Chase went to Ecuador with Eagle Condor Humanitarian.
The morning I left.
Getting ready to board the plane in Salt Lake.
This was in the airport in Mexico-they said it was candy
In Quininde
Quito, capital of Ecuador--View from hotel
LDS church in Galapagos
Streets in Galapagos
Galapagos hotel room
Hotel in Galapagos
This is in the Galapagos Islands outside a bakery
This was at the hotel in the Galapagos. They had hammocks everywhere.
This was a public bus in Quininde. In the Galapagos, their taxis were little white pick up trucks. You would put your luggage inside the truck and then ride in the bed of the truck.
Galapagos
Looking out the hotel door in the Galapagos
Hotel in Galapagos. The white blocks are whale vertibrae used as stools.
They took us to a giant tortoise preserve.
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| Breakfast in the Galapagos. For the most part, food was pretty normal here. |
This was the LDS church in the Galapagos. All of it was in spanish. We got there a little late, so they gave us the sacrament later without blessing it. We just went to sacrament meeting. We had to sing acapella.
This is Kicker Rock in the Galapagos. We took a boat out there and went snorkeling. They didn't have lifejackets for anyone so we just swam all around the rock. We saw a hammerhead shark, six or seven reef sharks, 3 sea turtles, and a lot of fish. I swam into that little crack you see, and a sea lion was in there. It was dark so I didn't see it at first and it swam 3 feet away from me. I thought it was a shark and it really scared me.
Really fuzzy pictures of snorkeling-hammerhead shark
Sea Turtle
Reef Shark and fish
In Quito, Ecuador
Weird ducks in the Galapagos
Iguanas in the Galapagos. The ones we saw were about 2 feet. They are usually camouflaged on the rocks and we almost stepped on them.
There were a ton of these red crabs everywhere.
Sea Lions -Galapagos They coughed and made grunting noises like humans. They were really tame.
Darwin's cove on the Galapagos. We snorkeled here and saw mostly fish and crabs. Some people saw stingrays here.
On the boat to Kicker Rock
Climbing a fire pole to a tree house
After snorkeling
Blue-footed booby. We saw one on a rock while on the boat, but I didn't get a picture.
Galapagos-on the boat
Galapagos
This was the middle of the world between Quito and Quininde. The Latitude and Longitude are 0,0.
Back Row L-R Taylor Lowry, Bishop Lowry, Lance L., Sis L., Hannah, Mike Sheffner, Emma, Remington, Sandy, Missy (Main Leader)
Front-Landon, Jessi, Doug, Thomas, me, Bro. Sheffner,
Kurt-(one of our Leaders) on ground
Leaving the Galapagos
From Quito, we took a 5-hour bus ride to Quininde. Then we got on these canoes and went 3 hours to the village of Guayacana. They are carved from one log. We had to get out and walk in some places because it was too shallow.
On the bus to Quinide
One of the houses in Guayacana
The kids liked to wear my hat
The canoe ride
The LDS church in the village. We weren't there for Sunday so we didn't go, but this is where we slept.
Across the river and about a mile into the jungle was a spring. The locals had to cut their way through with machetes because there wasn't a trail there. We carried these boards up to dam the river, then we carried bags of concrete to put around the spring. We then hooked a pipe to a tank of water. From the tank, there was a pump that pumped water to the other side of the river into another tank. This was where they would get their drinking water. It was so hot, even though we rarely saw the sun because of the all the fog/humidity.
Mixing concrete
A little stream that feeds into the big river
Swimming
These are papaya
Guayacana. There are five villages in Guayacana with about 500 people. We were in the main village with the school and church.
The women weave fans and baskets for money.
A grasshopper
Wild bananas, pineapple, and papaya grow there. They farm cacao. That is their biggest money maker.
grasshopper
Found this tarantula while working
The first night we got there they had Family Night. I am close to the front on the right side of the picture. We sang a hymn, then people bore their testimony in spanish. Most of the people there speak the Chachi language, but a lot speak spanish. Our leader, Missy, interpreted for us.
Paid $2 for a hair cut. The man had pictures on his wall and I just pointed to one.
Our beds in the church.
We ate a lot of soups. The branch president's wife cooked for us every meal. This is some kind of tuber and fern soup. We ate a lot of rice, plantain, beans, lentils, and chicken. There aren't a lot of fish in the river, so it is considered a delicacy. We didn't eat any while we were there. The men in the village made spear guns out of balsa wood, elastic bands, and wire. They would try to catch fish when they could.
Tuber, rice, fern, papaya
Sugar cane. You just chew it and suck all the sweet juice out then spit out the fiber. I ate a lot of it.
We bathed in the river. Whenever we went to clean up, all the little kids would run out into the river with us.
There were around 300 kids in the five villages combined. They were super energetic and crazy. I had some candy, and anytime I got it out, they would maul me. They would crawl on top of me until I fell down and then take it from me. We were handing it out the first couple days, but we had to stop because there were roving gangs of kids out to get us.
On a work break. We had to wear these boots in the jungle because of the snakes. I also had to take malaria pills and get a yellow fever and tetanus shot.
A house where a few families lived.
Working. This area was steeper so we had an assembly line for the bags of cement here.
Carrying the water pipe
Cacao pods
Inside a cacao pod
Drying Cacao beans. We drank hot cocoa made from these beans. They added sugar to ours.
Frog
Taking a bath in the river.
We helped with eye exams while we were there.
Washing their clothes in the river. We would eat something, then they would rinse our dishes in the river and put more food it it. I got really sick the last day we were there.
Leaving the village
