So, the last day of the boat cruise we sailed up to an island called ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Santa Fe where, as on all the islands, there were sea lions and iguanas. We wandered up a steep him, which was not easy in flip flops, but our guide did it in bare feet, I can't complain. And the view was pretty. ..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

The afternoon's island was called Plazas, and it had a male sea lion colony. They are fat. And they live at the top of this cliff thing. I don't understand how they climb up. But they do.  We also did some snorkelling on the island, where I lost everyone briefly but wasn't too upset because I was surrounded by about 7 baby sea lion and a mum or two, who were all very curious and playful. A rather nice ending.

That night I was back on Santa Cruz, where I had another chilled morning with a book and club social biscuits, whilst watching some crazy sea birds falling out of the sky and submerging with a fish. The two o'clock boat this time took me to the biggest Galapagos island, called Isabella where I discovered I was going to be organised by a random guy called lobo and was put with the most annoying American I have ever met. Aaaaargh. Luckily he didn´t speak much Spanish so I chatted away to Lobo mostly and ignore him. That day we were slightly boring and looked at Flamingos and Turtles and had pan de yucca and went to bed.

O speaking of bed. My five pounds bought me a huge, gorgeously decorated room, a huge bathroom, hot water, a private balcony, a terrace and a kitchen, with free drinking water. Just thought you should know….

The next day we climbed a huge volcano -not very steep, but with a huge creator and looked at weird lava shapes and endemic plants. Then went snorkelling in the bay in the afternoon. Just after looking at a canal full of sharks. Like I must have seen 30 sharks. We weren't very far away.  However I have concluded they are not dangerous as there was a sea lion biting a tail and hitching a ride off one of them. And I think if I was a man-eating shark, sea lions would look pretty tasty too.

I was due to head back to Santa Cruz the next day, but Isabella was too nice, and I figure I had time to boat back to Santa Cruz and get to the airport on time for Sunday. But what would I do with my spare day? Talking to people led me to the conclusion that a place called ´Los Tunneles´ was the best place to go, talking to travel agents confirmed that no one was due to go there the next day and I really couldn't afford the hundred plus pounds to go on my own.

Heading back to the hotel, the owner lady stooped me and informed me sadly that there were some boys in the next door room to mine and that maybe that would make me uncomfortable and I would like to change rooms. Bless her. What she was saying was so quaint I thought I didn't understand her at first. So that night my new Israeli friends from the room next door and I headed out in search of Isabella night life. We found one open club which was playing very loud music but was completely empty and eventually resigned ourselves to a quiet bar on the sea front.  Which happened to be owned by my new friend Lobo. Once I told him my woeful, I can't go to ´los tunneles´ tomorrow story, he immediately phoned practically everyone in his phone book to try and help me out. A few hours later a random guy approached our table and told me that he was taking some tourists to the tunnels the next day and he could ask them if I could come along. I agreed. Then he told me that the only way it would work would be if I pretended to be a volunteer on the islands that was helping him learn English, and that he could then be taking me to say thank you. Oh, and that the tourists were a group of scientist from Spain, so I would somehow have to convince them in Spanish.

Although his reasoning confused me, the Spaniards agreed to my presence and didn't question my story, although I did resort to making my Spanish worse than it is a few times to confuse them.

It was definitely worth the awkwardness. We went to a place where the lava had flowed into the sea and had made short tunnels, some above and some below water. We boat around for a while looking a turtles and parrot fish (the water was incredibly clear), then we wandered around on land (again, I don't recommend flip flops).  Then we went back to the boat, donned wet suit (apart from one weirdo Spanish guy who went in in his Speedos) and explored the tunnels from in the water. It was weird in that there wasn't as many fish as there had been on other days, but I actually enjoyed it the most. We did see a few rays hiding in some tunnels and lots of very pretty fish, and a sea cucumber which was great, but I think I mainly liked it because it was so unusual to be swimming around and through a maze of volcanic rock. But my, was it chilly. Everyone was very amused by my purple lips when we got out. Ha ha.

And then I came home.  It was quite nice journey actually, although I did NOT want to leave, it was good to talk to other travellers and was significantly better than most of the bus rides I have been on.

Back to my project the next day where I got the hilarity value of watching Maria the little crazy lady who works there try and push a supermarket trolley around the streets of Quito, dressed as a chef, delivering the cakes we had made. Ha ha. If you see her coming, run or break. Luckily we were donated three trolleys so she can crash two…

As time is drawing to a close here, we have decided to make the most of our evenings and plan to go out AGAIN tonight. We are starting at a pub where I shall buy fish and chips and there will be a quiz. I know that's not exactly ´soaking up the culture´ but I feel like it is something I will really appreciate right now.  And afterwards we'll go out and I'm sure I will be forced to dance salsa with some one. 

This week is the last week at my project. They seemed to presume I was leaving on Friday so I decided I would as I don't feel I can do anything else there and it would be fun to do something knew for a short time. If I can´t volunteer in the Rain Forest for a week I´m going to help Amy´s English classes in the afternoon and look after disabled kids in the morning.

I can´t believe I am coming home so soon, and I can't wait. I feel like I know have more to do at home than here and I can´t wait to see everybody again….And tell the unabridged versions of these blogs to everyone who isn't my mother.

He he…just kidding mumsy xxx

So, the Galapagos. What a place!..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

I have a sun tan, saw enough sea lions that (if they weren´t so amaaaazingly cool) I would have started to find them boring and met a few random strangers.

The first day I arrived just after midday and set out determinedly to find a nice cheap last minute boat cruise. I found success within five minutes of leaving my hotel, although it wasn´t quite what I was looking for…

Basically I went to the ´muelle´ pier and got chatting to some locals, by whom I was persuaded to make up an extra person on a little afternoon bay tour. We set of and went playing with baby sea lions (yes really!) then took the boat back to go on a walk where we were surrounded by hundreds of iguanas. From there a short boat trip to a quiet little mangrove surrounded bay where we sat watching turtles, sharks and rays while the sun set.

The next day, with my determinism mixed with a resilience to day trip offers, I set off with my new friend (the guy who ran the boat decided he would help me enjoy the islands, seeing it as his personal responsibility) to search for a proper, live in boat tour. By the afternoon I had found exactly what I wanted at a slightly higher price and had a relaxing lunch watching sea lions play in the harbour and reading. That after noon I set off to ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Santa Cruz, where three of the Outreach Volunteers are working.

Wandering along the quiet streets with my rucksack I had the (mis)fortune to ask a passing youngish lady if she knew of a good hotel. She walked me straight to a hostel where I was informed my room would be ready in an hour by an over-enthusiastic hostess who kept hugging me and telling me I was her family. Meanwhile my new found friend had met with a couple of friends and the three of them resolved to help me find the other volunteers. After about an hour of wandering round in vain, we gave up and went for juice, when the volunteers wandered past. My new Galapagian friends escorted me back to my hostel where I was told the thing was, the foreigner hadnñt actually left yet. In response my friends began debating whose house I should stay in, when their other friend, the chief of police wandered along and said he would move out of his house for the night and I could have is bed. A not so tempting offer which the others wouldn´t let me refuse. We wandered back there and they started to make food ina very random slow manner which meant I had to go out before it was actually ready. And when I got back, they were still in the house chatting and smoking (YUK!). After a few yawns and ´Que sueños´ they go the hint and left me alone in my slightly random lodgings.

The next day, after finding and moving into a hostel I went to a museum and on a walk along the sea cliffs behind it a found a nice little deserted bay where some curious sea lions came and played with me. After going out once again with the volunteers and being given free drinks just for being Gringas, I headed back to San Cristolbal.

The way back was actually the most exciting part of that day, if only because I saw two baby killer whales jumping out of the water. WOW! I slept and read (Harry Potter in Spanish) most of the morning and in the afternoon went to a turtle breeding place with a couple of Canadians I had met on the plane and then to a little lagoon where the snorkelling was rubbish but the sunset made up for it.

That night was oen to remember. First my Canadians took me to a rather nice Sushi restaurant that literally touched the sea, and then we met up with lots more traveller people and Sam Booker (how do you spell it) happened. The next day was the first day of my boat tour, which I only managed not to miss because the cleaner woke me up half an hour before I was meant to be meeting them, 45 minutes away. Hmmm. We saw some turtles in the wild, walked through a huge lava tunnel and then went back to the turtle place I had been the day before. I was very pleased to discover the boat was not full of loud Americans, but instead three youngish adults and 6 more gap year people.

Over night the boat sailed to an Island called Española where we walked around looking at boobies and albatroses (albatri??). In the afternoon I did some rather cool snorkelling and saw an eel some turtles and even a shark which was about as big as me. (Apparently they only eat small fish…) . Ooo and they gave us cheddar cheese on the boat. Soooo goooood.

The next day I felt slightly ill, but we saw flamingos and sting rays on our island walk and did a spot more snorkelling in the afternoon on an island calle Floreana.

Okay, so we´re about to go out so it´s gonna be another one of those 2 part blog things ….

Much love xxxx

...And will blog about it very soon I promise.

Although i will be able to tell you about it in person in a couple of weeks!!!!

Oh, and it was ratehr cool. Go there!

I know, what has happened?? No knews for three weeks and then two blogs in a few days. Craaaaaaazy...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

I supose its ´cos i´m excited and bored (bit of a conundrum) and i don´t know if i´ll be able to blog ´til i get back.

And ´cos this weekend was rather cool.

We didn´t make it to the women's prison. And we very nearly did the cycling through ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Quito, but then we couldn´t find it so took a bus to the old town and did churches and museums (they are free on sundays). We looked at old money, wandered innocently through a couple of chuch services, one in a church which was full of scaffolding, not sure if it hadn't been built or was being fixdd, but the service went on none the less. We also saw the changing of the guards (yep, all two of them) outside the presidential palace from far two close and nearly got got by there weird spear like things. We went into a modern art museum which actually turned out to be pretty close to the whole prison thing as they had a display all about prison done by an artist who was locked in the basement for 10 days while he did it and who had done workshops and stuff in the prison before hand. We headed up a hill and attempted to get into a church but actually ended up in the catacumbes, which were like a multi stored grave yard for the poorest people. Some have to just cement over the hole and paint it a bit because they can´t afford a stone´, some you have to use step ladders to get to. Also you rent the square for a few years and then the ashes get put into a smaller square. There were pictures of resurrection day everywhere which made the place half sad, half terrifying.

Afterwards we made it into the church and wandered around in the light of its stained glass windows and then ventured ´out the back´ where we were shouted at for nearly entering the nunnery. How were we to know??? An art gallery or two later, we had lunch and headed back to home feeling very cultured.

Today, Alex left, i´m gonna miss him, especially as i´ve seen him practically everyday for the last five months. But the iguanas and sea lions should take my mind off him tomorrow, along with the fear factor of ´going alone´. Hopefully i´ll meet some nice peeps on the plane to tag along with.

That's all from me, probs until I get back from the Galapagos and have lots of exciting news to tell and photos to post. Off to buy sun cream and read up a little more

Check out the date, a month today I will be home. Craaaaazy. All the things I will see again that will be familiar and strange at the same time. And especially all the people. Looking forward to seeing you! ..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

So it has, once again, been a heinously long time since my last blog. I think this actually may be a record, or at least equalling my previous worst. YEY! In my defence, I did right up two weeks worth of blog and then, made the mistake of going off to tea and leaving it on the screen. It disappeared. And it was good. Funny and long and everything. But it has disappeared into the dark swirly mystery of cyber space so you won't be able to enjoy any of it.

So what has happened since my last blogging?

Well, project continues to be gong well. I seem to spend as much time as possible baking as its quite fun, I get to go walking around selling cakes and also to spend time with a smaller group of people so I can get to know them better. And of course, you get to eat baking…

But, one can not bake everyday an one? Depending on my energeticness, I either hang around chatting to abuelitos, and being useful when I am summoned to be so or I do a random crafty-ish thing. My latest has been planting sunflower seeds in plastic cups and then letting them pain the cups. The plan will be to let the same people who have planted them bung them in the ground in a few weeks time so they can watch it grow, and so the place looks a little more cheerful.

As for the weekends and stuff…

The weekend after our last blog we stayed in ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Quito and did mild parting on Friday night, followed by a chilled Saturday morning film session. Our aim was to eat lunch with our families (cheap) and head to the women's prison afterwards at about twoish, leaving plenty of time to get there at about threeish and have a couple of hours giving donations and chatting to the lonely Gringos before being chucked out at 5. That was the plan…

Of course, we finished lunch later than planned, and took longer than planned getting to the prison (we stopped to buy the girls a cake) and so didn't get there till four. Which, apparently is far to late to enter when visiting hours end at five. So we bus back home, resolved to give the cake to homeless people and then spent the afternoon watching more films and ate the cake.

The next day went equally wrong in the opposite way, in that we ended up doing more than planned rather than less.  We decided to once ain go up the Teleferico, and wander around Pichincha´s countryside.  We set off up the mountain and then combination slid and walked down the valley to eat lunch by a small waterfall. From said small waterfall we could see Quito beginning and it didn´t seem that far away. We also seemed to remember an out of date guide book suggestion the walk from Quito to the top of Pichincha could be done in a good days walk, and as we were neared to Quito than the top of Pichincha, and have a good five hours of daylight left we decided to give it a try. Four and a half hours later, the light was beginning to fade and we were struggling down a steep sided stream, very muddy after having just made our way carefully down the steep sides. However by the time light had actually gone we had made it back into civilisation and were being toured round the poshest restaurant I have seen so far in the muddiest clothes I have been in while I have been here.

The next weekend was uncharacteristically drama free. We had a long weekend to celebrate Alex and Harry's birthdays, and the fact that Jens and Nics were still there and headed off to the beach. Apart from a huge spider in my room, (yes it does bite, informed the helpful cleaner) and some Iguana´s in Jen´s room – we moved hostels the next day, although I was very willing to swap and be entertained by the iguanas, we had a really nice relaxing time. We played in the pool, got stung by jellyfish while body boarding in the sea, slept in late and had two loverly meals a day, because that was all w had time for. We even attempted wake boarding, but we were all too rubbish at it so we swapped the board for a big spongy round thing and played on that instead.

That week Jens and Nicola disappeared back to England and me and Alex went all by ourselves to Mindo, a small cloud forest village, not too far away. We went on a walk to look and waterfalls, watched hummingbirds on the balcony of our $5 a night hostel and did butterfly farms a tubing down a river. Once again a drama free (and incredibly cheap) weekend.

Instead of going back to my project on the Monday afterwards, I flew (yes flew, what luxury!) to the rainforest town of Coca and took and canoe three hours up river to the rainforest resort of Yachana. I met a group of lovely Americans, in the airport who were probably hippies before the 60s and came to the lodge most years to do fundraising and stuff. As they planned to go to the school both days they were there and the reason for me to be there was the whole school link thing I was unofficially adopted. I spent the time I the jungle wandering through the rainforest looking at cool trees and insects, taking photos of the school and what it is Yachana does, and chatting to students and our guide in Spanish. It was quite nice to be somewhere where non of the tourists spoke Spanish and I did as I made me feel like I could talk very well, I got slightly specially treatment just because I was on friends terms with all the staff. The second day I spent the morning at the school working with the students. It was great to chat with them about there lives and mine. I spoke to one girl called Yessica, who's mum had just died and whose sibling had all moved away and is left with her dad who is ill and 74.  She was really sweet and open with me, maybe because I was knew, and I´m looking forward to emailing her! The kids also seemed genuinely excited about the school link as well which was nice.

And that just about brings me up to date, I only got back on Friday and this weekend we plan to souvenir shop today and go cycling tomorrow, possibly making another attempt at going to the prison.

Let me know how things are at home! See you soon!

Ooo myspace has gone all spanish. Thats no fun. Grrrrr.

Anyway, so the other half of my blog didn´t quite come the next day as promissed, but here goes.

So, the weekend after the one where we missed the train, we all missed friday of our projects to travel thursday night to the beach. We satyed in an ecological resort near to Montanita where we have been before.

The place was rather idyllic with a beach, a pool, hammocks and pool tables, AND it is one of the counrty´s top ecological resorts. We did chilling by the pool,  fighting huge waves, night time fires, and even a boat trip and snorkelling on an island. It was rather cool actually, the guide person pointed out some birds to us whihc looked very ordinarry, until we came roun to their side of the rock where we saw they had bright blue feet, and the reason the guide was pointing them out was because they were blue beaked boobies!!!

That night we went to montanita itself and stayed until the first morning bus home, in a rather cool club which was basically, beach with walls and a stage. (no floors or ceiling). There was a live band on whose members kept changing and who played a bit of english music, including ánother brick in the wall´ which was amusing.

The only downside to the whole thing was that when i got back in the mornign my ipod had disapeared from my locked room. Grrrrrr. So the nect day in Quito was spent gettign an insurance company-pleasing (no chance of any burgalers being looked for) crime report. I went to the only police station I knew where four police oficers were playing playstation and directed me to a bigger police station a few blocks away, (despite the lady police officer who was cleanign up in the bacl protesting that i shouldn´t have to go because it was raining). At the next police station i was immediately recognised as a tourist and sent to the tourist police station, a few more blocks away. Once there I managed to locate the right room and started to fill in the necessary form when I was told, ´oh, it was robbed in your hostel? Thats not our responsibility´ (my heart falls) ´wait over there a minute´. I start eeling more hopeful and wait for quite a while with my book, people discuss me and eventually I am ushered downstairs and into a police car, (more heart falling) However its was quite plush, clean and even had seatbelts, so I started to relax as we waited for another policeman. That was, until the driving officer peson started to chat me up. Did you know my eyes are ´hermosa´? Eventually I am saved by the arrival of the awaited cop and i get driven miles and miles away to some office place. And then desserted by the police people, into the hand of some kindly office staff. While the lady photocopys my passport, a rather camp guy writes up the report on some strange computer/ typewriter cross breed. The resulting report i could have done myself if it hadn´t been for the perfect spanish. No offcial looking number, no header, and the only signature was mine. Oh well! I think the insurance company´s form may be a harder challenge, I don´t understand half the questions....

So I think that takes me up to to last weekend, although I have a strange suspcion I´ve missed a weekend out here.

Last weekend started with a fundrasing ball, for one of the teachers at Alex´s project who has hefty medical debts as well as a wife with the mental age of a seven year old, and an actual seven year old daughter, all to look after on a rather poxy salary.

While we went there everyone else set off for Baños to save us a hostel for our late arrival. However, by the time we could sneak away from the ball (the mariarchis provided a good distraction) we had missed the last bus and so were actually a day late. However, we had some good chilling time in the hostel and a touch of wandering and a lng lunch before the others got back from rafting.

The next day we did quad biking (soo much fun!!!, and Yes mother we did have helmets AND a guide) and looked at where the lava flow had been and what it had done to the houses a year or so ago. They weren´t as destroyed as you would have thought actually.

Belive it or not that brings me up to date as far as weekends are concerned, although it is currently friday so it will all be oudated again soon.

My projects continues to be going well, I try to do craft activities or some other activity with at least a group of abuelitos each day and do planning in the afternoon. Today we played skittles with bottles full of coloured water which was great fun.

Yesterday was a slightly crazy day, we celebrated American Mother´s day by inviting ALL the Abuelitos who came a little later, did dancing, singing more dancing, speaches, a Miss Mother Abeulita competion and some more dancing when the Mariachis arrived. Its was slightly strange as they all tried to run away at one point when it started to rain, i think because they were worried about not being able to catch a bus (its more difficult when it´s raining ´cos noone wants to walk), however they were forbidden from going, which seemed a little mean. Also the director, who had been away for a while came back to a rather emotional greeting and nearly fainted.

The other thing I have been doing recently is tyring to make a school link, between QES and  technical school in the raiforest here. I had a meeting with the director which I was rather terrified about but which actually went quite well, and now I have been invited to talk to the students and to stay at the resort which normally costs $135 a night for just $15 a night, it should be rather cool, although I will have to miss nearly a whole week of my project.

Other recent excitement is that Jens and Nicola, who used to live in my house, arre back for a few weeks now they have finished travelling. Its sooo nice to have the old group back again!

Oh and the vote ageeees ago was about wether the congress should be binned or not, and it was, so Correa is one step closser to being a dictator, although I still kinda like him, as he replaced the congress with educated young people rather than the upper class old people it used to be!

Thats all for now folks! Message me!!!! (especially if you like me enough to have kept reading for thing long)

Oh, and photos just about to go up onto photobucket, I´ll make a link in the form of a blog.

Jess xx

Wow! ´Just looked at my last blog, I didn´t realise it had been quite that long - sure I remembered writing one two weeks ago.And startign my blog with an apology about how long it has been is the only regular thign around here. Oh dear!

So life has changed a little since last time. All the new people have arrived, learnt a little bit of spanish and now most of them have promptly left again, to work on the  Galapogas islands or the jungle. However our group is three girl volunteers richer, two of whom live in mi casa, two where Harry and Alex live. 

One of the new ´girls´ is actually about thirty which makes things a little strange; she isn´t very willing to join in with our teenagerish frolics and so hasnñt bonded with the group very well. She was oringionally my roomey but I´ve moved in with Emily, who has been here as long as I have, and is fun and lovely. The other 2 remaining newbies coincidently went to high school together where there werenñt the best of friends. Luckily they went to seperate six forms and are quite happy to ´hand´ in the smae small group.

For their first weekend we took all the new volunteers to Papallacta, where us oldies had already been, to give them a chance to relax in the hot springs. The weekend was a bit odd as there was a big vote going on, meaning  everyone had to return to the place they were registered as living, and alcohol was declared illegal for the entire weekend (to aid sober decision making, and voting is obligitory over here). I am sure however the number of empty alcohol bottles i saw in the street actually increased that weekend, and we didn´t find any problems sharing ´Zuhmir´ the local speciality with the newbies, although we did wait until we saw some real life Ecuadorians drinking from a wine box in the hot tub.

The next weekend, while all the other volunteers went on a stilghtly-too-organised-for-my-taste trip to the jungle four of us oldies set of to the sleepy town of Riobamba. Well, it seems to be sleepy everyother weekend, but this weekend it was festival time, I think to cellebrate some local defeate over the spanish conquistors. There was a fair gound, food and drink in the streets, parades and lots of people. We had a fun wandering around the town soaking up culture (partying) weekend, although not everthing went exactly to plan. The hotel we had booked well in advance calimed they have never heard of us and sent us down the road to another hotel. When we arrived there we nearly walked off as it looked so posh, but eventually decided to enquire about room prices, and once we found out it was only 6 pounds a night, decided we could probably afford it.

A very famous train called the ´nariz del diablo´ (devil´s nose) leaves from Riobamba and as we had heard good things about it we managed to book the last set of tickets for the 7.00 sunday morning set off. However, due to me dropping my phone the night before close to mdinight and therefore not realising the time had reset itslef, we ran into the hotel lobby and found ourselves staring at a huge clock at 7.10. A cheery receptionist kindly informed us that yes the train did leave on time and yes we had missed it.

Not to worry, we took a two hour bus to another pretty village and waited to cathc our train a little further up. After a lot of cafés, waiting and wandering (I bought socks) the train finally arrived, and a stuburn guard bruskly informed us it was full. After a few minutes of grammitically incorrect (all we know how to do) arguing, he promised us a ride on the next one in an hours time. A little more wandering and waiting (sadly no more socks)  and we were on ´the good bit´ of the ride. It was ok. Quite pretty. Not atall steep despite, its name. I´ll up load the pictures soon. The day was fun though, despite it!

Project news, other info and last weekend will have to wait ´till tomorrow as tea´s ready my fingers hurt and I can´t decide whether to go to the cinema or pass out in bed tonight. Maybe I will even tell you what they were voting about the other weekend.

Much love xx

hey,

i am getting very bad at this whole blogging thig, i do appologise. And i also seem to be taking lots more photos, maybe that will make up for it. I have posted them onto photobucket, my last blog, which just looks liek a giant picture should be a link to it, but otherwise you can just log in on photobucket.com as outreachecaudor and the password is james - its kinda meant to be a publis thing for all the group and i have all the photos saved elsewhere so go ahead!

working with the old people is still goign really well, last week was a bit wierd because of easter, they only came one day and we gave them ´fanesca´ this wierd traditional easter food with loads of different, slightly odd ingrediant, for example dried fish, yum! It has changed slightly as a term at a nearby university has just begun. They are obliged to do some volunteer work for some of there credits and lost of them come and work here as its close. For me this is a mixed blessing. sometimes its a bit of a bummer as there spanish makes them much more useful than your experience does. Also alot of them seem really quiet and boring, they dont even talk to each other! However, it doe soemetimes mean they are more interesting jobs to do, like the other week me and another ´extranera´ were given a questionaire styley thign to ask one of the abuelitas, which ended up with her crying lots as she toold us about the things she used to like doing and the family she hardly ever saw. It when you do things liek that you realise how valuable the time, attention and company they get at the centre really is.

As for the weekends, the wedding was a lot less interestign than expected, very much like an english weddign but without all the partying and drinking afterwards. The best man tried to start opff some games but everyone was far too sober to really get into singing songs with silly noises and actions. The only ´different´ part was soem wierd tradition of garter sharing which resulted in me standing on a chair havign the bride´s garter put on me. The upshot of which is that i am know a proud owner of a garter.

the next weekend we went back to the seaside paradise of montanita and found big pancakes, bigger (occasionlly scarey) waves and lots of sun and ice cream. We stayed up late attempting to make fires on the beach and slept in before huge breakfast, beach then huge tea. Ratehr relaxing and fun, a great last weekend for jens and nicola, two of the girls who lived in my house ansd have now left.

It is very sad to have lost my ´roomey´ who i got on really well with, especially as for the next few days i am the only volunteer in the house, emily having jetted off to the galapagos with her family. Alex has moved into quito, just a few houses down, and harry is and him are round most evenings so it nearly makes up for it. And new people are comign on friday...

This weekend i spent with harry and alex. We hired a tent and a stove, bought lots of food, and head off towards Latacunga. From there we acquired a half dead minibus style thing, packed to is eyeballs with animals, indeginous people and sticky children. We struggled, coughed and broke down twice on the way to quilotoa, an extinct volcanoe with a green lake in the middle. However, we managed to get there just as the sun was setting and makign very prety colours shining through the mist (pictures on photobucket). We picked our way into the canyon as the light disapeared and set up camp on a ´beach´.

In the morning, we woke up, ´wowed´ the view, had breakfast and fell back to sleep. A few hours later we hired a donkey to carry our bags and set off up the creator, very steep and very hard. from the top we decided that despite our lack of a guide, a map, compass or any knowledge of the area we would try and do the six hour walk down one side of a huge gorge and up the other to a village with a couple of hostels and maybe some busses to help up home. After being shouted and corrected by several local people, following a path with a very steep drop to one side, nearly falling down a place where there had just been an avalanche, jumping a river because the bridge was definitely not safe and nearly collapsing walking up the other side in the rain, (it was very pretty though, look at the pics) we made it to a rather nice, and very cheap hostel full of friendly tourists, with a fire and big meals. Overall not a bad day. 

Yesterday (coming home) was also rather adventurous. We started the day with a precarious five hour bus ride along the side of the gorge, wich the road seemed to be slowing collapsing into. The we found a very nice pizza shop for lunch and headed for the bus station.Unfortunately over 100 other people also seemed to want to get to quito from the station and everytime a  bus arrived there was  a made, police patroled but not really controlled rush to get onto the bus. After watching this open mouthed a couple of times, we decided it would be impossible without the experince of  a local and with huge rucksacks. Luckilky, a kindly bus driver with a full bus picked us up from the main road and let us stand in the ilse all the way home. Which shoudl have taken two hours if the poice hadnt decided to stop us. I am still completely oblivious as to the reasom why, but luckily they chose to do it out side a petrol station, so after deciding we could be there for a while we used the shop and facilities. You may be impressed to hear that i was only 20 minutes late for tea, i got a seat for the last ten minutes AND i saw my first female taxi driver on the way home.  All in all not a bad weekend.

Anyways, i will try and blog next week and tell you all about the new volunteers and how much we have managed to terrify them. Love to all, jess

hey everyone, so sorry i have failed to blog for such an immense amount of time!

Everything is good here. Since my last blog i have not only worked up the guts to tell my psychologist lady that i don´t really want to work with here, but i have also left the project completely and have worked two whole days at the abuelitos project. It really fun, although i did spend four hours squeezing limes for limonada, partially just with a huge knife all by myself (they donñt have things lie juice squeexers, but it would seem they do have juice squeezers) and partially with the necessary equiptment and other helpers. Today was much more fun, i did lots of baking a cooking, partially ran the baking class and sold cakes with an ecuadorian, english speaking volunteer and made more money than ever before in loads less time by having the ingenious idea of selling to hops. YAY!

what is more, i am starting to feel like i can actually communicate with the people here a bit, and i had a whole conversation with maria whereas previously we haven´t really understood each other.  Super-bien!

In other news, the last couple of weekend have both been really nice. Last weekend we went to a small, somewhat touristsy town stroke village, situated at the base of an active volcanoe. We did rafting (really fun) and horse riding (my saddle was like wood, i still have bruises) up the volcanoe from where you could actually see the smoke coming out of the top. I would really like to go back to do some climbing and canyoning. And it is all so cheaaaap! It was so nice to be completely out of the city and to have so much choice of things to do in the wide open green and leafyness.

The weakend before was more of a mixture. On friday night we went to the cinema and watched Babel, it was in loads of languages, with spanish subtitles and i understood it all. (nearly) YEY! (once again, sorry). The next day we went to parque carolina and did boat on the synthetic streamy-thing and the botanical gardens which was quite fun and reasonlably relaxing. Late ish afternoon we went to Papallacta (í´m not really sure how to spell it), home of hot spring. not only did our hotel room have a hot tub. (yes really) but it also had an outdoor hot pool and an indoor hot pool. We ate a massive salad, then had white wine and ´dulce de leche´ in the hot tub and then lay in the pools watching the steam and the starts. The next day was also spent in hot pools by the way. We were rather prune-ified by the end of it.

As for next weekend, we have a monthly meeting, so i will get to see all the volunteers who live miles away YEY! (again) and then i´m off to the country village of pillcaqui (where alex lives) for a ´local´ wedding. No mother and other paronoid friends and relatives, i am not getting married, just watching the wedding of Alex´s adopted dad´s sister. And i do promise to tell all about the Ecuadorian matrimonial traditions in my next blog!

All the best! Thank you for staying in touch, nearly at half way now xxxx