Winding down in Ecuador

Ok, I did elaborate further in the previous post (I decided to build on it and explain our fiesta in Puerto Lopez a bit more), but it didn't end up being published, so I can't be bothered spending another hour typing the same thing which should've been posted. You'll all have to wait till I get back (or some other time when I feel like elaborating on it) for details. In a nutshell though, we went to Puerto Lopez to celebrate one of the other volunteers' birthday and we stayed the night there. We went to a bar later in the night, got talking to the owner/manager, and he ended up giving all of us free drinks and taught us how to make mojitos. We all got shots of aguardiente (local liqour made from sugar cane), and we made 7 tall glasses of mojitos. Needless to say, we were quite happy by the end of the night, which is why we only had 3 hours sleep!

Anyway, to the present, I am currently in Quito (for the last time). I'm almost finished stage 1 of my trip. I'm jetting off to Costa Rica on Monday. Overall, the volunteering has been ok. Not exactly what I expected (especially for the Chiriboga part, which consisted of absolutely no reforestation on our part, but quite the opposite instead!), but it was alright. Teaching children was very interesting. You really need a lot of patience for it. It was frustrating at times, but quite satisfying when they've learnt and understood what you've taught them. It was slightly difficult for me (due to the spanish), but we got along fine, and they understood what I was trying to say anyway, which was good. I think my spanish is improving, at least now I can get around and buy stuff without having to look up the dictionary for every second word!

On the food note, I think I've consumed enough rice, potatoes and sugar here to last me a lifetime! Every meal has some kind of rice or potato, and all the juices have lots of sugar in it. Towards the end, they just made us salad all the time, cos we're all pro salad and fruits. Oh, in Jipijapa, they bought papayas, but they are nothing like you've ever seen. They were MASSIVE!! They were about 30-50cm long, probably 15cm diameter. And they were really good too, just sweet enough and soft enough to melt in your mouth. They are nothing like the ones in Brisbane, and are by far the best papayas I have ever eaten. There are also lots of bananas here. I've been eating heaps of them too, both raw and cooked. So far I think I've tried bananas that have been cooked in 3 different ways. I think they were different types of bananas too. Bananas are the ones you eat raw, platanos are ones you have to cook, and plaintains are probably something else altogether, I forget what. Oh, also, here's another way to have orange juice. What we did was peel the skin (just the outer part, leaving the inner part, so you end up with a white orange), cut the top off, and then squeeze and suck the juice straight out of the orange. It's as natural as you can get it, you don't even need a cup! It's awesome, we're quite obssessed with the oranges.