Escape to Coroico

24 Jan 2013 3 Comments

by Mo in Family Gap Year, Travelling Tags: , ,

As reported by dearest Hubby, we have indeed split up, well just for a few days anyway! The more hardy family members staying in Copacabana to explore further whilst Lara, Erika (Martin’s mum) and I take a bus to La Paz from Lake Titicaca (involving a short lake crossing where the bus floats across on a dubious looking ferry (raft?)
20130124-134317.jpgThe coach crossing Lake Titicaca on its ferry come raft

… passengers, thankfully take a small boat…then a cab across the city and a minivan straight on to Coroico, two and a half hours away and a massive 2500m drop in altitude!
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A Gap Year Christmas in Cusco

13 Jan 2013 3 Comments

by Mo in Family Gap Year, Foodie Central, Top Experiences, Volunteering Tags: , ,

Feliz Navidad from Cusco, Peru…. no, too late for that! In fact two days ago, 11th January 2013, was exactly 6 months since we started our Family Gap year adventure…even Feliz Ano Nuevo is belated!  At least this blog post will bring us to the end of 2012 and to the New Year!

We arrived in Cusco on a flight from Lima on 19th December 2012 and settled in for a few days at the Amaru ll guest house, ready to celebrate Lara’s 5th birthday and enjoy the buzz of Christmas in Cusco.  Here’s our Christmas Cusco diary……

Our Cusco Christmas 2012

Our Cusco Christmas 2012

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Galapagos Exploring and Goodbyes

30 Dec 2012 8 Comments

by Mo in Family Gap Year Tags: , , , , , ,

One of the highlights of our family gap year is drawing to a close – it’s Week 5 in the Galapagos and our last days in San Cristobal island, most easterly and oldest in the archipelago where we’ve been volunteering and going to school. Now it’s time to say our goodbyes and go exploring!  Having rejected an uber-expensive cruise, we’re making it up and planning a bit of island hopping which actually makes for a very affordable family adventure!

Monday is the girls’ last day at school. Tuesday is Ben’s – but they ask him to come back Wednesday for a goodbye party! Martin and I say goodbye to the head teacher and receive heartfelt hugs, thanks and invites to return. Then we head to the airport to meet Erika, Martin’s Mum, aka Oma (German for Grandma) who’s flown out to join us till February…

She's here!!! Welcome to San Cristobal Oma:)

She’s here!!! Welcome to San Cristobal Oma:)

Great excitement and joy seeing her and with all the catching up as we head to lunch, she twists her ankle in the first 30 minutes on a crooked pavement! Now there are two of us hobbling! Our plans to walk everywhere for a whistle-stop tour of the local beaches and Malecon of Puerto Baquirez Moreno are somewhat scuppered. More

Galapagos Volunteering – Part Five. Accidents will happen…

30 Dec 2012 1 Comment

by Mo in Education & Schooling, Family Gap Year, Looking Back, Volunteering Tags: , ,

Things seldom work out as planned!  Our first week of volunteering was full on as you can read in the previous volunteering blogs. I couldn’t say we knew what to expect, although we could only hope it would be the start of an amazing experience – and in many ways it was!

Our first weekend should be a real treat too! We’re excited to explore and armed with a long list of recommendations, it starts well! We spend Saturday in El Progresso in the Highlands enjoying El Ceibo Treehouse and Cafe. Martin has already told the treehouse story.  Then a glorious afternoon at La Loberia  beach, where the kids play with tiny crabs in the sand with Ben’s friend from school, we chat to a teacher from the high school, watch, listen to and dodge the many sea-lions and newborn pups, see hundreds of iguana trails in the sand.

Friends, Crabs, Sealions and Iguana trails at La Loberia

Friends, Crabs, Sea-Lions and Iguana trails at La Loberia

We try to brave swimming in the cold (yes, even on the equator!)  rocky, low tide water to look for turtles but are too wimpish and headed for an early supper! More

Galapagos Volunteering – Part Four. Five go to school!

18 Dec 2012 4 Comments

by Mo in Education & Schooling, Family Gap Year, Volunteering Tags:

You probably read about our arrival and first days in San Cristobal in Martin’s Galapagos Volunteering Part One, Part Two and Part Three. Following on, here’s my own tale of teaching in our first week!

After the frenzy of getting all five of us to school by 7.15am, Ben and Martin have headed off to their classes, whilst the headmistress takes me and the girls to our classes. We take Lara into Form 1, she goes in fairly happily – brave girl!

Zoe is next and is shown to 4a and I’m shown next door to 4b. I’m introduced to the expectant kids and it dawns on me that there is no teacher?!

‘Where is the teacher?’ I ask in my best Spanish!!

The Head shakes her head and says a lot in Spanish very fast – I can’t really follow but I pick up lots of Usted’s (a polite ‘you’) – I reply ‘solo yo??’ (Only me??) she replies ‘si!’ (Yes!) with a slightly sheepish grin!

I can’t think of a polite response in English, never mind Spanish, that will get me out of it so I simply give her my best look of horror and ask if she’ll help by explaining to me what to do?! She hands me four course books, and I think says ‘Just start with Unit 5 in all subjects’, points to the timetable on the wall, suggests something about getting the kids to show me around the school once we’ve done introductions? … She beams and wishes me luck and leaves….

Teacher Mo in Class 4b at Alejandro Alvear school, San Cristobal

Teacher Mo in Class 4b at Alejandro Alvear school, San Cristobal – I may look calmer than I really am!

Twenty five beaming faces are on me, about twenty three voices are shouting ‘teacher teacher teacher?’  More

Settled in Quito! Almost feels like home!

03 Dec 2012 4 Comments

by Mo in Education & Schooling, Family Gap Year Tags: , ,

We rent a gorgeous apartment in Quito for the next two weeks in the city, situated in a pleasant suburb just up the slopes from the Mariscal New Town in a wide quiet street. From the street there are great views over the city, the apartment is tucked behind a secure wall and gate, loads of character and is attached to the owner, Sandra’s home. She’s always on hand to help us should we need it and even calls us when its raining to see if we’d like her to call a taxi for us. There is a huge lounge and dining room, good kitchen, separate TV area, three bedrooms, huge bathroom and even an ironing room which is a fleeting novelty for me!

quito apartment collage

Our lovely home for two weeks in Quito

Monday 22nd October 2012

Exhausted from our first day of filming and late night in our new career as movie stars (!) we have a lazy late start in our new apartment, eventually wandering out for great cake and coffee in a local bakery. Then an outing to the supermarket to stock up on provisions! You cannot imagine what a treat this is for everyone and we get terribly excited filling our trolley!!! More

Travellers In(n) Quito

27 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

by Mo in Education & Schooling, Family Gap Year Tags: , , , , , , ,

We spent almost a month in Quito (a big chunk of our family gap year), busy attending Spanish school and enjoying just being in one place. Here’s the account of our arrival and  first two weeks staying at the lovely Travellers Inn…..

Monday 8th October 2012

We leave Coca and the Amazon rainforest on a bus that leaves at 12.30pm and is supposed to take around  7 hours, climbing up into  the high Andes, from little above sea level to nearly 3000 meters.  When I bought tickets two days ago, why, oh why didn’t I make sure this bus went via  Loreto, South West of Coca, and not Nueva Loja, North East of Coca and up near the Columbia border? (Martin reminds me that I went for the $9 bus fare rather than the $10 one!)

In the shiny new Coca bus station going from booth to booth, I clear forgot to check the route although I asked what time it arrived in Quito and was told 8pm which sounded pretty good to me!

We board to find no air con and no working toilet but the seats are comfy and there’s hardly anyone on board – excellent!

Not excellent.

The girls snooze on the long journey!

The bus pulls out of the terminal and immediately pulls over for half of the population of Coca province  to board. Then it proceeds to drop off and pick up passengers every hundred meters or so for approximately 2 hours. Often vendors get on and sell sweets, empanadas, fruit, pens and some get on and stand at the front and seem to be preaching to anyone who’ll listen, then they hand out sweets, no doubt to the converted! More

A few days of R & R in Coca, Ecuador

13 Nov 2012 1 Comment

by Mo in Family Gap Year

At the end of our hot but amazing river journey from Belem in Brazil to Coca in Ecuador,  Hotel Le Mision was quite a find!

There isn’t much listed on trip advisor or Hotelbooking.com which both list only posh jungle lodgings 20km or more out of town. We’d read Coca was a bit of a dusty, dull, oil town but when we walked into Le Mision, it was clear everyone would want to stay a few days and we could wait to get to Quito where it will be much cooler and we won’t be swimming!

A hot stormy day at Le Mision, Coca

It’s a quirky place, right on the river in between a rusty old bridge and beautiful new one paid for with oil money – its so new that it doesn’t appear on Google Earth.

The old bridge at Coca, Ecuador

Sunset over the Napo and Coca’s brand new bridge with the unusual addition of the grounded aeroplane boat!

Part hotel, part restaurant, part zoo, part curio museum with an old passenger aircraft who’s wings have been chopped and a double decker bus both converted into boats moored at the rivers edge!

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Rio Napo – Diary Days 10-11 Nuevo Rocaforte and El Coca

07 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

by Mo in Family Gap Year

So the publishing of the diary is a little behind, for which I apologise – we’re almost a month I from here and just flown from Quito to the Galapagos. I’ll blame it on wifi (lack of) internet connections (lack of) Spanish lessons (a lot of and hard work making my brain dredge up what I learned 30 years ago at Kings Manor Comp! General family life on the road / not on the road (which after all is for living not blogging!) Oh and the random deletion by my iphone of my Napo River diary so that it all had to be re-written and remembered – gutting! I’d spent many hours in my tent keeping up to date! But finally, here’s our last two days on the river traversing the great continent as far as Puerta Francisco de Orellana, aka Coca!

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The journey so far to Coca, Ecuador

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Halloween and El Dia de Los Difuntos in Quito

02 Nov 2012 1 Comment

by Mo in Education & Schooling, Family Gap Year, Foodie Central Tags: , , , , , , , ,

With apologies to those enjoying our blog in date order, I’m fast forwarding to say an almost timely Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from Ecuador!

Halloween is certainly recognised in Ecuador. It’s the eve of All Saints Day after all and this is a Catholic country. But without much of the Halloween hype we’ve come to know back home.

Much more important is this Friday, November 2nd – the Day of the Dead, or more respectfully El Dia de los Difuntos (Day of the Departed) which, together with All Saints Day today, is a National holiday and a special time of year when families gather together and pay respect to their elders and those loved ones who’ve passed away, visiting and tending to family graves together, socialising with other families around them, young children playing at the gravesides.

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