Highly Recommended

Highly recommended! When you’re high up in the Andean city of Cuenca Ecuador, do yourself a favor and head over to Full Criollo restaurant for some delicious Venezuelan food. They’re located on Gran Colombia and are open everyday from 9 until 9, except for Mondays. They have a wide range of delicious Venezuelan cuisine from soups, grilled meat platters, hamburgers, and vegan options, all with a unique twist. Of course no proper Venezuelan eatery would be complete without the iconic arepa. If you’re interested in getting a taste of how they make their delicious arepas, watch this video as chef Javier tries to teach Josh from Loco Living the recipe. Tries is the key word :)
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Dr. Joker

Here in Ecuador, like all countries with refugees, when one desperate foreigner does something wrong or stupid, that whole community is accused and guilty by association. Here, one Venezuelan asylum seeker commits a crime, the other honest 500,000 countrymen are automatically looked at differently. This is not right. What about the other 99.9% peacefully living or striving to get by? Narrated by Josh at Loco Living, we would like to introduce you to a gentle soul. A friend, a savant, and humble Venezuelan man named Jose Luis. If you want, you can call him Dr. Joker.
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Dignity

Dignity, a sense of pride in oneself. Self-respect. In Ecuador, there’s over 400,000 Venezuelan asylum seekers and refugees. You can’t miss them, they’re on street corners, in parks, and outside of grocery stores humbly asking for a little help. So let’s help. In the past few months, we’ve purchased Dignity Kits for Venezuelan refugees living here on the streets. These kits might be more commonly known as hygiene kits, but we feel Dignity has a much better ring to it, don’t you agree? Being a refugee during a pandemic is not easy, and when food and shelter are hard to find, other necessities like hygiene become secondary. This is why we’ve assembled Dignity Kits containing essentials like soap, shampoo, deodorant, nail clippers, feminine pads, alcohol spray, toothbrush, toothpaste, and a razor, all in a reusable bag, to be passed out to those that have sacrificed their hygiene for more “important” things. We’re sure you agree, having the basics to maintain health and preventing disease specifically through hygiene is essential everyday, but especially during a pandemic.
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5 Years 

Today, April 16th, marks 5 years since the Ecuadorian coast was rocked by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake. 676 people lost their life, close to 20,000 were injured, and many many more displaced. With great volunteers, we tried our best to help those who lost loved ones and homes. Within 24 hours, Dr. Suzanne was escorting patients with the airforce from Manta to Guayaquil, as the local hospitals were damaged or overwhelmed. This started our 6 month effort to assist those in need. We ran pop up medical clinics in rural areas for those that could not reach a hospital because of broken roads and bridges or the hospitals were destroyed. With generous contributions, we were able to share thousands of mosquito nets with the many people who couldn’t or did not want to sleep in their damaged houses. For months, the constant aftershocks would not let any of us sleep. We were also able to share 1,000 water filters, possibly giving over 10,000 Ecuadorians free and safe water to drink. There was much needed, and we were only a ripple.
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