Ecotrackers online in English

Welcome to Our site During our travels through Central and South America Mark and I spent a week in Guamote, Ecuador with Ecotrackers. Ecotrackers is a non-profit organisation which aims to protect the environment and culture of rural communities in Ecuador through community ecotourism and volunteer work. The purpose of this site is to showcase the Guamote Carnival and encourage other travellers to visit the town, which has an amazing weekly market with squealing pigs and brightly coloured materials, and a train station, from which you can ride on the roof down to the Devil´s Nose.

Welcome To My Home Page Hello, My name is Louise and I live in Sweden. For many years, I worked in the Lund University Library, Department of Sciences, Technology and Medicine, as Reference Librarian and Information Specialist. Lund University is the largest and second oldest in Sweden, being founded in 1666. However, I retired 18 months ago and now I can travel even more, read more books, attend more lectures. It is just great! I enjoyed working though, having the best colleages. The development of library working conditions into the age of databases and Internet facilities have been thrilling. I travelled for six weeks this spring (2003) in Gujarat and Rajastan. Now I have six weeks in Ecuador. I just got acquainted with Ecotrackers here in Quito and will volunteer for ten days, to begin with. That will be a quite new experience and am looking forward to it! When coming back to Quito, around the end of October, I will write a report of my experiences on this my new and first w...

SAN MARINO DE WAPUNO San Marino de Wapuno We have spent five days in the community San Marino de Wapuno. It's located 1,5 hour from Puyo by buss. We lived in a young family with our guide Alberto Lopes, his wife and their three children. They were really nice and took good care of us. They lived in a newbuilt house without walls, furnitures, electricity, toilet and water. The first day we went to a big meeting in the village where the president of the community welcomed us and told the people that we were there to help them develope the ecoturism. We also made plans for the following days and drank chicha. Under our visit in Amazonas we did trekking in the lovely rainforest and our guide showed us different plants to eat and for medical use. With the guide in the front using his big machetes to make way for us, we walked, climbed and jumped between the stones in the river. We collected food from the forest to make our dinner by bananas, yuca, palmitos and fish from the river. ...

name: Sandy profession: docter nationality: Dutch I did my voluntary project in Atacames and surrounding. The welcome from the family was really nice and I felt at home straight a way. In these districts are working teams from promotores de salud who are giving medical attention to the poor people who are living far out. My job was to teach the promotores de salud about the most common childrensdiseases and how to reconize and treath them. The first day was a day to relax. One of the people from the organisation took me on a trip to Galera a little village with a lovely beach. In the evening the family showed me how to clean and prepare freshly catched fish. It tasted great. The first place I had to teach was in Same. They already waited in a small building what was a gift of Unicef. The team was very anxious to learn a lot what made the teaching very nice to do. The next day I teached the practical things like measuring bloodpressure and learning them how to give injections. ...

name: Sandy profession: docter nationality: Dutch I did my voluntary project in Atacames and surrounding. The welcome from the family was really nice and I felt at home straight a way. In these districts are working teams from promotores de salud who are giving medical attention to the poor people who are living far out. My job was to teach the promotores de salud about the most common childrensdiseases and how to reconize and treath them. The first day was a day to relax. One of the people from the organisation took me on a trip to Galera a little village with a lovely beach. In the evening the family showed me how to clean and prepare freshly catched fish. It tasted great. The first place I had to teach was in Same. They already waited in a small building what was a gift of Unicef. The team was very anxious to learn a lot what made the teaching very nice to do. The next day I teached the practical things like measuring bloodpressure and learning them how to give injections. ...

elcome To My Home Page Here is my report about the projects I visited. For a brief summary have a look at the "About Page". the coast In all the projects at the coast we stayed only about two days, because we were about to find out what the next volunteers can do there. In first case to have a better coordination in Quito. So it was a very special trip for Ecotracker-volunteers. From Quito we took the nightbus to Borbon and after some hours of waiting at that dirty place we managed to catch the first lancha(motorized canoe) of the day to San Jose. The sun was shining extremly strong for the whole three-hour-ride up the Rio de Cayapas and the narrow canoe of course didn't have a roof. So we were really glad as we finally arrived. San Jose is a remote village in the selva(special kind of forest) where the houses are still built in a traditional way and the first thing I noticed was the red soil. The poeple there are dark-skinned so we with our light skin were a big attr...

My Experiences in the Coast of Ecuador With the organisation Ecotrackers I spent two weeks in the Esmeraldas region (north coast) of ecuador. I was able to stay in two communities, Bunche and La Tolita. I also spent time in Muisne, Esmeraldas, La Tola, Bourbon and Las Peñas. The following includes a story of my travels and some practical information for transport etc. My time in Bunche Primarily I spent one night (27/2/04) in Muisne and a day at the lovely beach there. There is some good hostels there on the beach for -5 per night, also a small spanish school. The next day (28/2/04) I headed to Bunche where I stayed for 6 days. I stayed with Clemente and his family. There was always plenty of kids about and while initally I was called ´gringa´ by the end they all knew me as Lorena. While I was there I taught a bit of english in the school, helped out in the day care centre for children (1-5 yrs) and worked in the garden growing cocoa plants for sale. This enabled...

JUDE WRIGHT (AUSTRALIA) Work: Macara, Bunche(Esmeraldas), Los Tayos(Pastaza) ECUADOR 11-16 August 2000 Esmeraldas 18-23 August 2000 Pastaza Macara In a short stay of 2 days in His smail frindly community we tanght English + did someplanting with the kids. We were also shwn o sound and aherded a game oe sundey socces Bunche(Esmeraldas) In thisndelight ful town we stayed 3 days + were Jucky with the timing as it was non-stop fiesta. Here we photograped the natural arrounds to help promote eco-tourism, we also had a great journey in a dugout canoe to collect fresh water for 2 families and after dancing until 5am we attended 8am a christening of Il ninos. I had a fantastic time + met beatiful people who i miss alredy. If i ever return to Ecuador I'll be heading back to Bunche for sure. e-mail us Los Tayos(Pastaza) This was our forgest stay of 5 days and here we lived in the jungle with a shuar family. The aim hose was to promote eco-tourism, we were taken to see many of the natural w...

BUNCHE, ESMERALDAS FOTOS The visit was coordinated by Fernando Godoy, director of the Fundación de Desarrollo Social (social development foundation) based in Atacames. On the way to Bunche we stopped in the beachtown of Muisne. We arrived by motorboat since all access roads are not anymore. Señor Clemente Paneso, acting priest when the padre cannot make it from Muisne, had picked us up from Macará to escort us home. His sister in law, the unique Carmen, was to be our minder and landlady. She and a busy Paneso became tireless guides to many activities. We were lucky to arrive the same day as the town celebrates their patron saint, San Jacinto. A new statue carved in Cuenca was to replace the old and well loved wooden saint, and it was scheduled to arrive that day. In the afternoon the procession arrived by boat. San Jacinto was paraded through town by a large crowd who chanted rythmic hymns and escorted by drumming, before being taken to the church and placed along his predece...

This weekend we went with employers from Ecotrackers and other intrested people to chiquilpe! Chiquilpe is a community with tschila people who are painting there bodies and smear a red paste made from achiote fruit on their cropped hair. This weekend they were celebrating there new year! We where sleeping in cabanyas made from bamboe with a muddy floor, no door, and really hard beds! It's sittuated in a beautifull surounding so you are allready enjoning just being there! A little less you are enjoning in the evening when you will be bitten by muskitos, get cackroses in your clothes and don't sleep a lot! Friday night they were having a special ritual... to bad.. there where some tourist over there from Santo Domingo a place nearby who were making so many photo's that it gets enoring! So 1 tip: Be respectfull for the community and their whey of living. on saterday the whole happing took place on a little festival terain. 2000 Tschila people from 7 different communitys where ...

After a thrilling match of football against Uruguay, Ecuador is moving on to the Worldcup 2006 in Germany, where they will meet the top countries of the world. I had the privilige of watching the match in Quito, joined by many local football enthusiasts. Eventhough the quality of the match wasn't too high, the people were very excited and stayed positive until the last minute. Fortunately other matches finished in a positive score for Ecuador, so a 0-0 draw was enough to go to Germany. The party continued in the streets of the Mariscal, until the night turned into day again.