- September 2023 -
Spanish Course Cuenca & Volunteer Work in an Amazon Animal Rescue Center
(Ecuador)
First, let me say that I made so many new experiences and impressions during my travel to Ecuador... It was amazing! Read my story!
Spanish course in Cuenca
At my arrival in Cuenca I was picked up by a member of my host family, just like it was promised. I recognized the person immediately, he hold up a big sign with my name written on it. I was very relieved to see how easily everything worked out especially after the super exhausting flight. During the first part of my trip I participated in the Spanish course in Cuenca and during that time I stayed with my host family, who was very friendly and treated me like a member of the family. Even though we sometimes did not understand each other because of the language barriers, we had a very good time together. I booked a Spanish course with 20 private lessons during 2 weeks.
In the beginning I was a little skeptical towards the private lessons, however this changed with my first actual lesson. My Spanish teacher was very sympathetic and the private lessons with her enabled me to improve my rather scarce Spanish skills. Since the language school organized different activities in the afternoons, I was able to make contact with other students and we had a lot of fun together. My teacher gave me homework – but after all I wanted to learn something, so actual studying cannot be avoided. My Spanish skills improved very fast during these weeks, however I am still far away from being able to have an extensive conversation in Spanish. I additionally was very positively surprised from the city Cuenca. There are several museums as well as little or big parks which are worth visiting. The houses of the city are very pretty as well, so it was nice to just walk around in Cuenca. I was often alone and still never feared about my safety. Even during dark nights (at the latest at 18.30 it gets dark), I still considered Cuenca to be very safe.
After two weeks my stay in Cuenca came to an end. I drove with a bus during the night from Cuenca to Puyo. When I arrived in Puyo I got picked up by two workers of the animal rescue station, who drove with me through the jungle to the station. The first thing I discovered was a red macaw that was sitting on a near tree and every once in a while flew over the jungle. I was really impressed by that! Since I arrived on a Sunday, which is the free day for all volunteers, I had the opportunity to first get settled and have a wonder around. The enclosures for the animals are perfectly adapted to the animal’s needs and fit smoothly in the jungle – just as if they would belong there. It was very authentic that the paths leading to the enclosures were mostly only trails. The next day my actual work began, which included the preparation of the animal food, the cleaning of the house, cooking for the volunteers and the cleaning of the enclosures as well as the feeding of the animals. During the distribution of the tasks, it is taken care of that every volunteer does every task at last once. Since some animals were taken out of private households, they were very trusting. Already on my first day I made contact with a very friendly monkey lady, that immediately jumped on my shoulder and started searching me for louses.
During my stay in the animal rescue station, different species of monkeys, coatis, macaws, parrots, toucans and pigs lived among us. There were as well free-living big spiders and giant cockroaches, which you have to be careful about. One day I could witness when the animals were released, which sadly does not happen often, which was why I was very happy to experience that. The jungle life is super simple but amazing! It is hard to describe the feeling when you see a free-living monkey which jumps from one tree to another, as soon as you wake up. Additionally, the sounds the jungle makes are beautiful and sometimes I even miss them back home. All the volunteers got along very well so we spend all our free time and weekends together in Baños (a city, which is located 2 hours away from the station). The most important utensil in the jungle is by the way the machete, which I used to dissipate the food or to fell trees which were necessary to build new enclosures.
In addition, it was our task to catch grasshoppers for the monkeys. The assignments were very diverse and varied strongly. That is why we never got boring, because there is always something to do in the jungle! The sometimes physically exhausting work put me always a smile on my face at night because I realized I did something good for the animals.
In summary, I can say that my experience in the jungle exceeded my expectations. Everybody has thought about how life must be like in the jungle, but all these expectations are nothing compared to the reality. When one stands in the middle of the jungle and hears the different sounds and sees all the variety of plants and animals, you realize this is better than any expectation can ever be.
It has been insanely positive that I received only friendly answers to all my little questions from South America Inside. When I got nervous every once in a while, I got calmed down with calming words and was taken care of. For that reason: a big compliment to all of you at South America Inside!!