Summer Work Teams –

The time has arrived. School’s out and in addition to retreats we host short term missions teams from North America. Our first team, from Geneva, IL, just left leaving in its wake a pile of completed projects. An overnight trip down to the jungle/cloudforest gave the group a chance to see a bit more of Ecuador and interact with a community through an open gym night and visit an orphanage in Latacunga.

The 5th & 6th of June we hosted our largest overnight group ever. Over 120 people from Boehringer-Ingelheim pharmaceuticals stayed at El Refugio as part of a team building/survival experience in partnership with DeSempre, a corporate team building and leadership development company here in Ecuador. Each of the El Refugio staff was paired with a facilitator from DeSempre to assist in whatever logistic and safety issues might arise. The team I was with worked very well together and readily achieved the goals set before them in the activities. As part of the survival experience each group was given a live chicken though of the eight groups only one decided to make the chicken part of the menu. Overall the time went well.

Taking advantage of a few days of downtime at El Refugio in the latter part of May, a few of us hiked from El Tambo out to Antisana. The hike went well, we took our time over two days, six miles, and several thousand feet of elevation of change to meet up with a few others for a summit attempt of Antisana. We had beautiful weather the morning of our climb which made for an amazing panorama on the summit.. Photos here.