainy season, but so far it has rained like 3 times since I have been here and it's so hot and sunny it feels like August... global warming is a huge thing here as well, as you can see.

Today I am writing from the computer of a hostel in central Quito...this morning, together with other 2 volunteers (Anna from France and Kayla from USA) we have left the family we were living with in the small village of Conocoto and moved to the city. We were a bit fed up with being away from Quito as to go out at night we always had to take a taxi to Quito, which can be dangerous as well. I am so happy to be here and on top of it we pay less! This area of the town is called Mariscal and it's full of bars, discos and restaurants, quite a few tourists around here but also lots of Ecuador people hang out here so it's a lot of fun.

The other night we went salsa dancing, but it was quite frustrating for me since every-single-body dances really well, they are born with the rhythm...while I am not!!! So I have decided to take some lessons, maybe next month.

One thing I really hate of Ecuador is the amount of street dogs, you find them everywhere while there are virtually no cats in this country...definitely a minus, given how much i looooove cats :)

The work at the nursery is almost at its end, this will be my last week and I already feel sad, they are all adorable even when they scream or cry and you wish you could throw them out of the window :) but I love them all and I will definitely miss them and visit them again. Now I will go to a children shop to buy lots of toys and other stuff for them with the fundraising money you guys gave me...we will make a party on Wednesday and can't wait to see them screaming with excitment at the sight of all their new toys and tools.

I will definitely post some pictures soon, and will also tell you all about my last weekend in the Spa town of Baños (=Baths) and the trip to the Amazon forest :)
Have a great week!!

2 weeks in Ecuador

Last weekend was a long weekend, as Monday 2nd November, Dead's Day, is a national holiday in Ecuador, and the 3rd is Independence Day for the city of Cuenca, which for some reason is celebrated in the whole country. As I was feeling better, I decided to take advantage of these days off and went for a trip to the most famous indigenous town in Ecuador, called Otavalo. In this little town, indigenous people still wear the traditional clothes and make most of their living by selling their beautiful handicrafts at the local daily market. However, they are also quite integrated with modern life and even though they cannot be considered rich, they definitely live in decorous conditions.
We had good fun in Otavalo as we joined a friend from Couchsurfing, Julio, and his friends, all of them locals of Otavalo. We first had a trip to the nearby lake of Cuicocha, which is a beautiful lake in the crater of a volcano, and then stopped by at a local town festival at the nearby village of Cotacachi, where I could taste some local food including roast guinea pig!! Julio & friends were shocked as foreigners usually find the idea of eating a little sweet guinea pig quite disgusting, but enter Lorena!!! I loved it, tasted better than chicken!!
Ecuador local food mainly consists of plain rice with some sort of meat & potato, and lots of vegetable soups and maize based food and drinks, nothing particularly fancy but I really love it!! They also drink a huge amount of natural juices, and they are all absolutely delicious. Luckily it looks like my stomach is now adapting, so I am back to tasting everything what's on display ;)
We took the trip in Julio's parents' car, a SUV with an open back (sort of a small truck), which is the most common means of transport in Ecuador. Locals travel in groups in these "camionetas" and when they don't fit anymore inside (of course if 5 are allowed at least 7 passengers will travel in the seats!! kids never wearing any belts...), they travel (like us) sitting or standing in the open luggage space on the back - like we did!!
On the 2nd Nov, Deads' Day, we went to the indigenous cemetery to check out the local tradition of indigenous families to sit on the relatives' tombstones and spend the whole day there eating and having fun, very interesting.
You can see the pictures on http://picasaweb.google.com/lorenaminig/Ecuador1

I spent the rest of the week working at the nursery, I now have a fellow volunteer and house mate, a very cool French girl called Anna and we have a lot of fun together with the kids and the mothers. You can see the pictures of a typical day at the nursery on http://picasaweb.google.com/lorenaminig/Ecuador2

This weekend I went with Giovi to a town 2,5hrs away from Quito, called Mindo, right in the middle of the tropical cloud forest. We had an amazing time walking in the forest (vegetation is amazing, and there is plenty of "colibri" hummerbirds & butterflies), and trying an activity called Canopy, where you slide down a cord over the forest, really cool!! Again, more pictures on http://picasaweb.google.com/lorenaminig/Ecuador3

Videos can be viewed on http://www.youtube.com/user/loriecuador

I am loving the time in Ecuador, it's been 2 weeks but it feels a much longer time, and I really enjoy every bit of this amazing trip! Hope to be back with more pictures and videos soon...
Always thinking of you, take care
xxx

Spoke too soon...

Of course I spoke too soon about my perfect Ecuadorian stomach...almost as soon as I arrived home from the internet cafe after writing the previous post, the toilet adventure started...I don´t think I have felt this bad in my entire life. I won't tell the details, just one piece of advice: when they tell you not to drink water, juices and milk if you are not sure they have been purified...BELIEVE THEM!
I honestly thought I was going to disappear down the drain as well, it was horrible, on top of it I think I had high fever and the start of a cold...now, it could be swine flu, but I honestly think it's just me being careless about water hygiene...i feel much better now, just a very bad cold, anyways I didn´t go to nursery yesterday and today and I am not too sure if I will go tomorrow, or maybe just half day, just to stay on the safe side.

Other news, a new girl arrived to the house, she is from Sweden and is 18 years old!! We are very different, not only for the age but also for the expectations we have from this trip, I am looking to be as much integrated to the country and its people, whereas she only wants to meet other travellers and visit the touristic hotspots. I try to help her out suggesting what things she could do but she doesn't seem that interested, she cannot speak any Spanish at all and maybe that's why, however she is taking lessons and she wants to stop them as she doesn't think she needs them so much...I tell her, how on earth is she going to communicate, most Ecuadorian people from lower backgrounds do not speak much English, but I don't think she is interested in communicating with locals at all...oh well, everyone looks for a different experience.

Yesterday I went to a local shopping centre, I was quite impressed, I think it's the nicest shopping mall I have ever seen, and they told me it's not one of the nicest...it was a completely different world in there, I could have really been anywhere in Europe! Modernization and globalisation...anyway, it was nice to feel a little bit like home for a while. Still, I bought my trainers in a local shop for 15 dollars, and they work perfectly :-)

PS, some thoughts about my packing list:
- I should have brought my trainers from home, it does not rain that much here and even though the hiking shoes are comfortable, trainers are always a must. Why did you advise me against it??? :)
- Thanks god for all the medicines I brought, very handy..however there are pharmacies everywhere here
- Those lightweight superthin superabsorbent towels for travellers are AMAZING!
- Glad I brought two types of coats (one light raincoat and a waterproof ski jacket) , weather can vary a lot down here..

Lorena in Ecuador!

Finally I got hold of a computer and can let you know that I am in ECUADOR!!!!
So, here are the latest news from the land of the equator!


The flight from Madrid was awesome, as I got upgraded to Business Class! I slept, ate and watched movies most of the time and I really cannot complain!!! Thanks Iberia :)
Landing in Quito was nice as the airport is right in the middle of the city and you can see the whole city and the surrounding mountains from above. At the airport I (finally) met my friend Giovanni who picked me up with his car and took me to my hostel, which was in the "gringo" (=word for american, but apparently used for all foreigners, especially if blond and with a backpack!!) area of the town, where you could easily think that you are in a seaside town in Europe (why do travellers always want to feel like home and hang around with each other?!! the hostel was lovely but really do not see the point of this...)

Anyways, we had a lovely saturday night walking around the historical centre of Quito and getting to know the city. The historical centre is stunning especially at night, reminds me a little of Spain, but none of the places I have seen in Spain can compare to its beauty. The rest of Quito feels exactly like...Naples!!! Crazy driving, old buildings, lots of noise, just a chaotic city like many others, nothing special but nothing that bad either, I think I was expecting it to be far worse! The only thing that I really cannot stand is the pollution, cars still use the old type of gasoline and you can totally smell it, it's really horrible and makes me feel intoxicated!
Another really sad aspect of the town are the street people, especially street kids. Some of them are as little as 3 or 4 and they are already selling stuff on the street, there was one who wanted to sell us chewing gum and I could not even look at him or I would start crying and give him all I had.
On Sunday we went to the "Mitad del Mundo", Middle of the World,. which is where the equator line is supposed to run, well, it's not the right one but it´s the touristic one :) I had a lovely fruit juice of a fruit called "Tomate de arbol" or something like this, delicious! Fruit here is amazing and most of it I have never heard of.

In the afternoon Giovi took me to the town of Conocoto where I now live, some 30-45 min outside Quito. The people from the foundation showed me to my home (I have a small flat within a family home, I am alone now but I think more volunteers will come) and the way to the nursery.
Guys, you have no idea, but I am now 100% Ecuadorian!! Every morning I have to walk 15min uphill to the town centre, take a bus with local people and travel some 20-30min throught the smallest villages to the remote village of Yanahuayco, which is where the nursery is. Taking a bus is the most authentic experience: there is no bus stop, you just walk down the street and when you see your bus coming you raise your hand, they stop there where you are; but the whole process is quite stressful especially in the morning as you need to be quite quick, the bus leaves as soon as you set foot on the first step, sometimes even before that! The door is always open and there is a guy who comes and collects the fare, 30c of a dollar, really nothing. When you want to get down you get close to the door, you say "gracias" (thanks) and they stop right there!!! I am really having fun with this!!

The nursery is a very intense experience. Some 30something kids between 6 months and 4 years old attend every day this little house on a hill which was built by the government. These kids are really poor, they have no parents or just one parent and the saddest stories. They are all quite native looking, with dark skin and those beautiful dark eyes and hair, I find them all absolutely gorgeous. They are nothing like the kids back home, so spoilt and dependent. At 2 years old they are already independent as a 4 year old back home; if they have an older brother or sister, these always take care of them with a great sense of attachment and responsibility, and generally speaking they are just much more grown up.
The nursery is run by local mothers who are about my age and already have 2 to 3 kids, they were all quite surprise to see that I am not married with kids!!! They are quite basic and they are not very organised with their day, most of the times the kids play all together with no guidance, apart from an hour or so when they do some activities like painting. However, they hardly have paper to paint on...I still haven´t given my charity money, I will probably try to buy what they need first, and leave the rest to the mothers at the end of the experience.
The day is really hard with so many kids of such different ages, they rarely split them in groups, I find it impossible to do anything with them as they are quite wild as well and don´t like to sit down for long times. For now I just observe and do as they do. I feel quite useless I must admit, because I feel I will not be able to change much for these kids and this nursery, and I honestly feel that what they need most at this stage is money. The toilets are in a horrible state, they don´t wash their teeth cause they haven´t received the dental kits from the government yet, and they play with very very old toys. Their faces are all burnt by the sun and the wind and not even the mothers in the nursery think it´s important to put any cream on...today I just felt like buying some bottles of sunscreen or at least nivea for these kids, but then I think, who am I to tell them how to raise their kids?
So, I am thinking a lot in these days. Comparing to the fussy way we raise our kids back home. In some ways, I still prefer the ecuadorian way.

Healthwise, I have not felt the altitude (maybe just a few hours out of breath on Sunday at midday, but could have been the sun) and I have not felt the jetlag, I sleep perfectly well, I eat whatever they eat (at home and in the nursery) and no signs of stomach upset yet. They are shocked in the nursery as they say I am the only volunteer who ever ate their food and drank their water!!! Enter Lorena!!! :) Plus, I love their food!!
The only thing is that I am exhausted from all this intensity and from the new weather (looks like a hot spring in italy: a bit chilly in the morning and evening, hot sun during the day, hasn´t rained yet) so I got a cold sore, a bit of cough and maybe fever today, nothing serious anyway.


Ok, time to go home now, it´s really dark outside and not really wise for the only blonde in town to get back home at night :)
So far so good: I love Ecuador and I love the people and I love this experience! Monday and Tuesday I will not work as there is some national festivity, so I think I´ll go camping and hiking somewhere outside Quito, will keep you updated and hopefully post some pictures!!
Big kisses to all of you, leave your comments if you like, I´d love to hear from you!!

Ps, I cannot check my mails regularly but I can check facebook from my mobile

Getting started

On Saturday 24th October 2009 I will board a plane at Madrid Barajas airport and, if all goes according to plan, at 16:20 of the same day (but 11 hours after) I will be landing in Quito, Ecuador. I will hopefully be met by someone from the foundation which is co-ordinating my volunteer project, and they will take me to the family that will give me a home for the first 4 weeks.
And after a couple of days acclimatizing to the 2850m altitude and the 6 hours difference, I will finally meet those that I already call "my children", the kids of the nursery where I will be volunteering.
This is not just a travel journal. This is the live story of my lifetime dream. One of many. One of the biggest. One that puts together 3 of the 4 pillars that support my whole existence: travelling, nature (mountains!!) and people. The 4th one will be there in my heart during the whole time: and it's my amazing family and friends.
All this would have never happened...I would have never happened - not like this - if I hadn't had you in my life!

Anyway, there are less than two months to go and there is still so much to do!
Contracts, standing orders, packing…5 years of London life in a few boxes. Five years is a long time in Lorena’s world. Between the age of 19 and 24 I didn’t even spend more than 9 months in the same place! But in every location I have lived, I have made my nest and leaving has always been a struggle.
So I am a little surprised now to see that I do not feel even a little worried about leaving the place I have been calling Home for the past 5 years. I am not even a little scared, and it almost scares me that I am not scared!
The thing is…I am already there. In Ecuador I mean. I can see myself getting down the stairs of that plane, feeling the lack of oxygen and my head spinning. I can see myself eating local food, drinking Pilsener, learning slang words, hugging new friends.
There is one thing that scares me, though: and it’s thinking of the day I will have to leave to come back!