"The Time Has Come the Walrus Said"

My journey has ended, well my journey in Ecuador that is. I had to keep my flight home quiet so I could surprise my sister for her graduation. I was initially going to be leaving on the 16th but I was able to move up the dates of my final exams so I could be home in time for the graduation. It was a success and she was excited, YAY!

My plane was supposed to leave Quito at 5:40 and I was going to have a 40 min layover in El Salvador. I was hoping there wouldn't be any delays so I could make my connecting flight but of course something had to go wrong. I was pulled aside for a "random routine baggage check" and taken underneath the airport where an officer opened my suitcase and pulled everything out as he flirted with me... awesome. When I got back up to the gate, everyone was boarding (on time I might add.). I had high hopes of our plane taking off on time but we all ended up sitting in the plane for about an hour and a half more until the fog let up. I knew I wasn't going to make my connecting flight so I just hoped that there would be another flight that I could switch to.

Luckily I only had to wait about 5 extra hours in the El Salvadorian airport and the airline gave me free lunch. I got back to Dulles around 10pm and blew through customs. The agent didn't seem to believe me that I only brought back bread and souvenirs since I had been there for 5 months but he let me go. My family was patiently waiting for me with big hugs and balloons. I immediately hugged my dog and ate a big steak when I got home.

Everyone says that studying abroad changes you and I would have to agree. I don't really know how to explain why I feel different, I just do. I have all of these fun experiences and memories that I will keep for the rest of my life. I made so many new friends and went on countless adventures. I can't wait until I get an opportunity to go abroad again but it will have to wait until my wallet gets a little bit fatter and my student loans get a bit skinnier.

Being back home is wonderful. I don't have to worry about the water I'm drinking (or opening my mouth in the shower); I can throw the toilet paper in the toilet; I can walk freely without the fear of being robbed; No one cat calls me; I can drive... I'm sure there's more.

I will definitely miss the beautiful mountains and volcanoes. I wont be able to travel and go on crazy adventures every weekend; There's no more almuerzo for $2; I'll probably never see some of my friends again; I'll miss the stray dogs too. This list could go on for days.

I will come back to Ecuador one day. I need to go back to the Amazon (If Correa doesn't sell it all off) and definitely the Galapagos. Chau for now everyone!

Final Days and Final Exams

This weekend I was supposed to go to Tena in the Amazon but plans changed. We ended up going to Mindo, a city about 1hr 30min from Quito. There is a lot to do in Mindo. You can ride horses to a waterfall, go rafting or kayaking, visit a chocolate factor or go to a bird sanctuary. I did two of those things… can you guess which ones?

If you said chocolate factory as one of them, you are right! I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see how natural chocolate is made. The second thing we did was go to the bird sanctuary. I loved both activities. The chocolate factory was not very high tech and most of the processes don’t require machines. The beans sit in a hot tent to ferment and then the little pieces of inside chocolate are removed and send to be roasted and broken down further. Then the chocolate gets toasted and pureed. The chocolate that this factory sells is all organic. The chocolates that they sell don’t have milk in them and some have no sugar either. They sell ginger chocolate, spicy pepper chocolate, coffee chocolate and then some with different percentages of sugar.

We got to try pure chocolate and it was very bitter. We were then given a little bit of sugar to mix with the chocolate in our mouths and the flavor was very good. The guide then gave us the 100% chocolate to taste with ginger syrup and it was fabulous.  The tour only cost $5!

The bird sanctuary cost $2 and was beautiful! The variety of colibríes (hummingbirds) was fantastic. I got a bunch of pictures as the birds flew to the feeders. My favorite looking colibrí was green and blue with a White patch on its chest. Another pretty one was red and green. I´ll post pictures when I can!

This week I have most of my finals so it will probably be pretty uneventful. I just presented my final presentation for Andean Archaeology and my professor tore the project apart. We had to present a 15 minute powerpoint on an ancient South American civilization. My partner and I were assigned the Pastos and could barely find information about them. We were required to have good archaeological sources and it was very hard to find any. We did find library book with a lot of information and used that for the majority of our presentation. Unfortunately, our teacher said the book is outdated and a bad source. Funny, since it´s in the school´s library… Anyways, the book said that this civilization talked to demons. We mentioned that in the presentation and our teacher said that was racist of us because it used to be assumed that the civilizations worshiped the devil just because they weren't Christian. Yeah. We explained to her after class that we were going by what the book said and she still kept telling us that the book is a bad source. Oh well.

Tomorrow I have my archaeology exam and I’m freaking out a little because I thought it was only on the material that we covered the second half of the semester but it turns out that it’s cumulative... yikes! Wish me luck.

Cocoa beans

CHOCOLATEEE

Counting Down the Days!

I have been a terrible blogger recently so I´ll catch you all up!

My classes are winding down and finals will be next week and the week after. I feel confident that I´ll do well on them but I need to study a lot for both ecology and archaeology.

Tomorrow is Labor Day and I don´t have classes so I´m going to go back to Otavallo. It is the artisan market about two hours away that I adore. I won´t spend too much money (because I´m basically broke) but I have a couple knick knacks and presents that I still need to get. I have a few pairs of worn out flats that I can throw away before leaving as well as extra toiletries so everyone cross your fingers that I´ll have room to bring all of my stud home. As most of you know, I was quite over the weight limit when I came so… we´ll see!

This past weekend I visited two beaches in the area called Las Esmeraldas. One was called Atacames and the other Tonsupa. Both were pretty and very fun. Tonsupa was very small but super relaxing and Atacames was bigger and had a lot of shops. Don´t worry, I didn´t buy anything! The goal of the weekend was to spend the least amount of money possible and we succeeded. Including hostel, food and bus tickets we managed to spend under $50. I had no idea that was possible for a beach weekend but it is! I´ll post pictures later.

This coming weekend I´m going to Tena. Wikipedia gives this description “Tena, the capital of the Napo Province, is an attractive and quiet city in the Amazon rainforest. It is known as the “cinnamon capital" of Ecuador.” Our plans are to go kayaking and visit an ecological reserve that has a lot of native animals. I´ll be sure to take a lot of pictures since this will probably be my last trip out of Quito while in Ecuador. Next weekend I´ll probably stay in Quito, study for finals and spend time with friends.

I have been getting waves of sadness as I realize a lot of things will be my last in Ecuador. This past weekend was my last time at the coast, this weekend will be my last time in the Amazon. It is so fun thinking back to all of the adventures I have had in Ecuador so far and I feel so blessed to have had this experience. Now that mom thinks I don´t want to come home and is probably crying… I´ll tell you all about the things I miss most about America.

#1 thing I miss about the US is my family. You never realize how great a big bear hug from your parents is until you haven´t had one for 5 months

#2 is the food… of course. Home cooked food is first. Then chipotle! And sushi! And chick-fil-a!

#3 Chivalrous boys that don´t hiss at me or say “hola princesa” when I walk by.

#4 The fact that every meal I eat in the US has only 1 carby food or none at all. I don´t know how many times my dinner has had potatoes with rice and French fries. (This is also the source of my growing belly, yikes)

#5 Drivinggggggg! I am going to have to re-teach myself how to drive after being out of capacity for 5 months (not that I was very good from the beginning anyways…)

That´s all I have for now. I´ll be home in less than two weeks. My how the time has flown.

Papallacta, the March and Cotopaxi

The weekend before last I went to a place called Papallacta [pronounced Papa- yacta]. It is right by Volcán [Volcano] Antisana and is the home to a wonderful spa. The spa has natural hot springs and a bunch of other pricey services. I picked just one and got an Andean mud wrap. I had to put on a hideous disposable bathing suit and lay on a massage table. Then a lady brushed hot mud all over my body and wrapped me in the biggest piece of saran wrap I've ever seen. Hot towels were put over me and then a thermal blanket. I was left to lay in the room for about 30 minutes and enjoy the warm mud and then I showered it all off.

The hot springs were very refreshing because it was chilly outside. There were various pools with slightly different temperatures and we hopped from one to the other. I had some scrapes left on my knees from the race the previous weekend so I [actually mom] was worried of getting an infection. My knees are healing just fine so no one worry! 

Andean mud wrap

Antisana Volcano

Skip to this weekend... I was going to go to Mindo this past weekend but my stomach had other plans. I stayed home and ended up going to a women's rights march. I painted a shirt that said "Soy mujer, tengo valor, escuchame!" [I am a woman, I have value, listen to me]. It was very up beat and we marched the streets of Quito dancing and chanting. In Ecuador [and most of Latin America] there is a lot of discrimination against women. I wanted to join the fight for equality and march with some awesome Ecuadorian men and women. It was a very safe and legal march! 

"Soy mujer, tengo valor, escuchame"

Yesterday I went to Cotopaxi and hiked a little bit up the volcano. It was cold and snowing so I was excited to see my first snow of the year! It was very foggy also so we couldn't see the summit :( The altitude was also affecting our breathing so we decided to turn back after a ways of hiking. The most exciting part was when we saw a fox. It was pretty close and so cute! I decided to not pet this one like I do all the stray dogs. 

Cute little fox

Looking into the valley

Climbing up the volcano

I'm alive!

I realize it looks like I fell of the face of the earth. Time to update you all on everything that's been going on.

First, Iron runner! I did a 5k with my triathlon class that had 15 obstacles. It was a lot more grueling than I expected. Since it was at the coast, it was incredibly hot. The first 3 kilometers were basically all running with two or three obstacles spread throughout. There was one stand that handed out warm water during that portion and I was dying. Finally, my team arrived at a water obstacle and it was absolutely amazing. The water was freezing cold and we had to climb in and pull ourselves under cages. Our heads were still above water but it was hard to breath because the water was frigid. Some other obstacles included army crawling under logs and barbed wire, jumping through tires, swimming in the ocean, and climbing up a rock wall. I was proud that I was one of the only girls to master the monkey bars; the rings on the other hand... fell after the first one.

There was a large concave wall and of course I have no arm muscles so I doubted that I could get up. All of the guys just ran up, got a hold of the ledge and hoisted their bodies over. Ha! You should have seen me. I fell approximately 10 times and by fell I mean slid on my face and stomach and tumbled down. It was a little painful but I finally made it up due to the help of a teammate and a random man. As I hung on the wall I lifted my leg to the random mad and said, "Ayudame por favor" (help me please) and he grabbed my leg and helped fling me over the wall. Without them there was NO WAY I would have gotten up. Luckily, the other side was a slide into a pool of water. At the end of the race there was a voucher for a free beverage connected to our running numbers. Can you guess what it was...water, no... Gatorade, no... Powerade,no. It was Pilsner beer. That's right ladies and gentleman. I just ran a 5k and have bloody arms and knees and they tried to give me a free beer. I gladly gave away my voucher and hunted down the water.

The ground was super hot as we crawled under the logs

Monkey bars

First wall, I got up this one on my own

Machu Picchu Pictures

Stray dogs all day every day

Road in Cusco

Pig head... weird

Cusco

Cute little snail we found

Ready for biking

Kitties love me

Beginning of our first day hike

One of the many waterfalls we passed

Beginning of our uphill trek

View during the hike

Look out point where Inca messengers used to trade off tasks

Our backpacks were quite heavy

Easting wild maracuya

Yes, more stray cats that love me...

Black and red millipede

Upside down zip lining

Giant waterfall

Aguas Calientes

Gliding upside down through the Andes

Just when we arrived up to foggy Machu Picchu

The llamas would come right up to you

Entrance sign to enter the trail up to Machu Picchu

Finally at the top of Machupicchu Mounatin

Part of the stone hiking path

Top of Machupicchu Mountain

Me, convincing the llama not to spit on me

Cusco

Beautiful church in Cusco