Eleniki

"Don't expect others to change your life - do it yourself"

Helen Roycroft

51 / Female

Dublin, Ireland

About Eleniki

Full Member | Member since 9th Mar 07

Citizenship: Ireland
Occupation: Musician
About Eleniki:

I am a musician by profession, and a teacher. I would have been a vet if I'd applied myself in science and biology. Maybe its not too late.....
I live with my partner. I travel as much as I can during the long (even longer in Ireland) school summers. I'm on a year off work right now, and travelled and volunteered in South America, Nepal and China from September '07 to May '08.
I'm very glad I worked in Ecuador and Nepal as well as travelling, because it gave me a very different perspective on the cultures and the people, something you just can't get as a tourist.

Hobbies:

Gardening, plants, trees, learning Spanish and Nepali, wildlife documentaries, world music/culture, environmental issues, cooking, hiking, travelling...

Favourite places:

Sarajevo in beautiful Bosnia; Kas in Turkey; the coastline of west-cork and kerry in Ireland; the Picos de Europa in Asturias, northern Spain; the Andes, most particularly the Quilotoa loop, south of Cotopaxi national park in Ecuador; Peru, for the richness of its culture, Nepal for its ochre and saffron farmlands and the hearts of its people.

Activity : photos (573) forum (125) guide (285) blog (16) diary (0) trips (0)

Latest Blog Entry

Amazonas

Posted by Eleniki | 10th April 2008

Lago Agrio ('Sour Lake') is only a short flight from Quito, but it's a vastly different landscape to the majestic Andean valley seat of Ecuador's sprawling capital, photographed here at dusk the night before we left it.

Situated in dense amazon basin rainforest near to the Colombian border in north-east Ecuador, the town is an unattractive jumble of concrete, laid out in the usual grid pattern. Its low altitude means that it's much hotter than Quito, and much wetter. Lago Agrio is not the safest of places - its uneasy proximity to Colombia's active border is made apparent by the presence of armed soldiers at the small airport. We were two of the very few tourists on board the flight; a small plane full of businessmen as smooth as the local oil they trade, and some additional military personnel. Interestingly, one of the latter, a woman, was stud

Continued | A year out