A few more words on volunteering..it was interesting on many fronts. The reserve definitely does good work; the focus in on conservation and reforestation of the canopy to preserve important trees as well as habitat for the endangered Andean speckled bear. In addition to the reserve land they have an organic garden, a tree nursery, and a worm garden (we spent a day working with the worms), and they spend some time higher up in the forest looking for bear signs and collecting poop that gets sent to the states for analysis.
There is one guy, Milton, who lives near the reserve (we made the 20 min walk down to his house for lunch daily) and pretty much runs the show. He works with the volunteers and does all the work with the help of one hired guy. His wife cooks for the volunteers. By Ecuadorian standards, the volunteers pay a lot of money to be able to live and work there and get three meals a day. The thing is, it doesn't seem like much of the money at all goes to Milton and his family or the worker or to putting money back into projects at the reserve, most seems to go to the owner who lives in Quito. Seems this happens with a lot of the reserves and volunteer places down here.
Good work still happens due to Milton's committment, but it’s unfortunate that the community and the reserve don't benefit more. Another interesting thing is all the water from the showers, dishes, ect go straight into the river. It’s this way everywhere, but was still shocking to find it at a reserve! There is no connection at all for folks here that this might be a bad thing in the long run, its been this way and they haven't seen any bad effects. Some of the local artesians do make natural soap but this is marketed only for tourists and too expensive for the locals to buy. So much potential, but pretty much impossible to change in two weeks. There are also the all to common issues with mining wanting to come into this pristine area, some people want it for the jobs. There is a ton of poverty in the area, but everyone has a garden and a water source, no one is hungry. The mining would provide short term income but destroy some of the natural resources that allow them to sustain themselves despite the poverty.... there are some in the community that are trying to provide education about this.
It was a good experience, we learned a ton and spent our time surrounded by mountain lushness; got to play some volleyball (they take it very seriously here, it is s common as soccer in the parks and in the town square on market days is played usually for money there, big crowds come and watch), milk a cow, feed worms bamboo sawdust, hike to waterfalls, and ate a lot of popcorn (its a side dish with dinner here).
Granny gear
We had a short day when we left on the bikes as there are natural thermal pools a couple of hours outside of the reserve and we had to stop! Its such a luxury to sit in hot water and feel really clean for the first time on the trip, looking up a green mountainsides! Cush! We camped for free at a hospijade and the owner drew us a map of how to get where we wanted to go as our map was wrong. We were on dirt roads in pretty remote areas for the next three days, we did manage to get a little lost once but otherwise we made it!
Biking. Here. Is. Hard. There really aren't flat sections, or even rolling sections. You either go straight up, or straight down. We spent literally hours each day in granny gear pulling our 60 pound bikes up the dirt roads, and going down is actually tough as well as the bikes are hard to stop if they get to much speed! I don't have shocks and I'm much whimpier than Steven on the downhills anyways, he usually cruises and its fun to watch his Bob trailer catch air on the rocks as he flys down. As he is often in front of me I get to see the locals react to him and the trailer, everyone thinks it is much cooler than my panniers!
Though physically really tough it was great to be out in the cloud forest and in the countryside, crossing big rivers on little bridges, passing people working in their fields and occasionally navigating through a heard of cows. (for some reason they always make me nervous) We fall asleep soon after dark and get up with the sun, camp and cook on our stove, and look for bakeries whenever we pass a town.
We eventually made it to Mindo, a town with a tourist infrastructure as it is famous for its birds. Its a great little mountain town! We stayed in an awesome place that had an open air kitchen right on a river and a second story hammock deck. We were there 4 nights and paid 15 bucks total as Steven built the owner a table and we did some cleaning in exchange for the rent. It was sweet. We had time to recover from the biking, study spanish, hike to some waterfalls, and ride horses. Fantastic.
We had planned on biking south from Mindo but found out that the road on our map really isn't a road this time of year, it’s not passable during the rainy season (it rains every afternoon in that area). We had to come back through Quito to get where we wanted to go so used the busses again as we don't want to bike anywhere near this city. Tomorrow we hop on a bus to go 20k or so out of town and then will get back on the bikes and head down what has been dubbed the Avenue of the Volcanoes as we work our way south through the Andes.
We will be doing some hiking and climbing on the way, our first peak is over 16 thousand feet and we will be doing it partly to get ready for Chimbarazo, the highest peak in Ecuador and one that requires glacial travel and guides. Due to its proximity to the equator, it is the closest in the world to the sun. Kinda cool. We are really hoping to be able to climb it, apparently the glacial quality is affected by ash from some of the surrounding active volcanoes and if its too soft we can't go. We will be down there in three weeks or so.
Hope everyone is doing well, send us updates!
There is one guy, Milton, who lives near the reserve (we made the 20 min walk down to his house for lunch daily) and pretty much runs the show. He works with the volunteers and does all the work with the help of one hired guy. His wife cooks for the volunteers. By Ecuadorian standards, the volunteers pay a lot of money to be able to live and work there and get three meals a day. The thing is, it doesn't seem like much of the money at all goes to Milton and his family or the worker or to putting money back into projects at the reserve, most seems to go to the owner who lives in Quito. Seems this happens with a lot of the reserves and volunteer places down here.
Good work still happens due to Milton's committment, but it’s unfortunate that the community and the reserve don't benefit more. Another interesting thing is all the water from the showers, dishes, ect go straight into the river. It’s this way everywhere, but was still shocking to find it at a reserve! There is no connection at all for folks here that this might be a bad thing in the long run, its been this way and they haven't seen any bad effects. Some of the local artesians do make natural soap but this is marketed only for tourists and too expensive for the locals to buy. So much potential, but pretty much impossible to change in two weeks. There are also the all to common issues with mining wanting to come into this pristine area, some people want it for the jobs. There is a ton of poverty in the area, but everyone has a garden and a water source, no one is hungry. The mining would provide short term income but destroy some of the natural resources that allow them to sustain themselves despite the poverty.... there are some in the community that are trying to provide education about this.
It was a good experience, we learned a ton and spent our time surrounded by mountain lushness; got to play some volleyball (they take it very seriously here, it is s common as soccer in the parks and in the town square on market days is played usually for money there, big crowds come and watch), milk a cow, feed worms bamboo sawdust, hike to waterfalls, and ate a lot of popcorn (its a side dish with dinner here).
Granny gear
We had a short day when we left on the bikes as there are natural thermal pools a couple of hours outside of the reserve and we had to stop! Its such a luxury to sit in hot water and feel really clean for the first time on the trip, looking up a green mountainsides! Cush! We camped for free at a hospijade and the owner drew us a map of how to get where we wanted to go as our map was wrong. We were on dirt roads in pretty remote areas for the next three days, we did manage to get a little lost once but otherwise we made it!
Biking. Here. Is. Hard. There really aren't flat sections, or even rolling sections. You either go straight up, or straight down. We spent literally hours each day in granny gear pulling our 60 pound bikes up the dirt roads, and going down is actually tough as well as the bikes are hard to stop if they get to much speed! I don't have shocks and I'm much whimpier than Steven on the downhills anyways, he usually cruises and its fun to watch his Bob trailer catch air on the rocks as he flys down. As he is often in front of me I get to see the locals react to him and the trailer, everyone thinks it is much cooler than my panniers!
Though physically really tough it was great to be out in the cloud forest and in the countryside, crossing big rivers on little bridges, passing people working in their fields and occasionally navigating through a heard of cows. (for some reason they always make me nervous) We fall asleep soon after dark and get up with the sun, camp and cook on our stove, and look for bakeries whenever we pass a town.
We eventually made it to Mindo, a town with a tourist infrastructure as it is famous for its birds. Its a great little mountain town! We stayed in an awesome place that had an open air kitchen right on a river and a second story hammock deck. We were there 4 nights and paid 15 bucks total as Steven built the owner a table and we did some cleaning in exchange for the rent. It was sweet. We had time to recover from the biking, study spanish, hike to some waterfalls, and ride horses. Fantastic.
We had planned on biking south from Mindo but found out that the road on our map really isn't a road this time of year, it’s not passable during the rainy season (it rains every afternoon in that area). We had to come back through Quito to get where we wanted to go so used the busses again as we don't want to bike anywhere near this city. Tomorrow we hop on a bus to go 20k or so out of town and then will get back on the bikes and head down what has been dubbed the Avenue of the Volcanoes as we work our way south through the Andes.We will be doing some hiking and climbing on the way, our first peak is over 16 thousand feet and we will be doing it partly to get ready for Chimbarazo, the highest peak in Ecuador and one that requires glacial travel and guides. Due to its proximity to the equator, it is the closest in the world to the sun. Kinda cool. We are really hoping to be able to climb it, apparently the glacial quality is affected by ash from some of the surrounding active volcanoes and if its too soft we can't go. We will be down there in three weeks or so.
Hope everyone is doing well, send us updates!
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