Nariz del Diablo, Cuenca, and Ingapirca

This past weekend, three of my friends from work and I used some of our vacation days to travel to Cuenca, Ecuador.  Cuenca is about a 10 to 12 hour bus ride south of Quito and is a really beautiful city.  Everyone I knew who had been to Ecuador before recommended it, and I am glad that we had the chance to go. We left Thursday night (July 25th, 2013) from Quito to Riobamba to spend the night in a hostel.  We were surprised to find that Riobamba is much colder than Quito at night.  Luckily, the hostel had warm, fuzzy panda blankets on all the beds (but no light in the bathroom - not helpful when arriving at 10:00pm - although it did have a skylight so I guess we shouldn't complain).  The hostel was actually pretty...

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Posted in: 2L,Alausi,Cañaris,Chimborazo,Cuenca,Ecuador,English,Inca,Ingapirca,J-Mad,Nariz del Diablo,Panama Hat,Riobamba,train

Pichincha on a Cloudy Day

On Sunday, July 21, 2013, two friends from work and I, tired from the early trip yesterday to Otavalo and Peguche Waterfall, decided to spend the day in Quito checking some things off of our bucket list.  We met up on the Ecovia in the morning and headed first to the Casa de Cultura to see the Museo Nacional Banco Central which is supposed to have the best archeological exhibits of the museums in Quito.  Aside from the Guayasamin Museum, the Museo Banco Central was pretty good.  There was a lot of ancient pottery as well as an exhibit of Incan gold. After the museum, we walked to a restaurant in La Mariscal called Baalbek, located on 6 de diciembre y Wilson.  It was probably the nicest restaurant that I have been...

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Posted in: 2L,Baalbek,Casa de Cultura,Ecuador,English,Inca,J-Mad,La Compañia,Mariscal,Museo Banco Central,Quito,TeleferiQo

Otavalo Market and Peguche Waterfalls

On Saturday, July 20, 2013, I met up with 4 co-workers and a few of their friends bright and early at the Carcelen Bus Station in the northern part of Quito (at 7:00am!).  We were easily able to buy tickets and board our bus to our destination - the famous Saturday morning markets at Otavalo.  We arrived around 9:00am, had a quick breakfast, and then hit the market stalls.   The day before, a friend from work and I went to the Mariscal market in Quito to price-check all the goods there to have an idea of which goods would be cheaper in Quito and which would be cheaper in Otavalo.  Without even bargaining, we got some pretty good asking prices that served us well as a great frame of reference for the Otavalo shopping...

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Posted in: 2L,Cotacachi,Ecuador,English,Inti Raymi,J-Mad,Kichwa,Otavalo,Peguche,Waterfall

Inca Ruins at the Equator

On Saturday, July 13, 2013, my friend from work, a new volunteer, and I headed out for a day trip to the Mitad del Mundo complex about an hour away by bus from Quito.  It was probably the most toursity thing I have done so far on the trip this summer, but it was on my list of things to do and we just needed  quick, easy day trip (three of my co-workers were running the 21 kilometer Quito half-marathon the following day).  We got to the complex relatively early in the morning.  There is not a ton of stuff to see there - just the monument and the line of the fake equator (the monument was built and then when GPS was later used to calculate its exact location, it was discovered to be 240 meters south of the real equator).   Despite...

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Posted in: 2L,Ecuador,English,Equator,Inca,Inti Ñan,J-Mad,Mitad del Mundo,Rumicucho

Refugee Law in Ecuador

Now that I have been working with the NGO for a few weeks here in Quito and developing a client base, now might be a good time to do a post about the refugee system here and a few of my observations so far.  The first thing to note is that it is pretty crazy.  Ecuador has really lax visa laws to get into the country, but once you are here (and especially if you are a refugee), it is really hard to stay legally.  Because Ecuador borders Colombia, the vast majority of those applying for refugee status are Colombian, but due to the lax entry requirements, I have clients from literally all over the world, fleeing a whole host of really serious, scary situations. Refugees only have 15 days from the time they enter Ecuador...

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Posted in: 2L,Cartagena,Cartagena Definition,Colombia,Constitution,Ecuador,English,ERJAFE,J-Mad,Law,Quito,Refugee,Refugee Convention,UN,UNHCR,United Nations