Alto Choco Bolsque Reserva

Internet is a touchy thing down here, patience! After spending my lunch money 3 times to try and finish the last post, I gave up. Finally here are some pictures from the spectacular Otavalo market. Streets were flooded with people and tents with vendors were everywhere. You could buy anything imaginable from fine hand crafts, pots and pans, rubber boots, chickens (dead or alive), and any pirated DVD you wanted. The size packages that people would carry to and from the market with all there stuff was simply amazing. These people were like ants carrying packages 3 times the size of their bodies, they are a strong people.


Alto Choco Reserve in the cloud forrest located 2 hours west of Otavalo. We volunteered here for 2 weeks. It was an amazing place to spend a couple weeks with really dense green forrests with some amazing trees and flowers and a loud river that created soothing background noise. We had no electricity so read and hungout at night by candle light. But much to our surprise, there were hot showers with an amazing view.

We did a variety of work; surprisingly enough I think I cut down more green plants with my machete than I planted. A huge part of the job for reforestation is clearing out all the fast growing more weedy plants (like bamboo, it grows at and incredible rate and takes over) so that the canopy trees have a chance to grow. Once those are established the undergrowth will take care of itself. We also worked in the graden doing simple tilling and making a rock path. We even partook in the 7:00 AM cow milking to get the milk for breakfast (well only once).

Oh Siesta!! What a great concept. We would stop work at 12 for a big old lunch and take a 2 hour siesta. It was really nice to have some chill time in the afternoon. Work was very physical and demanding but we were not overworked avaraging about 5 hours a day. So I decided to take up a part time job. Beer delivery. I biked down to the local town about 5 Km away picked up 2 cases of 22oz. bottles and returned to the resereve. I would sell them for 1 dollar and drink away all my profits. Ahh free Beer!

We really enjoyed our stay and volunteering but on to a 4 day bike journey to the town of Mindo! Still have not heard about when you guys and gals are coming to visit and travel with us. Come on, the weather is warm and the scenery amazing.

-Steven