Never be so faithful to your plan that you are unwilling to consider the unexpected. Never be so faithful to your plan that you are unwilling to entertain the improbable opportunity that comes looking for you. -Elizabeth Warren
Thru-hiking and rolling up your sleeves to get your hands dirty in a greenhouse? How do those two activities match?
Notes on Slow Travel, the name of this website, speaks for itself and our way of slow travel has never been truer than on the Carian Trail. Having planned ample time for this 850-km-long hike through Southwestern Turkey, we always take up on invitations for tea or to stay at people’s homes.
This time, right after we start hiking the Datça Peninsula, we said ‘yes’ to volunteer in a greenhouse for three days.
It’s Day 3 of waiting out the storm, which hopefully will be our last before we can finally start our 850-km-long hike along the beautiful coast of Southwestern Turkey, called the Carian Trail.
When we wake up, it’s dry. Windy, but dry! That may sound like good news, however, it is terribly frustrating when spending the night in a hotel instead of on the trail based on a weather forecast that predicts continuous rain showers.
“Don’t wear leather items like shoes or a belt.”
According to its inhabitants, Andacollo is the most religious town of Chile. It features a basilica plus a second church, both of which are National Monuments. La Virgen de Andacollo is highly regarded and each first Sunday of the month she is paraded around the plaza in a procession. The first Sunday of October she is honored with a religious festival called La Fiesta Chico, but the spectacle of the year is in December: La Fiesta Grande, which lasts from the 23rd to the 27th.
I was looking out over the Mediterranean dotted with a couple of sailing boats. Low rolling hills line the horizon. The image was framed by Corinthian columns covered in flowering vines. I felt as if I was on vacation in Greece, Italy, or Spain. Did that make sense, with my being 9,350 feet above sea level, in Quito, Ecuador’s capital? Not really. 
I read some facts and figures about the Itaipu Dam that simply boggled my mind: