Last week at Alto Choco

What a fun last week at Alto Choco! There were a total of 8 of us - Ramiro, Rebecca, Elena, Santos came back and me and then we added Mimi from Sweden, Neil from England and Perretz from Israel. We planted the garden with quinoa, corn and onions and we planted over 100 trees. Rebeca and I hiked up to one of the peaks. The trail traveled through the secondary forest and up to the primary forest. It was quite alive and abundant with vegetation. We unfortunately did not see many animals but this might be because we had a stray dog with us who was our house dog for a day until he wandered off.

Elena had her 27th birthday so we had a fiesta with the cake that you see down below (made out of crushed up cookies and condensed milk) and we went to some hot pools about 30 minutes south of us in Apuelo. They had about 6 or 7 different swimming pools and smaller pools that were of varying temperatures. One of the pools had a slide to go down and splash into hot water. We went about sunset and the power got cut off while we were there so we got to spend most of our time looking up at the stars and listening to the river. It was awesome!

I can not remember if I wrote this or not but I will explain it either way. There are regular power outages throughout Ecuador. It's written in the paper and on the news when the outages will be. Some of the businesses and restaurants have generators but it is just typical for everything to just stop until the power comes back on. In some places this also effects the water. My family in Otavalo has no running water during the outages. Most of the energy down here comes from hydroelectric and to help conserve the water, they have these rolling outages throughout the country - even in Quito and Guayanquil. It also has not been raining very much. I love that it is evenly distributed and that textile plants and major businesses are effected as well. The people are so accepting of this. I have nor heard any complaints or grumbles. It is pretty amazing.

During Elena's celebration we of course drank some vodka! We learned that in Russia when they start drinking at a party or a gathering, everyone participates in 3 toasts: the first one for the gathering, the second one to parents and the third to love. Then after those toasts anyone can make other toasts.

We also hiked to a beautiful waterfall one morning at sunrise. The trail was overgrown so we had to hike up the river, across the river and scramble up the rocks but it really was worth it because they were beautiful!

I was sad to say goodbye to my friends today and not return to Alto Choco with them. Ramiro asked me to come back and help out as a crew leader. As a crew leader, I would not have to pay to volunteer but I also would not get paid. A pretty good deal - free room and board with meals in an incredible place. So I might return after my travels south to Chile, Peru and Bolivia. I also might go to Argentina and visit my friend Leslie before she leaves in March. But what is awesome is that Krysi and Dennis are coming tomorrow :-) I am super excited. They will be here for almost 3 weeks and we are going to travel Ecuador together. YEAHHHHH! I really love this country and can't wait to see more of it.