Half Way Point!
Typing up a blog on Word when it is set in Spanish is always an interesting experience. Well, how time flies. The Ecuador Antipodeans group has now completed half of their placement and everyone is definitely settled in to their schools, Ecuadorian life, and the Spanish language (as long as people speak sllooowwwlly – not a common occurrence)!
Since the political instability of the riots, Ecuador has calmed down a lot and thankfully nothing more exciting of that nature has occurred. Weekends have been spent travelling, with Baños, Riobamba and Mindo all visited and many more exciting trips planned. In the coming weeks, the group is heading off to the Amazon, Coast and Galapagos Islands over various public holidays and in the last week of the placement when we are given the opportunity to travel.
For most of the group, the highlights so far have been the trips to Baños and Mindo. The weekend after the riots, everyone headed off to Baños on either Thursday night or Friday morning for a weekend of spa treatments, hot springs and maybe not quite in the same mood, adventure sports. There was jumping off bridges, intense white water rafting (in which everybody went overboard, whether by choice or by a helpful push from the guide) and then on the opposite end of the scale, early morning rises for the natural hot springs, with chilly dips in waterfalls and massages. It was certainly a weekend that was enjoyed by everyone!
The next weekend took a bit of a downturn with a trip to Riobamba to catch the famed Nariz Del Diablo train ride. After getting there late on the Friday night, it was a tough break to discover that the train tracks were being repaired and wouldn’t be operational until next year (so don’t come to Ecuador for the train ride for a while!) There was still the option to do part of the train ride, coming back towards Riobamba which we gladly took. Sadly though, we managed to catch the bus to a beautiful but incorrect spot for the train! We decided all we could really do was laugh about it and then have lunch and head back J Needless to say the rest of the weekends have been looked into in a little more depth! The rest of the weekend was enjoyed by everyone though with a night out on Saturday and Breast Cancer day in Parque de Carolina on Sunday. I have never seen lines so long, or heard such ‘interesting’ internationally renowned singers!
Throughout the weeks, everyone has been going to placement and now that we have all been there for a while, our efforts are starting to show off. The kids are remembering our names (although more often than not you just hear “Teacher!! Por Favor!”) and slowly starting to remember some of the English they are being taught, although “Hello” followed straight away by “Goodbye” is a common occurrence at INSFIDIM. Everyone is beginning to contemplate how they might manage to fit their favorite kids into the suitcase for the trip home!
Yesterday we returned from our most recent weekend away, and many people’s now favorite place in Ecuador, Mindo. Mindo is about 2.5 hours from where we all live, in the cloud forest region of Ecuador and is definitely a beautiful tucked away little village (to call it a town with its one paved road might be pushing it!) We all stayed in a hostel called Casa de Cecilia, reminiscent of a tree house, with some rooms only having three walls and hammocks abounding! Mindo was a very relaxing weekend, with visits to waterfalls, butterfly farms, a frog concert and naturally lots of reading by the river. Of course that was balanced with speeding through the forest canopy at up to 70 miles an hour, sometimes upside down doing ‘the butterfly’ and if you were feeling particularly adventurous a 5m plunge off the rocks to the waterfall below (we did have some brave people that day!) Mindo was definitely beautiful, peaceful and fun and a place many people want to come back to in the years to come!
So for the Antips Ecuador group, it has certainly been a full on first half of placement, and with trips to the Amazon, Coast and Galapagos in the planning stages and people learning to manage their classes more each day (they’re learning something now!) everyone is having a great time. They say time flies when you’re having fun!
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