"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