Last Day
On Saturday, we were free to do as we pleased until 4.30pm when we would have a final meeting to debrief and talk about how we could improve future distributions.
Tonya, Chris and I had decided that we would use this time to do some sightseing and shopping.
One of the places we wanted to visit is called “Santa Ana”. It is a huge hill with lots of art shops and restaurants along the way. One of the more unique characteristics is that they have numbered the stairs.
One thing we noticed throughout the week was that Ecuadorians were not shy of doing hard work. Case in point, this working moving crates of bottles.
We saw a lot of nice sites on our walkabout, so here are a few of them:
Being a port of call, there are a lot of nautical and pirate themed things to see. One area had a many displays about cannons and pirate ships. There was even restaurant that was built to look like a pirate ship.
Eventually, we reached the top of Santa Ana! Step 444!
Here are a few pics from the top! These were taken in sequence starting with the Malecon boardwalk, then downtown, and then a poorer neibourghood. If you were to drive from left to right, it would not take you more than 10 minutes. It’s hard to see such richness close to such poverty, but it seems to be very common in developping nations.
After Santa Ana, we visited a huge local market with lots of arts and crafts for sale.
Our last evening of the trip was aboard an official Ecuadorian Navy training vessell. They “Guyas” is a training sail ship with a compliment of 15 officers and 150 sailors. It made for an absolutely beautiful setting to spend our last night saying goodbye to our new friends.
Our club was well represented:
On the day we visited the schools, our team was chaufered by our friend Gonzalo. We found an engraving shop around the hotel, so we had one made with “#1 Chauffer” written on it. Here is our team presenting it to him and his wife.
On our trip, we actually had 5 Assistant Governors from our District. We thought we should get a photo to show DG Richard that we were hard at work representing our district team!
I had brought a Canadian flag for display at our wheel chair distributions. At the end of the night, I presented to the flag to our Ecuadorian project lead (Octavio, on the left) and Jaime, the club president. Octavio was translating my comments that by giving their club the flag, it was a symbol of our friendship and the hope to work together again in the future.
At one point, the Rotarian’s wives presented each woman on the team a beautiful bracelet and scarf. The guys were presented with a shot glass.
We were given the chance to go on a tour of the ship. After the tour, the ladies saw some of the crew hanging out and of course, we had to get a photo!
As I write this post, I am sitting in Miami airport waiting for our flight to Toronto. Although the trip is all but over, I do plan on posting a couple more times with more pictures. There is only so much I could do while on the trip!
I am also reflecting more on this trip and trying to deal with some of the things I have seen today. At the duty free shop, I found a great deal on a bottle of Remy Martin XO…. and then I realized that for the $120 I would spend on this bottle, I could send a child to school for an entire year. A year that could forever improve a child’s life. In the past, I would think nothing of spending that kind of money on something I really enjoyed, and it’s not like I plan on living like a monk, but I do see things differently after this experience.
This trip has reminded me of some of the life changing decisions I made when I returned from El Salvador last year. It seems that an annual tip like this helps to keep me grounded and in touch with what is really important in life.
Today is also a very important day in my life. It was a year ago today that Christina and I started dating. It ahs been a very busy year, and yet it seems to have gone so quickly. I am one very very lucky man!
To all my friends at home, see you soon! To all the friends I left behind in Ecuador, I will not say good bye, but rather, Until we meet again.
