Archive for September, 2007
09-30-2007
Some photos
Hope these photos work! Click the thumbnail picture to see a bigger version.
Posted by Miss Black in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »
09-30-2007
Ecuador
Hello everyone,
Sorry it has taken me a while to get going with this. We´ve been in the rainforest without a lot of electricity for the past week and finding a working computer has proved a bit difficult.
I have really enjoyed the past month here in Ecuador. We began in Quito, the capital. We only spent two days there as it was very dirty and unsafe. We could not leave our hostel after dark and it was horrible. We then took a very bumpy bus up to Otavalo in the Northern Sierra (the mountains). It was a pretty little town with an extremely colourful market and lots of interesting locals selling their wares on the streets. We bought a few things and had to ´haggle´for them. I was (and still am) rubbish at it! The food in the mountains is not great if you don´t eat meat but nearly every street doorway has a local selling street food so we tried a lot of interesting things there.
From there, we travelled to a lovely little wooden village called Mindo which was tucked away in a cloud forest. The scenery was spectacular and everyone was really friendly. We swam in some gorgeous waterfalls, hiked in the hills and attempted to dance Salsa with the locals! After Mindo, we travelled by bus for 12 hours to reach the coastal town of Puerto Lopez. We ended up staying for over a week. We went whale watching to spot Humpback whales, took Spanish lessons (I´m getting a bit better!) and painted some murals in the Hostel in exchange for an afternoon´s fishing and some free accomodation.
We made friends with ´Matt´who then travelled with us to Baños. Baños translates as ´bathroom´and the town is a Spa town complete with various thermal pools heated by the towering volcano Tungurahua. The volcano looms over the town and is extremely active ( we went up to watch it puffing some and ash into the sky - it was a bit scary but a fantastic sight to see). Baños is a pretty little place with lots to do. We went Canyoning and Abseiling down waterfalls, hired bikes and spent time relaxing in the hot, smelly baths.
We said goodbye to Matt and left for Tena where we stayed at the Jatun Sacha volunteer project in the heart of the rainforest. We worked very hard and saw loads of Tarantulas and other scary insects. I accidently picked up a Viper because I thought it was a stick! The rainforest is very beautiful and we saw loads of amazing flowers and plants. We even ate fruit from the Cacao plant and tried to dry out the seeds to make chocolate. It didn´t taste like normal chocolate (which I´m missing along with cheese and cereal!).
After leaving the Jatun Sacha station, we travelled to Coca (where I am now)which is the final Amazonian city this far east. We are surrounded by water and the rainforest. From here, we are about to embark on a week long journey down the Rio Napo, across the border and into Peru. It´s all by boat and some of the boats will be full of animals and cargo so we´ve bought our hammocks and are preparing ourselves to ´rough it´for a while. It´s a very cheap way of getting into Peru and a route ´less travelled´so it´s meant to be a wee bit scary but very exciting. I´ll not be able to use a computer for a while but when we´re safely in Peru, I´ll be in touch again.
Ecuador is a lovely little country and I´ll be sad to say goodbye. The changes in scenery are incredible and every place has so much character and vibrancy. The food has been interesting and neither of us have been sick! The scariest part has been the bus journeys. The drivers are reckless and it feels like you´re on a rollercoaster, not a bus. Once, our bus got stopped by the police and we all had to get off. The police here are not helpful and friendly like the ones in Britain so the whole experience was not very enjoyable. Another time, our bags nearly fell out of the compartment and we had to get the driver to stop and fix the lock so that they would be safe.
Hope everyone is happy at school and working very hard ( I miss you all).
Look forward to hearing from you,
lots of love, Miss Black xxx
Posted by Miss Black in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
09-22-2007
Hello to all the children and staff at Haddington Infant School
As you know Miss Black is in South America and will be writing on this blog very soon. In the meantime here is a map.
You can see a bigger map if you click on the link below
Posted by Ellie in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »