Playa de Oro

This weekend the program had the opportunity to visit the Playa de Oro (literally translated as "beach of gold") community. After a red-eye bus ride to the coast and an hour long canoe ride up another river, we arrived at a community that was full of music and general joy. The history of this community is that the people were brought in from Africa and enslaved in order to extract the gold from the river basin. It was only within the last 10 years that the gold industry has subsided a little bit and the people can live semi-peacefully.

My tour guides for the community. They were so cute.

On Friday we hiked into the jungle, saw tiger footprints (?!), and ended up swimming in this laguna. It was so pretty.

After a quick hike back, we stopped at one of the rocky beaches and tried our own luck at panning for gold.

I was no good.

We also learned how to make sugar from sugar cane! It's a rough process, and takes a lot of energy and man power, but very interesting!

Friday night we had a huge compartiendo of music and dance, where we learned the traditional dance, Marimba, and a few other types of songs and dances used in different ceremonies.

They could all dance; we, the gringos, could not dance to save our lives.

Saturday we left the community and chatted with Papa Roncón, one of the men in Esmereldas who almost singlehandedly revived the Marimba. Another red-eye bus ride to return to Quito and study for exams and finish projects that are due this week.

Hope your weekend was fantastic!

Baños

This weekend we went to a town called Baños for a couple of nights. The town is famous for its hot springs, which are said to have healing powers. The town is located in this valley next to a volcano (the town has been destroyed 3 times since 1700), and has really pretty scenery. It's a very touristy town, but really cool at the same time.

This is the church in the main square.

One of the main streets. It almost looks European!

An artisanal market.

My friend Noah playing a game of chess with a stranger on the street.

On Saturday morning we hiked up the mountain to a little café and this was the view. Hello Baños!

Saturday afternoon we visited 3 huge waterfalls. This was my favorite.

Apart from hiking and waterfalls, we visited the hot springs, ate really cheap but delicious food, visited a town called Runtun, and hung out in town quite a bit. Super fun, super relaxed, and very different from anything in the USA.

I hope you had a great weekend too!

Nanegalito

So on Friday morning we woke up super early and drove to a place in the northwest called Nanegalito. It was definitely more jungle-y and Amazon-like, but it was still considered the highlands and part of the Andes. But, to be honest, we were actually in the jungle. Big spiders, bugs, and tons of mosquitos. Yuck. But it was really fun.

These are pictures of the big butterflies in the Butterfly Garden, a place we visited to see some natural "mariposas" of Ecuador.

After the butterflies, we tubed down the river that was right there. There were six tubes tied together and each group had a guide, who would matrix-walk up a wall of rock to steer the group of us, and a few times we thought someone was going to get thrown off. I hate to say it, but it was more fun than tubing in the Poudre. When we were done, our director brought out beers and everyone chilled in the river drinking. It was pretty funny.

The place we stayed was kind of like a 5-star tourist resort/compound thing. There were 6 little cabañas each with a few bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. This picture is the view of the mountains (keep in mind that it was SUPER foggy so you can't see all of the range) from the main casita's terrace. It was really pretty.

This is a picture of our cabaña and 4 of the 5 girls that stayed in it.

On Saturday we woke up and hiked upstream in another river nearby to a little waterfall/slide thing. It was very Indiana Jones. I didn't bring my camera because let me tell you, I fell into the water a few times and my camera would have been ruined. But, after the river, we went to a museum about the Yumbo tribe (I told you about them in the post with the volcano and the Mitad Del Mundo). In the area there were orange trees like this one. We didn't try any, but they looked delicious!

This is a picture of a typical casa in the country. They have some sort of store on the bottom part and then living quarters above. Actually, this one is pretty well-kept. They aren't all this pretty.

We start classes on Tuesday, so I will keep you updated later!