Tech Trip on the Coast

This past week we split up into groups of 11 for our second technical trip of training. My group went to a small city called Arenillas, down near the coast on the boarder with Peru in the province of El Oro. The bus ride down took about 12 hours and cost $10 (eat it, Greyhound). I´m kind of glad we took a night bus because I couldn´t see all of the cliffs I´m sure we almost fell off, but we probably missed some great views, too. All of a sudden we found ourselves surrounded not by mountains and volcanos but fields and fields of banana plants. It was kind of like driving through the US midwest but instead of seeing corn as far as the eye could see, it was bananas. It was bananas!

The trip consisted of alot of training in a variety of topics. We visited a shrimp farm and learned the process of getting shrimp wheels to Stop n Shop and Hannaford´s in the States from the Ecuadorian farmers. Like most industrial operations, it´s complicated, and the workers and the envrionment tend to suffer the brunt of the cons while the owners and middlemen get all the pros. The boat ride out to the farm was really neat though. It was great to be on the water - riding through the mangroves. There was alot of bird activity too, and we could see groups of the predator birds soaring in thermal columns at several points along the way to the farm.

We also visited a dry forest that forms part of the border with Peru (and so the military runs it, not the environmental agency). The trees in this forest drop their leaves in the summer as a way to protect themselves from the intense heat - basically the opposite of why our tree drop theirs in the fall in the Northeast US. The heat was definitely distracting - for pretty much the whole trip - but the seco (dry) forest was a really neat environment.

Our last day of the trip we took a hike through another national park, further up the coast this time, in the province of Guayas. This forest was really beautiful. Dense vegetation and really wet and humid. The mosquitos and spiders were more than made up for by the howler monkeys, who we definitely heard before we saw. They make these incredible grunt noises and can be heard from really far away - kind of intimidating. But also cute. We saw several carrying their babies way up in the canopy.

We did some other things on the trip (actually loads), but my brain is having trouble processing it all at the moment. We got back at 8am Saturday after another nauseating bus ride - still exhausted - and I´ve been popping Peptobismal like its candy - a small price to pay for an incredible experience.

In other news:

I´m reading The Alchemist, but in Spanish this time...

Only have a week and a half before I move to my post in Amaguaña...

... But I don´t yet have a place to stay there (my Program Manager is working on it)...

I´m on quest for a fiddle..