- Multiple entire streets are lined with vendors selling taffy, tangerines, and sugar cane at small stands. In the States it would be like eighteen McDonalds and Wendys on one block, all lined up, and sharing walls! And we think pharmacies and gas stations on every corner is a little much!
- The rest of the streets are lined with hostels, massage parlors, restaurants, internet cafes, and adventure tours (offering bungy jumping, horseback riding, whitewater rafting, jungle excursions, etc).
- Garbage is collected every night by a dump truck blaring the ice cream truck tune!!
- Many, many, many private and city walls are covered in really neat murals and graffiti. There is such an abundance of it and it is such great art that CJ and I have already devoted two days to walking around taking pictures of it, totaling over 350 pictures, and there is still more we want! We collect art from everywhere we travel and our piece from Ecuador is going to be a book of our graffiti and mural pictures!
- They don’t flush toilet paper down the toilet. It all (and I mean ALL) goes in a little trashcan sitting next to the toilet. This is true for private homes, as well as businesses.
- Every funeral includes a walking funeral procession down the narrow one-way streets of Banos.
- Guinea pig is a delicacy. They cook it by roasting the entire guinea pig (eyes, tail, claws and all) on a stick over a grill. CJ and I are going to try it this week.
- Banos is named after it’s world-renowned hot baths, which according to National Geographic offer the greatest health benefit of any hot baths in the world. At the hot baths there are pools of murky light brown water, rich in nutrients and heated by the volcano, as well as cold swimming pools. You are supposed to go back and forth from the hot to the cold nine times, sitting in each for a few minutes.
- Lunch is the most important meal of the day and children get out of school at 1 pm to go home for lunch. It’s crazy in town around that time as there are hundreds of school kids walking in packs and messing around with each other.
ARTE DE MUNDO
We have served at Arte del Mundo (a.k.a. the Bib) for two weeks and things are going wonderfully! The organization offers an adult and children’s library and after-school program from 3:30pm-6:30pm Monday-Friday, as well as English classes for adults and kids from 2pm-8pm Monday-Thursday. CJ teaches two 30-minute guitar classes each day, one for girls and one for boys. Once his lessons are over he helps with the after-school program (usually playing chess with the kids) and does miscellaneous beautification/construction projects around the property. I’ve been helping in the two activity rooms by playing games with the kids (Uno, Jenga, Set, Dutch Blitz) and doing projects (making bookmarks and jewelry), helping in the children’s library by reading to and being read to by the kids, and also getting involved in the kid’s photography class. It is a really fun place and the kids love it.
CASA DE RICARDO
As far as our living arrangements go, it’s quite the experience! We are living with an American man, Richard, and his Ecuadorian girlfriend, Carmen. He spent the majority of his life moving around the world building and restoring houses (beginning with no experience) and through doing that has lived in 20 different countries! Richard also had a pineapple farm in Costa Rica, was a Buddhist Monk in Japan (though at this point he has “a low opinion of all religions”), and I can’t even imagine what else! Everyday is an adventure to say the least. Carmen is a masseuse with her own massage business in town. They are housing us for free in a rustic 3-story home Richard restored, in exchange for us working in their garden an hour or two each day. They have amazing flower gardens and a fruit orchard with oranges, tangerines, lemons, limes, walnuts, and avacados. We are currently planting a vegetable garden (so they can sustain themselves when the world turns to chaos).
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