One of the many amazing waterfalls in our county.
(MORE PHOTOS AT END OF TEXT)
We have been living in Bucay, Ecuador, the
place we were stationed by the Peace Corp, for almost three weeks now. We
graduated from our three month training program right before moving here.
Previous blog posts have updates on the graduation and a map of where Bucay is
located in Ecuador.
Our assignment in Bucay is to be Small
Business Advisors for the development of tourism and small businesses
associated with tourism in this county. The people we are assigned to work most
closely with we call “counterparts”. We seem to have some excellent
counterparts and we are so happy about this. We are working with the government
of the county of Bucay, a local foundation called Fundacion NOBIS, and the
state Government. Bucay is located at the base of the Andes Mountains, right
where they hit the plains that stretch out flat all the way to the ocean. There
is a plethora of potential outdoor activities for tourists here, such as hiking
in rain forests, rafting, kayaking, tubing, visiting amazing waterfalls,
horseback riding, swimming in rivers, repelling down waterfalls, and visiting a
local indigenous community. Bamboo grows all around and is used to create
beautiful structures. Also, there is an old train station that is being
renovated (this is being paid for by the government of Ecuador) as a tourist
train that will bring a lot more tourists.
Right now Bucay has some tourists, and some
of the potential tourist sites are useable, but many need more development in
order to be used. Ninety percent or more of the tourists are Ecuadorian. They
say the other 10% are international. We haven’t seen anybody yet. Although, we
definitely think it is a place foreigners would like once developed a little
more. We are definitely the only foreigners here and we stand out – a lot. Our
first two weeks here we spent in a truck bouncing around the back roads
visiting a plethora of potential tourist sites, hikes, hostels, restaurants,
etc. At each site we were to experience the attraction and complete paperwork
regarding its potential for tourism, if tourists would be interested or not,
what would need to be done to make it ready for tourists, etc. This was very
interesting, but also long days and lots of work. Several families killed
chickens and made lunch for us as we were the guests in the area. We met so
many wonderful tour guides, community members and families who are hopeful that
they may be able to increase their standard of living if they can get some help
with developing the resources that they have. We hope we can find a good place
to fit and offer our knowledge and skills. We definitely can offer the
prospective of a foreign tourist, which will help them a lot I think, in the
long run. But, we also plan to help with marketing, research, feasibility
studies for small businesses, business planning, managing money (basic
accounting), computer issues, relationship building between players, and
more….we’ll see.
Right now our first three month’s job is to
meet as many people as we can, see as much as we can, become accepted in our
community (as we said we really stand out), hang out with our family and
friends, and most important of all – LEARN SPANISH. We have a teacher we meet
with twice a week, and we study on our own…we think we are learning. It is
painfully slow!
We miss all of you, our family and friends,
a lot. Life here is night and day from what we are used to. We are doing a lot
of adjusting. Currently we live with a host family. We have 30 roosters that
live outside our bedroom window and wake up at 2AM every morning and crow all
night (we bought a fan to drown out the noise so we can sleep, and we have
earplugs). We can walk everywhere in town. We buy fish from a guy walking down
the street selling them (which our family is going to teach
us how to clean), meat from a butcher shop (if you want hamburger meat you pick
a piece of meat and they grind it up for you), and chicken from a little store
where they hang from a bar out front (raw, unrefrigerated). It is quite an
adventure!
We are two hours from Guayaquil, which is
the largest city in Ecuador. Guayaquil and Quito are the only two international
airports.
I guess this is the basics. If you want
more details, feel free to send me a message here and I can share more. There
is so much more….We know people like pictures, so
hopefully you’ll enjoy those we put in this blog post.
A hike in the surrounding mountains.
 |
| A view while hiking. |
Bucay is the little city of 10,000 below - that is where we live. We work there and out here in the surrounding mountains and plains.
More waterfalls. There are seven in just one area, and more elsewhere.
Us with our work partners, getting very wet.
A alley in town.
One of the charming little catholic churches.
Tin roof of the vegetable market.
Vegetable market.
Meat market.
Fruits sold along the side of the main road that goes through town.
One of the main streets in town.
The old train station....they are going to be remodeling it and using the train as a tourist train. The train is in Spain right now being fixed. It is suppsed to be up and running early next year....
They love to play volleyball here. And, they bet on most of the games. The average winnings is $30 or so per game per person. This goes on every night.
Another main street.
The main river through town.
The backs of the homes and buildings along the river.
Some yummy local lunch.
Along the river is a "malecon". This is a nice park area they fixed up as a pleasant place for the locals to hang out and enjoy. This boat is a building and we are going to be using the inside of it as our office. We have it cleaned up (from dirt and spider webs) and the next step is to paint it. Pretty cool. Also, we hope to get internet there. Right now we go to internet cafes and pay for it every day, which adds up.
These next few photos are on the "malecon" that is along the river.
Cherith on the malecon.
