Tuesday 19 May 2009

Kindy classes, Volcanic craters and jumping the Equator

Written by Benita Bruce - GapBreak Ecuador 2009



Work has been going really well. Have actually changed schools, to one which takes more than an hour to get to in the morning (but I am getting excellent at hailing Ecuadorian buses!). I´m really enjoying the new school too! I am with another girl Lucy, and we have six half-hour classes each day. We are basically free to do whatever we want, which was not the case in the other school as they had a teacher with them the whole time. We are really enjoying planning the lessons for each class. I love teaching the kids and it feels great when you know they have actually learned something!


It is quite challenging though - we have a kindy and year one class who are extremely hard to teach as they can´t write or read in Spanish, let along English! So I am currently Googling games that may be useful because Lucy and I are quickly running out of ideas!
It´s not all work though. The weekend at Quilotoa was absolutely amazing. We stayed at a town called Chugchilan, which was basically one street and pretty dead for the whole weekend, but being so isolated has it's advantages as well. Pretty good food too. We got to Chugchilan Friday afternoon and just had a bit of a stroll round the hills, then to bed early for a 3.30 start the next morning to catch the bus to Laguna Quilotoa - a volcanic crater lake! But things are always late in Ecuador, and so we sat on the cold ground at 4 in the morning until about 4.30 waiting for the bus, which eventually came - complete with lone sheep tied to the roof. This place is a bit crazy sometimes.

By the time we got to the small town of Quilotoa about 6am we were all ready for a hot chocolate, so headed straight for a lil B&B which made a killing from our need for something warm! We then realised the Laguna was only about 20m away, so we braved the cold and headed up to the lip of the crater to watch the sunrise! Was incredible, one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. After the hundreds of photos were taken and the sun finally began taking the chill out of the air, we started the trek down the side of the crater to the lake at the bottom. Many photos opportunities on the way down so it took us a while but it was definitely worth it!

It was great to get down so early too as we were the only people there, and by the time we came back up there were lots of tourists heading down! Following our sunrise experience, we hired a kayak to go paddling on the lake. It was a pretty amazing feeling, paddling on a volcanic crater! When we were finished lazing around on the sand we rode some horses back up to the top. Very good idea, it was rather steep although I felt sorry for my horse because it looked like it was going to kneel over and die on me a few times! Bit hair-raising at times, no saddle only a rug and me holding on for dear life when the horse looked like it wanted to go down instead of up! Very relaxing time for the rest of the weekend. Was nice to be out of the city for a while as well!
The next weekend we just stayed in Quito to do some of the touristy things round here. Friday we headed up the Teleferico. The most touristy thing I have seen in Ecaudor, it is cable cars built up the side of a mountain near Quito to get views of the city. I didn´t really think it was all it was hyped up to be. The views were nice but i´m not sure it was worth the time and money! Saturday we headed into Old Town and took a tour of a monastery, which was fairly interesting, then went to a church called La Compañia, which is said to be the most beautiful in South America and has more than 1 tonne of gold plating inside! Was very beautiful, but unfortunately we couldn´t take photos of the inside so have to make do with postcards! Sunday we went to the Equator (also very touristy but great fun!) There is a big monstrosity of a monument where they thought the equator was, but with current GPS technology they show that the equator is actually about 200 m away from the monument. They had a museum at the site of the actual equator, showing some indigenous traditions which was really interesting! Spent a while taking some photos and jumping from one hempishere to the other before heading back to Quito.
Got back from another weekend in Baños last night. Pete´s parents, came to visit Pete at the placement (and bought TIMTAMS!) and so we went back to Baños with them. Spent the time at the zoo, hot baths again and we also hired some four-wheel motorbikes to go and see the active volcano nearby! But it was too cloudy by the time we got up there, which was pretty disappointing. Apparently it´s been really active this week too!
Now back to work for the week. I hope all is going well in your various homes. Have attached some photos for you. Hope it works!

2. Claire and I on top of the Laguna
3. Laguna in full light and all it´s glory


Lots of love,
Benita xx


No comments:

Post a Comment