My daughter and I took the same trip. She was bummed out and I felt good about things. The difference between our two experiences was that I read the blogs carefully, and was emotionally prepared for a lot of downtime. She skimmed the blogs and was not prepared for that at all.

Within minutes we met our greeters when we arrived at the airport in Quito. They took us to where we were staying in Quito and that went smoothly. We stayed with Rinaldo in Quito who had other travelers staying with him. Most of them were fluent in English. Until we arrived at our site the language barrier was not a problem.

Once we arrived at our site the language barrier was a problem. I spoke pigeon Spanish and our hosts spoke pigeon English. We were able to communicate with each other at the level of - These are our needs. That meant that we able to do our jobs in Quayaquil and understand what each of us wanted at home and on the job. Of course, the problem with that is that it is not very emotionally satisfying.

At the center we cleaned cages, fed the animals, and most important of all, played with the animals. That was totally fun. We spent half the day doing that, and the other half of the day killing time. The killing time part, I was prepared for. I'm a voracious reader, and brought my Kindle, where I had downloaded a dozen books before I arrived. I ended up reading them all. My daughter was not prepared for that, and only brought two books which she felt the need to ration to 70 pages/day.

In the evenings my daughter watched television while I read. There are about half a dozen English speaking stations with Spanish subtitles. I normally watch TV back in the states, but had very little desire to watch TV down there. I must admit I'm spoiled. I tape everything at home, and fast forward through the commercials. I also watch Netflix.

On Thursday of the first week we got rabies shots, which are $25/shot. In the States they're about $175/shot. You're supposed to get 3 shots, a week apart. We decided not to get our 2nd and 3rd shots because the animals never broke skin when they gently bit us. Speaking of disease prevention, one mistake that we made was taking malaria pills. Guayaquil is too high to have any mosquitoes. I have a better chance of getting malaria back home, near Washington, DC.

My daughter got sick and we felt the need to check in with our insurance carrier. One pleasant surprise was that it cost $5 to see a doctor, which was $20 less than what our co-payment would have been. She felt better after she took the medicine the doctor recommended.

We looked forward to Tuesdays and Fridays. Those were the days we would go to the market to buy food for the animals, and our host would treat us to breakfast at the market. We would bring the food back to Guayaquil and husk corn, peel lettuce, and of course feed the animals. One thing that my daughter loved to do was feed a blind giant turtle. The other two turtles could eat the food when it was dropped in from of them, but the blind turtle had to be hand fed. It was a very nice bonding experience.

On the weekends we went to the market in Otavalo and picked up some nice shirts, blankets, and trinkets for an excellent price. We also went to the river with our hosts and their extended family. That was a lot of fun as well. My daughter, who is under 18, wanted to go bungee jumping but I vetoed that idea.

Finally, it was time to depart. We could have stayed at the hotel that Gabriela had set up for us in Quito, but we felt we would just as soon stay with our host family in Ibarra, and leave in the morning. Our plane departed at 23:40, so Gabriela let us leave our stuff at her house while we explored Quito. All in all, it was a worthwhile trip.

I've posted some photos, on picasa, but don't have the patience to download them. If you would like to view them, here is the link: https://picasaweb.google.com/113322411392356973674/Ecuador

• Ecuador
• Guayaquil
• Animal
• wildlife
• rescue