Adventure and Cultural Travel with a Sustainable Twist
Little victories in school (The school year has now ended, so I’m looking back on my 5-month teaching stint with the benefit of some hindsight.) The first and second graders were my most challenging class, because the first graders can’t really read or write. A previous volunteer very helpfully left flashcards Continue Reading
A series of birthdays January has been a month of birthdays in the family. Anthony (the 11-year-old)’s was on 10 January, Kevin (the 3-year-old)’s was on 16 January, and then mine a couple of days later. For Anthony’s birthday we had sopa de gallina (chicken soup) with freshly caught chicken, Continue Reading
New Year’s Day After a relatively late night (by my standards), New Year’s Day was very relaxed. We slept in and went to Cuellaje briefly. Then we had a late lunch, made empanadas, and sat around chatting. Usually there are some guys playing volleyball nearby in the evenings, but today Continue Reading
On the last full day of my 4-day Nicky Amazon Lodge tour, we visited an indigenous community, made cassava bread and enjoyed a beautiful sunset over a lake. (Check out the events of Day 1 and Day 2 if you haven’t already!) New wildlife sightings In the early morning canoe Continue Reading
I’d initially thought I’d be spending Christmas with my host family, but the weekend before that I made a snap decision to join my friend Linda for a tour in the Amazon rainforest. The tour was from 26 to 29 December, but the bus left Quito at 11pm the night Continue Reading
Weekend at San Antonio Changes of plans are very common in this part of the world, and this is a fine example. Initially, I wanted to make a day trip to San Antonio to visit Ned and Patricia (and their newborn), but was convinced to make it a 2-day 1-night Continue Reading
After having been away for 2 weeks, it was really good to be back in Rosario and get back to teaching the kids. Having never cared much for kids, I was surprised by how happy I felt to see them again, and how easy it was to slip back into Continue Reading
Birthday party in Otavalo Barely 2 weeks after leaving Otavalo at the end of the school vacation, I was back in Otavalo again – this time for the birthday party of one of Rosa’s nieces. It was pretty similar to a typical birthday party for kids back in Singapore: lots of Continue Reading
Teaching After the one-week school vacation, I went back to teaching. It’s great that I have a lot of support from Profesora Blanca, the regular teacher. She wants the kids to take English classes more seriously and stop treating it like a vacation, so she told me to give them Continue Reading
Most of the fellow travellers I meet tend to spend a couple of days, at the most, in Otavalo: visiting the Saturday market and Cuicocha Lake seem to be the most popular activities. I’d already spent a week in Otavalo prior to Intag, but my host family has relatives there Continue Reading