On Friday night my friend Becky came up from Loja, about 5 or 6 hours south of Cuenca, so that we could celebrate Thanksgiving together. I'd tried to get some other volunteers into Cuenca to have a little feast at my house/hostel, but Becky was the only one who wanted or was able to come in. It worked...

Every day as I walk to the university I pass by the Rio Tomebamba on Avenida 12 de abril. It's a nice walk and really pretty, except for the fact that it's been raining hard on and off every day this month. When I first got to Cuenca at the end of September, the river was placid and rock strewn....

Enough has happened in the last week to write several blogs, but since there isn't enough time and probably not enough interest to read through it all, this is just going to be a recap of what's been keeping me occupied in Quito these last few days. Continuing with the practice teaching, lectures,...

A walk through of a typical day in Quito:

You hear the roosters crowing or roostering, whatever it is that roosters do. It's still dark out, and you look over at your clock and see that it's 1 a.m. That doesn't even make sense. What in the hell is the rooster doing up so early? Quito is probably the...

After long days of travel and getting adjusted in Quito, we met our host families on Saturday night. Along with two other volunteers, Bryce and Craig, I was picked up by Miguel, Marcia, and their son David. It's a big family with two sons, a daughter and son-in-law who have a 1 year old baby,...

Volunteer Abroad in Ecuador: Volunteering Opportunities

Volunteering Abroad in Ecuador: Ecuador, a small South America country, is bordered to the north by Colombia, to the east and south by Peru, and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. The country is divided into four distinct regions; the Amazon, the Highlands,...

This is Trip Taco: Part II from the reproduction of Facebook notes that I've been posting since May 23, 2007.  It's an impromptu but thoughtful account of what I like to call "Trip Taco." I'll post it in three parts correlating with the three general areas that the hand of Trip Taco has touched:...

¨Poor Mans´ Galapagos¨

Puerto Lopez is the jumping off point for most travelers visiting Ecuador´s Machalilla National Park. The town itself is mostly falling down with pigs and donkeys roaming the streets and the ever-present smell of the cities succesful fishing industry. In fact, the only thing...

My brief 5-day course in travel writing is complete and I feel I will
be walking away with some really helpful advice and knowledge about the
profession. I will have to wait a while and think some more about
whether this is really a job I could see myself having, for it’s not
the kind of thing...

Mindo is a tiny little town in the cloud forest in the mountains just a couple hours outside of Quito. It is a destination for ecotourism - attracting international birdwatchers, as it is home to rare and endemic species, and is a popular weekend retreat to city dwelling Ecuadorians and backpacker...

The last few months have seen the Arajuno Road Project continue to take steady steps and the focus has been on the creation of the mobile library for the schools on the Arajuno Road. For there to be a library we need books and the first consignment is winging its way to the children as I type and you...

At 10:30pm, I boarded a bus from Quito headed for the coast. This was definitely a high-class bus, as we were even served a little bag of crackers and a plastic cup of orange soda. Suffocating in the humidity of the night drive through the jungle, we made it to the dusty, intersection town of Portoviejo...

This past weekend, I made my way to a town a few hours south of la finca (the plantation) called Baños, known for thermal baths and a taffy they make by hand, working it out by pounding and twisting it against wooden hooks in the doorways of their stores (unlike the machines that do it back in the states...

available purchase on an ecuadorian bus: pears, cherries, mangoes, grapes, strawberries, sugarcane, phone-cards, roasted corn, fruit salad, soda, juice, ice cream, water, potato chips, chifles (fried plantains), fried corn, fried beans, potato-egg sandwiches, bunches of green onions, live chickens...

so, i've been teaching here in Ecuador at the Sierra Flor School (which is located on a rose plantation) for about two weeks now. my schedule is a busy ritual. i'm up by 6am, out the door by 6:30 and at school by 7am. all the kids then take showers and get dressed in their uniforms (t-shirts and...

it feels like i'm experiencing something real here... the llamas meandering around and the buses strapped with two feet of gear on the roof, and the dirt roads, and the hats and the wraps, and the bananas that are sold still attached to the tree branch; the villagers dressed in their indegenous clothing...