ECUADOR – December 2006

Location: Quito, Santo Domingo, & Galapagos Islands

Travel Buddies: Amanda Bullard, Lisa Verpleough, Tracy Ong, Nate Riegler, David Costa, Peter Villata, Brad Cope, Brad Stewart, Dan Harris, Dan Price, Cathy Stork, Jillian Garcia, Jeffrey Short, Greg Pumple

Overview: Another amazing trip with Habitat for Humanity. We worked in Santo Domingo for 5 days, stayed in Quito for a few days & 9 of us went to the Galapagos Islands. Ecuador is a beautiful, mountainous country. Galapagos is one of the most beautiful & uninhabited places I’ve been to. The serenity of this place is exquisite.

• Before using a highway call someone to check if the road is open…Ecuadorians may be on strike and block the only road to your destination.
• When building a house in Ecuador, you must have Wheelbarrow Pedro on site…nobody has wheelbarrow skills quite like him.
• Building a HFH house in Ecuador es muy dificil…too much rebar & cement & twisting with the key.
• One’s forearm can become extremely sore just by twist, twist, twisting the wires to the rebar.
• Mixing a 10-8-2 cement mixture for a HFH home (10 sand, 8 rocks, & 2 cement) is entirely too much for one batch!
• Balloons come in handy when taking pics of Miguelito…it’s like an Ecuadorian fig leaf.
• There is not enough bug spray in DEL MUNDO to keep the mosquitoes away in Ecuador…and there is definitely not enough anti-itch cream to stop scratching!
• La Mitad DEL MUNDO is no exactly the center of the earth…it was measured in 1736 & was later found to be inaccurate. Museo Solar Inti Nan is supposedly the real site of the equator.
• Toilet Flushing Theory a.k.a. the Coriolis Force is a hoax! The Coriolis effect which causes weather systems to veer right in the northern hemisphere & left in the southern hemisphere has no effect on small bodies of water. The toilet flushing clockwise or counter clockwise is due to plumbing, eddies in the water, shape of the basin, & other factors.
• La Finca de Emilio es Cien Porciento Natural…No Quemicos!
• Oranges, Cocoa, & Rubber in Ecuador es el major en DEL MUNDO!
• You can buy 2 dozen roses for $1.00 in Ecuador and they are the best in DEL MUNDO!
• Cuy is an Ecuadorian delicacy which is a guinea pig…tastes like duckish chicken.
• You can fit 15 gringos in the back of a pick up truck and occasionally forget about them when driving too fast!
• Never grab sugar cane from the top…you will have mas espinillas that can blend with blonde arm hair eastily, making it muy dificil to take it out!
• Be cautious when walking past an Ecuadorian bus stop…its made @ Ecuadorian height…it might just smack your head…if you are 6’3” and hit it, well then you deserve it.
• Ecuadorian wine is NOT the best in DEL MUNDO!
• Avoid Tex-Mex and Margaritas in Ecuador…es NOT el major DEL MUNDO!
• The condor is the 2nd biggest bird in Ecuador…only second to the KFC chicken!
• Nate & Amanda do the best “DEL MUNDO” in the world!
• Do not drop water on the second floor of a restaurant…the patrons on the first floor will get wet.
• Do not take someone else’s sea sickness prescription patch…your mouth will be dry & your pupils extremely dilated causing you to look like a shark!
• The person playing P.I.G. doing all the yapping is always the loser!
• Being concerned about the tree house caretaker’s sleeping habits will also make you the P.I.G.
• When sleeping in the tree house you can bless people sneezing in the other room.
• C in Latin America means caliente…not cold!
• Hold your nose jumping off water falls or bots!
• Flash photography in the tortoise ranch will get you 5-10.
• Never call a sea lion a seal, a sea star a starfish, or a lava cone a mountain…OK FINE!