The 100 Best Volunteer Vacations to Enrich Your Life Part 6

CENTER FOR CULTURAL INTERCHANGE.

work in an argentine soup kitchen.

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA.

To ease another's heartache is to forget one's own.

-Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States 21 A hundred years ago, Argentina was one of the wealthiest countries in the world. But by 2001, after a series of political and economic crises, the government was forced to default on $93 billion in debt, the biggest default in world history, plunging the country into a deep depression. After considerable upheaval, Governor Nestor Kirchner was elected president in May 2003. During his term, Argentina invested in public works, restructured its defaulted debt, paid off other debt, reworked utilities contracts, and nationalized some private ent.i.ties.

In the past five years, Argentina has been enjoying economic growth again. Yet despite his popularity, Kirchner chose not to run for reelection as his term was drawing to a close in 2007. Instead, he supported the campaign of his wife, Senator Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. After winning the October 2007 election by a landslide, the senator became Argentina's first female president. She began her four-year term on December 10, 2007.

Unfortunately, Argentina's once-solid middle cla.s.s has yet to fully recover from the fallout of the economic crisis. Many still live in poverty with limited access to education, health care, and good-paying jobs. The gap between the rich and the poor has become nearly as wide as the country that makes up nearly the entire bottom half of the South American continent is long.

That's the bad news. The good news is that Argentina, as a country, still possesses extreme natural beauty, a lively, refined culture, great restaurants, nightlife, and shopping. Only now, thanks to its once devalued currency, it's all the more affordable for those who still have money, or are coming from outside the country.

Despite Argentina's economic rebound, as many as a hundred Argentines die of malnutrition every day. For many of the country's 38 million people, soup kitchens-which have sprung up everywhere-provide the only daily nourishment. In 2006, controversial activist Raul Castells even opened a community kitchen in the middle of sw.a.n.ky Puerto Madero, the former docks turned "it" place to live. Visitors at the Buenos Aires Hilton or local upscale restaurants could see a huge sign emblazoned with his slogan, "Luchamos por una Argentina donde los perros de los ricos dejen de estar mejor alimentados que los hijos de los pobres," or "We are fighting for an Argentina where the dogs of the rich are no longer fed better than the children of the poor."

IT TAKES TWO.

Confucius said a nation's character is defined by its dancers. Argentina, which invented the sa.s.sy, improvisational tango, certainly would have to agree. Historically, the now world-famous tango was one of the first dances where partners were actually allowed to touch each other (only the Viennese waltz and the polka came first). It is hard to separate Argentina's history from the brash dance that began in the disregarded periphery of the culture and gradually worked its way into polite society and, indeed, into the consciousness of the whole world.

The tango, in fact, was so popular in Argentina that after the 1955 coup that ousted Gen. Juan Peron, the new military government, in a knee-jerk reaction, imprisoned and blacklisted many tango artists with Peronist ties (perceived or real). In its antinationalist fervor, the new government imposed curfews, changed tango lyrics and t.i.tles, and banned meetings of more than three people. To the wealthy members of the new regime, gatherings of large numbers of dancers seemed suspicious, an obvious cover for political agitation.

After the 1983 fall of the military junta, a spectacular tango renaissance occurred. Today, a tango fan can choose from among three dozen milongas each day in Buenos Aires alone. A milonga, in case you're new to the addictive dance, are places where tango is danced. A milonga typically offers cla.s.ses and a few demonstrations before the first tanda, three to five dances in a row, begins. Tandas are separated by a cortina, a musical break when the floor is cleared and new partners are chosen.

According to tango aficionados, there are numerous styles of tango, including Canyengue, Club, Salon, Fantasia, Liso, Milonguero, Nuevo, and Orillero. Ballroom tango comes in two styles, American and international. There's even a style called Finnish Tango, unique to that country, which was profiled by Morley Safer on 60 Minutes in 1993.

On this volunteer trip sponsored by Center for Cultural Interchange, a Chicago-based nonprofit that organizes internships, language study, home stays, and volunteer programs in more than 30 countries, you will help prepare and distribute meals. You also will provide emotional support, legal a.s.sistance, and basic skills workshops to homeless people. A veritable United Nations of volunteers show up in Argentina every year to lend a hand and experience the pa.s.sionate culture and people who are busy churning lemonade out of the lemons they were handed.

Cosmopolitan Buenos Aires, where you'll be volunteering, has French architecture, Italian heritage, and a nickname that gives away its European lifestyle: "The Paris of South America." In fact, Mom's Kitchen, the soup kitchen where you'll work, is in Recoleta, an area resembling Paris that is known for its squares, parks, cafes, and galleries. In your free time, excursions will take you to Rosedal, Buenos Aires' most famous park, to the bohemian San Telmo Market, and the Plaza de Mayo, the epicenter of Argentina's colorful political history.

For this project, the minimum commitment is three weeks, and you must want to work with the homeless population. An intermediate level of Spanish is required; Spanish lessons are available prior to the volunteer project in Buenos Aires for an additional fee. You'll live with a host family, and, except for Sundays, be provided with two meals per day. The fee for volunteering at the soup kitchen for three weeks is $1,490. For the maximum commitment of 12 weeks, the fee is $3,510 Other Center for Cultural Interchange projects in Argentina range from two to twelve weeks and start at $1,290.

HOW TO GET IN TOUCH.

Center for Cultural Interchange, c/o Greenheart, 712 North Wells Street, 4th floor, Chicago, IL 60657, 888-227-6231 or 312-944-2544, www.greenhearttravel.org.

SHIRIPUNO RESEARCH CENTER.

collect b.u.t.terflies in remote amazonia.

HUAORANI RESERVE, ECUADOR.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.

-John Muir, Scottish-born American naturalist, My First Summer in the Sierra 22 It takes four hours by motorized canoe to get to this remote biological research station in the Ecuadorian Amazon. And that's after you take a 10-to 17-hour bus ride from Quito to Coca, followed by a three-hour car ride to Rio Shiripuno. Remote might be an understatement, in fact, as the nearest telephone connection and Internet hookup are in Coca. At night, if you want to read over the data you have collected that day, you'll do so by candlelight, as there is no electricity.

The Shiripuno Research Center, located 45 miles southeast of Coca, is just outside the Yasuni National Park, a designated UNEs...o...b..osphere. The Huaorani, the fiercely protective indigenous people of this region, still hunt monkeys, deer, and wild pigs with blow guns and poison-tipped darts. But when it comes to cataloging, and, hopefully, preserving biodiversity, this rain forest outpost is without peer. So far, Jarol Fernando Vaca and his volunteers at the Shiripuno Research Center have cataloged 600 species of b.u.t.terflies and 450 species of birds.

Vaca, who was born in the Amazonian village of Misahualli, has been in love with nature since he was 14 and invited to help out with a local bird survey. By 16, he was guiding treks into his jungle homeland, serving as a naturalist at Yasuni National Park. With funding from National Geographic and the American Birdsong a.s.sociation, he has been able to establish his own legacy at the biological reserve he started. Its mission? To stem the alarming decrease in b.u.t.terfly populations whose habitats are being chopped down to the tune of a football fieldsize piece of jungle every second of every day.

EMBODYING ECOTOURISM.

Not far from the Shiripuno Research Center is Yachana Lodge, an 18-room ecolodge built by American expatriate Douglas McMeekin, who started the project with three goals: He wanted to save the rain forest, create jobs, and establish a health clinic for the 8,000 people who live along the Napo River. Since 1994, Yachana (formerly Funedesin) has purchased and protected more than 4,300 acres of primary and secondary rain forest. Yachana is a Quichua word that means "a place for learning," and all of the foundation's endeavors live up to that moniker.

In 2000, as a way to create more jobs, McMeekin joined forces with Juan Kunchikuy, an Amazonian blowgun hunter, on yet another altruistic business. Yachana Gourmet (www.yachanagourmet.com) makes what they call jungle chocolates, fair trade treats made from cacao beans grown in the nearby rain forest. Yachana pays fair market price to the 1,200 small family farmers they've taught to grow cacao beans.

In May 2008, McMeekin told Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, "People have to make a living...But they can chop down 50 acres of forest to make a pasture, or they can earn the same income by chopping down 5 acres and planting cacao."

In June 2008, Yachana was one of three winners in the Geotourism Challenge sponsored by Ashoka (www.ashoka.org) and National Geographic. Here's how they responded to one application question, "How does your approach support or embody geotourism?"

"The Yachana Technical High School opened in September 2005, addressing a need on a regional basis for a practical, hands-on education for poor youth from the Amazon region of Ecuador. It is the only school in Ecuador offering a degree in Eco-tourism and Sustainable Development, approved by the Ministry of Education. The Yachana Lodge opened in 1995 and now the two ent.i.ties are combined under the umbrella of the Yachana Foundation. The school has 128 students, 80 percent indigenous, from five provinces and four ethnic groups. The students are involved in cultural programs for the Lodge guests. The newest program being our Amazon Culinary tour where our guests harvest and prepare Amazonian foods with our students. All of the students work in the Lodge as part of their education, interacting with our national and international guests. A cultural interchange that both groups enjoy. The school provides a large percentage of the food for the Lodge and the Lodge is the major supporter of the school. All of our guests visit our 4,300 acres of protected rain forest that is also the living cla.s.sroom of the students." Yachana Foundation, administrative offices: Vicente Solano E1261 y Avenida Oriental, Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador, 593 2 252 3777, www.yachana.org.ec.; U.S. contact: 888-922-4262.

Lepidopterists claim b.u.t.terflies, often the first to suffer and disappear when natural habitats become stressed, are the proverbial canaries in the coal mines. Although b.u.t.terflies, as a species, are generally well understood, the neotropical b.u.t.terflies of this region, estimated to be as high as 4,000 different species, have yet to be properly doc.u.mented, and studied.

As a volunteer at the Shiripuno Research Center, you'll rear caterpillars, collect field data, create trails, put up signs, and lead tours. During the first week of each month, you'll bring down b.u.t.terfly traps, resupply them with food, and collect and identify all b.u.t.terflies captured that month from the jungle canopy. During the other three weeks of your monthlong stint, you'll have the opportunity to partic.i.p.ate in other surveys being conducted at Shiripuno, which range from medicinal plants to Amazonian birds. All volunteers are required to write and file field reports.

You'll be serenaded at night by tree frogs, entertained by seven species of monkeys, and given the chance to hike trails cut through the jungle by tapirs, peccaries, and jaguars. Every walk is a potential adventure, unpredictable and unlike the walk before.

If you don't have at least an intermediate command of the Spanish language, Ecuador Volunteer will bring your language skills up to snuff with a program before your volunteer stint begins. The monthlong program costs $1,280 and includes shared lodging in a dorm with mosquito netting and three meals per day. This is a rustic outpost, though, with no hot water or electricity.

HOW TO GET IN TOUCH.

Ecuador Volunteer, Yanez Pinzon N25-106 y Av. Colon, Quito, Ecuador, 593 2 2557749, www.ecuadorvolunteer.org.

ECOVOLUNTEER.

track jaguars.

PANTa.n.a.l REGION OF BRAZIL.

It was as if I was partic.i.p.ating in a fascinating tropical biology lesson, with an element of adventure in it.

-Dagmara Wrobel, volunteer with Ecovolunteer's Jaguar Project 23 Less than a thousand people per year get the privilege of seeing a jaguar-the largest cat in the Americas-in the wild. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) claims there are only 50,000 mature breeding cats left. Conservationists believe jaguars, already endangered, stand a good chance of being wiped out completely in this region. These elusive cats' habitats are shrinking, even in the Panta.n.a.l, a 68,000-square-mile primordial floodplain of the Paraguay River, with swamps, gra.s.slands, and forests on the edge of Brazil, bordering Bolivia.

One side effect of the the big cats' loss of habitat is that they are being tracked down and shot by maverick cattle ranchers who are trying to protect their livelihoods. The ranchers report losing as much as 5 percent of their herds each year to the spotted predator, so they couldn't care less about the hunting ban intended to protect the dwindling population of jaguars. As far as they're concerned, the Panta.n.a.l's population of 4,000 to 7,000 jaguars represents nothing more than an annoyance entering their pastures to feed.

Ecovolunteer, an international group with wildlife conservation projects in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America, sends volunteers here to work with scientists who are trying to determine accurate estimations of the area's predator population (besides the jaguars, there are also pumas and ocelots) and to figure out their territories and habits. By studying the behaviors of the jaguar, there's hope that the ranchers and the conservationists can devise some kind of win-win solution for minimizing predation losses. Ultimately, they hope to come up with a workable plan for the coexistence of cattle and jaguars.

BIRDATIOUS.

The Panta.n.a.l is home to a world-record 82 species of large birds. You can see thousands of them during just a short journey along the Transpantaneira Road, a raised road that allows year-round access to the area. To get even more up close and personal with birds and other wildlife, visit the Panta.n.a.l Wildlife Center, located on the Fazenda Santa Tereza. Owned and operated by professional wildlife biologists, including an ornithologist, the center's trails have been designed with great care and guides use podcasts of bird calls to boost the likelihood of finding birds. Viewing towers are moveable to provide the best chances of observing birds and such animals as marmosets, capuchin monkeys, howler monkeys, and tapirs.

You can stay at the stunning lodge, which includes three meals per day. When darkness falls, go stargazing or take advantage of spotlighting outings to see noctural creatures. Along the banks of the Pixaim River, you might glimpse 6-foot-long giant otters and caimans. Panta.n.a.l Wildlife Center, Transpantaneira Km 66, Pocone, Mato Grosso, MT, CEP 78 175-000, Brazil, 55 65 3682 3175, www.panta.n.a.lwildlifecenter.com.

As a volunteer on this important research project, you'll be on a private working ranch, or fazenda, with 5,000 head of cattle located near the town of Miranda. You'll spend days riding the ranges (usually on horseback), looking for hints of this lone cat's existence. Working alongside Ph.D. candidate Fernando Azevedo and his research staff, you'll capture jaguars, fit them with radio collars, and keep detailed records of their habits and movements. You will also be involved in helping the local people to improve their livestock management and to minimize the predation of livestock in private lands.

Normally you will be working about ten hours a day or night, depending on the animals' movements. You'll wake every morning to the call of endangered hyacinth macaws that roost in trees by the bunkhouse. You might pa.s.s endangered jabiru storks on your walk to the stables. While you're at the ranch, you'll probably see at least some of the following local denizens: anacondas, anteaters, armadillos, caimans, capybaras, coatis, crab-eating foxes and racc.o.o.ns, egrets, giant otters, green parakeets, herons, howler monkeys, ibis, marsh deer, peccaries, toucans, red and green macaws, and storks.

Robin Mooney, who volunteered on the fazenda in June 2007, described sighting a jaguar with her team: "One of the highlights of this trip was when we interrupted a female jaguar feeding on a freshly killed feral pig. Although she darted into the bushes before we could get a good look at her, we knew she was still very close and was watching us as we examined the carca.s.s. That afternoon we went back to set camera traps and were rewarded the next day with pictures of her when she came back to finish her meal. I didn't need to see her in person in order to appreciate her beauty and power. Just knowing that I had been in her presence was enough for me. After all, if jaguars were meant to be seen, they would never have survived this long."

You must have a working knowledge of English, Portuguese, or Spanish and be at least 21 years old for this project, which accepts up to four volunteers at a time. The two-week project, including simple accommodations at the research base and three meals a day, runs $1,062. Additional weeks can be added for $405 per week.

HOW TO GET IN TOUCH.

Ecovolunteer (www.ecovolunteer.org) books trips for American and Canadian volunteers through the Great Canadian Travel Company, 158 Fort Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C 1C9, Canada, 800-661-3830, www.greatcanadiantravel.com.

I-TO-I.

lead walks through a cloud forest.

LA TIGRA, HONDURAS.

Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.

-Edward Abbey, environmental author and essayist 24 The belt of cloud forest that stretches across Central America into South America is slowly shrinking. It's being cleared for cattle grazing, logged to provide fuel for heating and cooking, and paved over to make roads and hotels for tourists. While the cloud forests of Costa Rica and Guatemala have gotten the lion's share of the glory, Honduras is finally standing up to better publicize its own natural realms. In fact, the country has more virgin cloud forests than any country in Central America.

In the 1880s, the New York and Honduras Rosario Mining Company plowed a destructive road from Tegucigalpa to La Rosaria. Nearby San Juancito grew into a mining boom town, much to the detriment of the surrounding forests. After the mine closed in the 1950s, the government stepped in to preserve the area's precious cloud forests. Today, 13 of the country's largest 40 cloud forests are protected in national parks, where they provide fresh, clean, and already filtered water.

BEFORE THE SPANISH INQUISITION.

Copan, the most artistically advanced of the known Maya cities, is 40 acres of archaeology heaven. Though Copan was discovered in 1570 by Diego Garcia de Palacio, the ruins were not excavated until the 19th century. According to UNESCO, which designated it a World Heritage site in 1980, "The ruined citadel and imposing public squares reveal the three main stages of development before the city was abandoned in the early tenth century."

Located in Honduras near the Guatemalan border, the 250-acre site has more than 4,000 structures, including temples, stelae, plazas, huge pyramids, a central structure referred to as the Acropolis, a Maya ball court, miles of underground tunnels, and a hieroglyphic stairway. What's that last one, you ask? It's an enormous staircase with more than a thousand carvings representing the city's extensive history.

As a biodiversity hot spot, Honduras is home to more than 700 species of birds, including the harpy eagle and the quetzal. It also has jaguars, ocelots, pumas, tapirs, giant anteaters, and mantled howler monkeys, many of which prowl La Tigra National Park, the country's first national park and its largest cloud forest park. Unfortunately, the park lacks funding and has a grand total of two park rangers at its lowest staffing levels. Even though visitors are limited to 70 per day, it still takes more than four hands to maintain a cloud forest, especially one with this much diversity.

Luckily, i-to-i, a British-based company with a U.S. office in Seattle, sends volunteers to help out at La Tigra. Volunteers lead nature walks, patrol for illegal logging, make and repair signs, and help clear the six hiking paths that zigzag through this insanely lush pocket of ferns, orchids, vines, and bromeliads, many of which exist nowhere else. La Cascada Trail, the park's longest at 6 miles, winds by a waterfall and crosses from one entrance of the park to the other.

You will also plant trees and tend those growing in a nursery, as the park is undergoing a major reforestation project in order to reduce the strain on its forests. Within La Tigra's confines, there are 87 communities, and all of them need wood to survive. The park has inst.i.tuted a carbon offset program to supply firewood for the families' wood-burning ovens.

La Tigra is a short hop, skip, and jump from the capital of Tegucigalpa, also known as Tegus (p.r.o.nounced Teh-GOOS), which has parks, museums, churches, and colonial architecture galore. Your humble residence at the park also provides the perfect launching pad for visiting Honduran crafts villages and the beaches and scuba diving haunts of the Bay Islands.

Volunteers live inside the park in the miner's camp hospital, which has been converted into a dorm. One week runs $965-every week thereafter is $270, with a maximum stay of 12 weeks-for dorm accommodations and breakfast and dinner each day.

HOW TO GET IN TOUCH.

i-to-i North America, 458 Wheeler Street, Seattle, WA 98109, 800-985-4864, www.i-to-i.com.

ANOTHER THOUGHTFUL, COMMITTED CITIZEN: GRACE STEIN.

Before Grace Stein turned 18, she had already spent two summers volunteering outside the United States. In 2007, before her junior year at Shining Mountain Waldorf School in Boulder, Colorado, she spent five weeks building a school in Nicaragua. Stein and the 13 teens she traveled with raised all the money they'd need to build the school and fund their expenses. They sent out letters, held auctions, and hosted music events. "We were recruited by the leader of the sister city program [Jalapa, Nicaragua, is one of Boulder's six sister cities]," she explained. "She showed a film at our school about people in Nicaragua who live on a landfill. I was crying by the end of it."

Still, Stein was a bit hesitant about taking the trip. "I was afraid I'd miss a lot by being out of the country," she said. "Plus, I'd never really been out of the country, not to a third world country anyway. I'd been to Mexico with my parents, but this was different. I wasn't sure how I was going to handle it."

She lived with a Nicaraguan family in a tiny house, slept on a wooden plank, ate beans and rice at every meal, and confronted c.o.c.kroaches every time she went to the bathroom. "I loved that I was helping, that I was making a difference in the lives of these children," Stein said. "I came home from that trip and I knew what I was going to do in my life."

And as for those things she thought she'd miss out on? "When I got back, everyone and everything was exactly the same..." she said. "I've always been mature for my age and conscious of what's around me. But this really opened my eyes. I realized Americans aren't very full."