Name: James Bender
Gap Year Project: Culture & Language School Ecuador
Galapagos Island Teaching Volunteer

Before starting the project I knew no Spanish at all but the language school is fantastic, very good fun, and you meet lots of other people there. It's very conveniently located as well, just 10 mins walk from "Gringo Land", and I spent a lot of time in a place called "Papaya Net". It's a really nice internet Café with cheap international phone calls (Around 10 cents a min), Internet is $1 per hour, and they do 2 cocktails for $3! Plus the food is good, BBQ chicken wings are highly recommended!

When I got to the Galapagos, I was placed in Puerta Ayora on Santa Cruz and living with the Rueda family, they are lovely. I was teaching in the Loma Linda School, it's a private school along the sea front teaching Kinder garden, 1st & 2nd Grade, so they are all little...and a little bit lively!  I wasn't teaching them on my own though, there was a teacher in the class with me, and she speaks very good English, which helps. When it comes to the teaching though, it really was up to me just how involved I was, you can do as much as you want. Everything is taught from a syllabus, which makes it less confusing, and it basically walks you through the exercises you do with the kids. School starts at 7:20am and finishes between 12 and 1pm depending on the day, it was quite tiring, but it's lots of fun and the kids are fantastic.

I had a fantastic time away, and got to see lots of cool things and went to some very cool places. With the language school in Quito, they generally arrange a trip away every weekend for the students and they are well worth going on.  Whilst there I went to Mindo, Otovalo and the Amazon, there are other places I would have liked to have been as well, Banos is one that I have heard is worth going to, especially as the volcano there has been erupting for the last month or so.

Went to Isabella for 4 days, which is very nice. Although it is the biggest Island in the Galapagos, it is only inhabited by about 2000 people. It is a 2-3 hour boat journey away from Santa Cruz, and costs $30 one-way. I recommend booking your accommodation in advance if you do go, but that is easy enough to do in the shops in Santa Cruz. Highly recommend 1 night in "La Casa Del Marita" (at least I think that's the name!) if you fancy 1 night of luxury, it's about $100 for the suite, and you get your own Jacuzzi. It is the nicest place to stay on the Island. There are decent budget places to stay too.

There are a few trips to do in Isabella, you can go to some lava tunnels with a group, and that is a whole day but very cool apparently, also you can do a horse ride up to Sierra Negra (The 2nd biggest volcano crater in the world). Nearly forgot, there is also a tortoise breeding centre on Isabella which you can visit. They have hundreds of tortoises there, all the different species from the Galapagos, ranging from newborn to well over 100 years old! Very cool place to go for a stroll to one day.