Take It Like A Mangrove

Two important events occurred today.

One was that I bought an alarm clock. A really crappy one--for two bucks, from a street vendor, who had to set it for me. Later I had to go back to have him explain to me how he did that because "Para mi, no funciona," as I explained to him in my best 8th-grade level Spanish. Okay, maybe high school level. But not a really smart high schooler.

The other event was that I missed my bus, the one leaving at 6:45am, the only bus of the day to Muisne, a town in the Esmeraldas province of northwestern Ecuador (see map). It was also the only bus containing my new friend, Claire, who's English, and who was probably not all too happy with me this morning when I stumbled over to our meeting spot 10 minutes late, without my baggage, to tell her to go on without me, because I had overslept and besides, I couldn't check out of my hostel because no one was awake. In other words, I flaked. Geez, and I'm older too--she's 22. But, you know, she's European. Our learning curve is a little different...

The important thing, though, is that I have another chance. I bought another bus ticket, for tomorrow, and if my pint-sized clock does what it claims it will, I'll begin a 9-hour trip tomorrow morning at 6:45am.

I'm not going where I said I was going to go. I was planning on volunteering, for three weeks, at a place called La Hesperia--a biological reserve/farm/tropical mountain gorgeousness hub. But upon learning that it typically hosts around 20 volunteers, most of them English-speaking, I decided to try out a little different, smaller, more distant place, where my Spanish skills are more likely to improve, thanks to the "tough love" teaching methods unwittingly employed by those Ecuadorians who don't speak a word of English. I also took into account my lack of cold weather clothing (I'll try not to rub it in... really though, I did have long underwear, purple ones, before the Costa Rica Thief decided he needed them more than I did) and the fact that as much as I live for farming, especially farming of things that don't take any work to love, like pineapple, I'm feeling a little sustainabilitied out at the moment (more on that later), and the goal for this trip is simply to follow my nose, not my predetermined values, or my brain. Or the gringo train, for that matter.


So, as it happens, I'll be following my nose (appropriately) to a rather odorific and apparently beautiful, locale: Congal Reserve. Odorific (I predict) because they raise fish there--shrimp, land crabs, fish, agouti (huh?), clams, and small iguanas (don't ask me what they do with those). And beautiful because it's on the beach, amidst mangroves, in the Western Choco-Darien bioregion, which is incredibly biodiverse. I have to take a short canoe ride to get from the town where my bus drops me off to the site itself. Actually (aw geez) that's a lie. I have the option of taking a canoe. But the jeep is cheaper. Dangit.

As for what I'll be doing at Congal, I am told that it will include the following: "Mangrove and tropical forest restoration, working in organic gardening and fruit orchards, harvesting mangrove clams with women’s groups, harvesting of bamboo, tagua, toquilla and other wild fruits/seeds, participation in shrimp, fish and crab harvests from aquaculture ponds, and handicrafts." I am so going to rock those handicrafts.

Anyway. I don't know where and when I'll next encounter the mighty Wi-Fi signal, so I'll see you when I see you. Heck, it could be in ten minutes. Or it could be "un ratito," as they say, which translates to "a cute little while."