In the last week of volunteering I (Bronwyn) got a fantastic opportunity to go along with one of the local workers to visit a nearby community. The idea is that the money the tourists would bring to the community is to help them improve health and education standards. The community was fairly removed from any main commodities with it taking around 6 hours on a bus from Tena, then a 10 minute canoe ride down the Rio Napo followed by a one hour walk through the ...

Well it had been a while since I completed a hike like this on and I now think it will be a while again before I do another like it...lets just say it was bloody hard!! Day 1... After spending the night in Tena (our closest town from Jatun Sacha) and buying all our food supplies the day before - an experince in itself, we headed for a 5am bus to the Volcano. Volcano Sumaco is supposebly the most remotest Volcano in Ecuador and sits at a height of around 38...

How magical is The Galapagos - words can't even explain it!! Fortunately we were able to experience life of The Galapagos on a first class boat (Yacht) after we finished up our volunteering. We set sail on 'Free Enterprise' for 4 days with 18 other tourists around the South East Islands including: South Plazas; Sante Fe; Espanol; and Floreana. The abundance of both the marine and land animals is amazing. For instance we snorkeled about twice a day both on th...

Well we have now finished our volunteer stint on the Galapagos Islands with Jatun Sacha at the San Cristobal Station (see the picture of our home). It was quite a different experience from that of the Jungle. As it was quite a new station (April '03) many of the projects are still getting started. The aim of the station is to encourage the locals on the Island back to agricultural practises and to introduce them to sustainable farming practises. Another aim was t...

Pleasantly surprised by Riobamba. We expected this to be a dodgy tourist in-between town but we are proven wrong and it is quite large and very quaint with lots of old colonial charm. However our time here is short. We arrived in the afternoon of the 17th and at 6.30am on the 18th we hit the train station with every other tourist in town to board the train that will take us down the 'Devil's Nose'. Seven hours sitting on the top of a train with a very t...