Phone booths can be found everywhere in Ecuador, normally even in the smallest place with exemption if you are traveling in rural areas but then you can always ask any local to help you out. As Ecuadorians also use the phone booths all the time they have a system in most places with booths optimized for either local, regional, cellphone or international calls. In this way you get lower prices but if you take the wrong boot it will cost you a lot more so make sure you ask for the right booth and price if you don't see any signs. Prices can vary a lot with higher prices the further away you get from touristic or highly populated areas and of course in the Galapagos Islands where everything is more expensive.
As with phone booths you will find Internet cafe's almost everywhere and the prices ranges from $0,60 to $1 per hour on the mainland and about $2,50 in the Galapagos Island. Some places are also quite slow so instead of just chasing low prices we recommend that you look a bit more on speed and quality of the service or you might need a book to read while loading every web page.
The mail system works but that is it and service is many times absent with lazy and slow workers so most people use any
of the hundreds of bus companies that travels all over Ecuador or one of several transportation companies for sending anything
from a letter to a package. The cost is very low and the receiver just needs to pick up the package at the bus terminal
or in some cases the transportation companies will deliver to the door.
If you want anybody to send you a package from another country there are two important rules to follow. The first is to
never send anything valuable like electronics as to many people might steal it on the way and the second thing is to never
send a package over 2 kilos or about 4 pounds. This is due to that then the package automatically goes through custom and that
is expensive depending on what you receive but count on 100% in tax and you are close. They don't even care what the value is
back home as they have their own list that they follow or make up, who knows.
This is a great program for anybody that loves to get really close to the Andean culture and way of life with agriculture
but for someone that can't handle to be alone with only Spanish around and a simple life it will be hard.'
There is a big chance that there will be physical work so for someone that have problems with their back or knees for example
might have problems to participate in work.
