We took a night bus from Mancora to Trujillo and arrived at Helping Hands in Trujillo first thing in the morning. We had just enough time to get ready for the day before our leaders got there. I was with Luke and Jessica for the day and we were off to a bit of a late start. Before we were allowed to leave Helping Hands we had to complete this quiz about various people within Inca Link, there was about 20+ people we had to answer questions on and before we could get our next clue we had to get it 100% correct. This took longer than expected and we really only finished it because of a process of elimination. When we finally finished we had to get on a bus to Victor Raul, which is on the opposite end of Trujillo from where we were. No team was allowed to be on the same bus and since we were the last to arrive at the parade, we were the last to get on a bus. We probably waited about 40 mins before we were actually on our way. When we got there we had to make our way to the children’s home for our next challenge, which consisted of making 20 mud bricks. Luck made all the bricks, Jess and I just mixed the mud with the sand to make sure they weren’t too runny or anything. Got the bricks made and off the next challenge, which was pretty funny. I didn’t hear the whole clue at first, all I heard was the word ‘guinea pig’. I panicked! The one thing I didn’t want to have to do during the race was kill and prepare cuy (roasted guinea pig). Thankfully that is not what the clue said; we had to get a guinea pig from the pail and get him through this 10ft long tube without causing him to have a heart attack (otherwise then we would have to eat him... yuck!) We were the last team to do this challenge and the quickest/most efficient. Every team started by putting their guinea pig in and slowly lifting one end of the tube trying to get him to go out the other end. Everyone felt bad about putting the tube almost straight up and down. Yeah, we were by far the least humane group. Luke happened to have a plastic bag in his backpack... we put the guinea pig in the bag, wrapped him up, lifted the tube, and sent him flying downward. He was out within a few seconds. Though we were the quickest, we were also the only team who had to chase our guinea pig afterwards, he got out of the bag and took off (not that I blame him). I’m just glad that he didn’t die; that’s the one thing I don’t want to have to eat while I’m here: cuy. From there we had to get into a mototaxi and travel to the orphanage (a mototaxi is a motorcycle with a little cart type thing behind it). We all got there at the same time, but we were the first team to get in one because we were the only team to not walk past them. Once we got to the orphanage we had to clean a pair of windows (both inside and outside) and take six one-gallon buckets of sand to the roof (two per person). We had some trouble here because our window was right above the sandpit, every time someone took more sand our ‘floor’ shrank down farther. Anyways we finally finished, had lunch and then headed out again. From here we headed back into Trujillo and we had to get to this busy intersection and dance in the middle of the street in order to get our next clue. When the light went red we had to take a banner out into the street and try get as much attention as we could. Thankfully for me both Jess and Luke were fine with dancing crazily, I just ran around. The first time we went out the dancing was good, but we had to let the people read the sign better instead of switch sides ever couple of seconds. We got it on our second try. Then we had to get on yet another bus and travel towards Huanchoca (a small beach town about 30 minutes (or less) from Trujillo). We didn’t quite make it into Huanchoca, we got off just outside the town in the little treed area. We had to run around and find three orange envelopes which contained our next clue, or the pieces to our next clue. The area itself wasn’t that big, so it shouldn’t have taken that long to find them, but it did. The envelopes were hidden high in the trees, nothing was on the ground. We finally found them (and helped a few of the other teams find theirs because like I said in earlier posts, none of us were very good at the ‘racing’ bit). Once we got our envelopes we had to put the puzzle together before we could move on. From there we were done, we just needed to head to our pit stop for the day, which was a restaurant. We ended third this day. After we ate we headed back to the children’s home, because that is where we stayed for the rest of our time while in Peru. I can’t really remember what happened that evening because it was so long ago and so much has happened since.
Okay finally onto day 9, our final day of the race.
Our first challenge of the day was to pick our own teams; our only criteria was that we couldn’t be on the same team with someone that we had previously been on a team with and everyone had not been with one of the team leaders (excluding the day where there was only three teams of five people, otherwise everyone would have been with every team leader). I was never on a team with either Annie or Amber, and I hadn’t had Ben as a leader yet. They had both been together and they had both been on a team with Ben, so that didn’t work. My team for the final day was Ben, Vicky and myself. I loved being on teams with Vicky, we always had so much fun! Once our teams were decided we had to get on a bus to Huanchoca for our next challenge. Again, no team could be on the same bus as another team; our team was the second team to get on the bus because we won the rock, paper, scissors match for who went next (we all arrived at the parade at the same time so we figured this was the fairest way). We made it to the pier and received our next clue, which gave us two options in which to choose from: “a) One team member must take a wave and surf standing on the board for a minimum of 5 seconds counted by the judge before you can receive your next clue. b) Your team must braid 10 braids of the member of your team with the longest hair to the satisfaction of the judge.” Because we had Ben on our team, who is into all and good at all extreme sports, we decided to do the surfing one. Ben had never surfed before, but within a matter of minutes he was up and we were onto our next challenge. Our next challenge was a lot of fun; Totora relay race. For those who don’t know what a totora is, it is a long woven straw canoe-type boat. The guy from the shop in which they boats were rented from steered the boat, we just had to sit in the back and relax (and try not to fall off when we hit the waves). We had to go from the beach to the pier and then back before our next team member could get on and go (we had to make it to the beach, we couldn’t jump off in the water, we had to be on land). Once we were all done that we had to grab our stuff, hold hands and run to the far side of the beach to the Inca Link umbrella. This was our final pit stop; once we ran ‘through’ the banner we were done! Because Ben did not have any problems with the surfing challenge we were the first team on the final day. There was only one team that did the braiding, the rest tried surfing. Many people tried and then switched with someone else. A few people had to get others to hold their board for the full 5 seconds so that they could finally finish the challenge (Mandi was out there the longest, about an hour and a half trying. She got up the most times out of everyone; she just couldn’t hold it for 5 seconds, always one short). Once we were done (by 11:20 in the morning) we just chilled on the beach until everyone else was done. We had the surf boards all day so we could have tried surfing before we had lunch. I didn’t try before lunch, I just wanted to relax. I tried after lunch though. Julianne and I really wanted to go out, but we weren’t sure if wanted too because the waves were getting pretty big and we didn’t know if we wanted to get wet again. We did go because we realized that this was probably going to be only chance to try surfing because we didn’t know if we would have the chance to go to the beach in Ecuador (as most beaches are at least eight hours away from Quito, if not farther). We got into the wetsuits and went out with Luke. The first time we went out I couldn’t get past the waves, both Luke and Julianne were passed them, but I was having so many problems. I got knocked down by one and from there it was a struggle. I was getting tumbled around under water as though I was laundry in the washing machine. I would get above the water with just enough time to catch my breath before I was pushed under again. Eventually the waves just carried me back to shore, I was so discouraged! I had wanted to try surfing for so many years and the first time I go out I get beaten by the waves. Jules and Luke came back and we took a quick break to decide if we wanted to go back out there. I didn’t at first because I had a massive headache because of the saltwater and lack of oxygen for who knows how long, but I also knew that I would regret it if I didn’t try again. This time around Marian came with us and she knows how to surf so she told me how to get over the waves. For those who do yoga, basically you do the snake pose, pushing the board under the wave while you stay above it. Besides the paddling (I was getting tired) I had no trouble getting far enough out that we could sit on our boards and just wait for a good wave to come. We probably sat out there for about 20 minutes talking before we decided to actually try catch a wave. At this point it was somewhere around 5 p.m. so the waves were getting pretty big and aggressive. Out only goal (Julianne and I) was to just catch a wave. I caught a few waves and the closest I got to actually surfing was getting up on all fours on the board. I thought this was pretty good for not taking lessons and with the size of the waves I was glad to be able to kind of get up. The final wave took me right into a pile of boulders; thankfully the board hit them before I did. After we got back to shore, Jess and Sara took the boards out for a bit to give it a try. We left shortly after that and headed back to the children’s home because Sara and the Brian’s were heading back to Quito that night. A few more hours before we had to say goodbye, not fun! I hate goodbyes, and that was only the beginning of them! We went for Chinese and then just walked around Trujillo for a bit before we called it a night.
Finally! I got the race up and finished. Us interns who are serving in Ecuador this summer didn’t leave right away, we stayed in Trujillo for another three or four days for training. Training wasn’t too exciting; it was just nice to have time to hang out as a big group before we split up. Though I must say our final training exercise was pretty funny. It was a role play exercise, we each picked from a hat our role for the morning while we were picking corn from the field out back. There were three interns and the rest of us were a team from wherever. I got the role of encourager and had to find the good in everyone; I had more fun just watching everyone else get into their roles then playing mine. I would have done better as the quiet person who doesn’t talk (go figure). I could take the time and write about everyone and their roles, but that would take too long and this post is already a mile long. Lets just say it was really enjoyable, and also a good learning experience as we will probably have people on our teams that we’re leading this summer who will be like that (some of the roles consisted of complainer, hard worker (don’t care about anything else, just get the job done), quiet/shy people, cultural inappropriate, etc...). This was our last day of training, we finished in the morning and had the rest of the afternoon to pack (only us Ecuadorian interns) and chill. It was sad saying goodbye to everyone. We had just spent the past two weeks on this crazy adventure that took us all over Ecuador and Peru and then we had to say goodbye. The hardest part was knowing that this will probably be the last time some of us ever see each other. I know we’ll keep in contact via facebook, but it’s not the same.
Gustavo, Reese, Mandi, Julianne, Ben and I took the night bus from Trujillo to the Ecuador/Peru border and to the immigration office to get our passports stamped saying we are back in the country of Ecuador. We then took a bus to Santa Rosa to pick up the 15 passenger van that had broken down while we were on our way to Peru. The van was left with the church there to get fixed up so we could take it back to Quito when we were done the race. The bus ride from Trujillo to the border was eleven – twelve hours, and then about an hour from the border to Santa Rosa and then another ten or so hours to Quito. It was a long day! Gustavo drove and since there wasn’t that many of us we took turns napping on the beach seats in the back. To keep this short, lets just say that Gustavo is the scariest person I’ve ever driven with. In Ecuador no one wears a seatbelt, vehicles have them but no one wears them. We were (and still are) in the habit of not wearing them (it’ll be weird being back in Canada where the driving isn’t nearly as crazy but it is still required by law to wear them). Anyways, every time Gustavo would drive over a speed bump he would go slow for the front wheels and then speed up again before the back wheels had cleared it. We went flying every time! I haven’t gotten motion sickness in a very long time, but that drive back to Quito has now, once again, made me sensitive to driving. We finally got back to Casa Blanca just before midnight. It was nice to be home and have access to all our clothes, as we had been living out of a school backpack for two weeks.
We’ve done a lot since being back, I talked about a little of it in previous posts, but I’ll fill you in on it more later.
Until next time!
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