a weekend to remember

I think it is safe to say that after this past weekend I am going to need to reevaluate my definition of “adventure”. Thursday-Sunday kind of put my past adventures to shame… which was surprising to me and will be to my SBC friends, too… all the ones who regularly see me riding around campus with campus safety – my “friend” – and climbing out of 3rd story windows. Anyway, I’ve had some serious fun over these past few days. I’ve made some new friends, learned a ton about Ecuadorian life and culture, got a pretty impressive “tan” (which is currently appearing to be a burn… but I believe in the future of the tan) and had an experience that I will always remember when I look back on and think about my time in Ecuador.

So a bunch of us decided that since Thanksgiving is coming up at home and we’re going to miss it… sad!... we would go to the beach for the weekend and at least celebrate the fact that we’re not stuck in cold temperatures. We frequently travel on the weekends, we always have fun, and it’s really not that big of a deal. We decided on Canoa – it’s a beach in about the center of Ecuador and beautiful. One of our friends left on Wednesday night with her Ecuadorian friend, one other student was going to travel alone and meet us there, and the rest of us decided that we would leave on Thursday night and take a night bus. We bought tickets early in the week and went planned on leaving after our class on Thursday night.

We went from class (at about 7pm) to Mariscal to have supper and pass some time before going to the bus station near old town. The bus didn’t leave until 9, so we had some time. I was actually able to wander into an internet café and call my dad and step mom at home… that was pretty nice because they are always working during the hours when I could call them at home. We haven’t been able to talk much. I talked to them for a little while and then we took a taxi to old town.

We left Quito at 9ish and were ready to settle in for the 9 hour ride to the coast. The bus was packed and there were six (6!!) people up front to switch off for driving. It’s normal to have another person for such a long trip – even two more people – but six? We drove for almost 2 hours and got about 45 minutes outside of Quito because one on them kept having some crisis which required stopping. And of course every time we stopped not only would all six drivers pile off the bus, but all the men in general. It was a slow, slow process.

We started to get out of the city and onto the windy mountain roads and it was so foggy! We couldn’t see anything. The bus driver was driving kind of funny too … he kept shifting at really strange times. He was laughing a lot and it almost seemed like he was trying to show off to the other five. We got to a toll booth that (would normally be) about an hour out of the city and the bus overheated. It completely filled with smoke and then shut off. We were stuck there for two hours while we waited for another bus to come. By the time it came – and we transferred – and we left the toll station – it was 1:30am and we were only about an hour away from home. We all laughed about it and decided that a little bad luck is going to happen. We were glad to be on our way again.

Then at three the same bus driver drove over a huge pile of rocks and blew out the front right tire. That was another 2 hours – we watched the sun come up while the six drivers and every man on the bus watched as one man changed the tire. By the time we were finally on our way again the sun was up, music was blasting throughout the entire bus, two babies were crying (as they had been for hours at this point) and everyone on the bus was frozen. The four of us were still laughing about everything.

We made it to San Vicente at 10:30am. From there we still had to travel another 16km to Canoa. We traded buses and made the rest of our trip… around 11am we finally found the hostile where our other friend had already checked in. It was a long night!

But, it was also a beautiful day! So we changed into our suits and went out to find some food – breakfast or lunch or something. We ate and then went down to the beach. All of us put on tons of sunscreen (55spf!) and we all got sunburns. It was a sad situation. I actually went in earlier than everyone else did because I could tell that the Ecuadorian sun was kicking the butt of my sun block. I’m glad I did – my sunburn ended up being pretty bad and if I had stayed out too much longer I would have been a very unhappy kid.

We hung around Canoa for all of Friday and until Saturday night. We had so much fun! We played on the beach, went to happy hour at our hostile (which I didn’t have anything to drink during… like always… but still had fun), ate at different restaurants and explored new foods, talked with the locals, danced, laughed A LOT, slept very little…

It was a great time.

On Saturday night we planned to take the night bus again. I had to be back in Quito by 7am on Sunday morning (for a religion field trip with PUCE) and we were all praying and hoping that the bus ride back wouldn’t be as much of a disaster as the one there. First we had to make it back to San Vicente. We walked down to where “the busses pass every 10 to 30 minutes” and waited for over an hour. At this point we had the four girls who had traveled down together and one other student, Ben, who was going to travel back with us. Ben is fun… but a little overly outgoing at times. Before we knew it he had flagged down a pickup truck that was carrying an entire family and going in the direction of San Vicente. The father was driving, the grandparents were up front with him, and the mother and her 4 young children were in the back. Ben talked the guy into taking us to San Vicente if we would give him a dollar – and started yelling “come on!!” at the four girls who were just about thinking he had lost his mind.

So we took the risk… it was a mother and her four children (who were eating their supper) in the back… and grandparents. We rode the entire way back to San Vicente in the back of this pickup, talking to the mother and kids and learning about them. Culturally, this is where I am finding I learn the most. Not only about Ecuador but about life and the world in general. It was a valuable 20 minutes.

We got to San Vicente and had to find the bus station again. We got our tickets and then Ben convinced me to go walking with him so that he could find “meat on a stick” (meaning from one of the street vendors) before the bus left. We walked around the town a little – it was well lit and well populated and is known to be really safe.

When we got on the bus to leave for Quito we were looking out the window as we left the town. The exact intersection where the family had let us out of the pickup not an hour before was having issues… there was a man holding up a taxi driver at gun point. My friend Lanier and I saw what was going on – the man who was holding up the gun saw the bus and got rather upset. It was kind of a scary moment. A little intense. At the same time, it was just another thing to add to the list of unexpected things for the weekend. Once that was over we settled in a little. We stopped to let some people of and Lanier and I got some pan de yucca con queso … yucca bread with cheese … because we were hungry. It was really yum! We ate it and fell asleep. My sunburn hurt so, so much, so I had a hard time resting. But, compared to the bus ride to get to Canoa this was still wonderful… no overheating, no crazy six drivers, no tire problem, we didn’t freeze, only 8½ trip… I was impressed with the normality of it.

We made it back to Quito at about 5:30am – enough time for me to go home, take a shower, change, have breakfast and still make it in time to meet up with my class friends. So that’s what I did. It was kind of my mini-marathon of the day but I made it to the Rio Coca station on the ecovia (again, the other side of the city) by 7:15. There were three other students from the class. We took a bus to El Quinche. It’s a small town about an hour outside of Quito and they are currently celebrating religion holidays and “the virgin of Quinche” who is said to have established their town. It was cool. We went to the church and talked with some of the people. I learned a lot.

On the bus ride home I managed to get separated from everyone else and ended up traveling alone. I was actually completely okay with this. The bus was packed and I sat on the floor with a husband and wife who had just completed a traditional walk from their town to Quinche. They taught me a lot. Like the pickup truck the night before, these conditions were not the most favorable … sitting on the floor of a dirty and crowded bus, alone … but I had a really valuable experience.

I made it home to Quito around 2. I was exhausted and wanted to sleep but had a midterm to take yesterday that I needed to study for. I spent most of the afternoon nursing the sun burn and reading for the midterm. Thankfully I think I managed to send it running back to Hugo with its tail between its legs… it was long but not too hard. I passed out last night (watching Grey’s Anatomy reruns with my host sister) and slept – finally!

The weekend was wonderful though. I love times where I can drop my books and learn 10x more just from living life. How many people get the opportunity to do that? I’ve been lucky. Anyways… I am going to go to Católica and meet up with some friends for lunch. I realized this morning that I turn 21 two weeks from tomorrow and that I’ll be flying home 3 weeks from Friday. There is still soooo much to do between now and then… plus, more traveling!

Best to all!!!

Some Photos

How cool is that!?

The river that we stayed near ... two weeks before this photo the river was 4 meters higher! The land changes a ton from day to day.

Okay so this might just look like a tree... I'm about a foot shorter than that root at the bottom of the photo.

Quito Update and Galápagos Part II

Hey everyone! Sorry it has taken me so long to write and update. Time is really moving fast.

Quito has been okay since coming back from the Amazon. I loved our trip and wish we could have spent more time away. We're still having exams (just about every other day it feels like) and things have been busy since we have come back home. Hopefully they'll start to calm down soon, though I doubt it.

If Quito has taught me anything during these 4 months it is that I am not made for the city at all. I like it here, and I have learned a lot, but my heart belongs to the woods. I'm not a fan of the pollution and car alarms and constant robberies. It's just too busy. I've also found that I feel the same way about school life in a big university. It's nice some days to blend in with the crowd and hide away – but SBC is much better… where you know everyone and always have someone nearby to smile and laugh with.

A bunch of us are going to the beach tomorrow evening. We'll be coming back on Saturday night. It's only two days away but it will still be nice. We have been studying a lot lately and we all want a break. On Sunday I am going on a short trip with my religion class at PUCE and then studying for the rest of the day… we have another huge exam on Monday.

There has been a small change in when I will be coming back to the U.S. I'll now be flying home on December 14th rather than December 22nd. This is good… it means that I will get some time with my family before leaving for St. Louis and Wisconsin. I love Ecuador… but I am really looking forward to getting home and seeing friends and family again. I miss you guys!

The last few weeks are going to fly. I feel like I have something planned for almost every day over the next month… I’m going to Puerto Lopez for four days (and skipping class!! Totally unlike me… I’m kind of excited, can't lie! Tania's mom lives there and is a SBC alum. I can't be in Ecuador without going to visit her for at least a few days), Otavalo one more time, Baños for two days, Quinche, my birthday and independence day in Quito (during the same 48 hours, how sweet is that!?)… oh, and p.s., 11 papers and 2 more big exams and 3 finals. It's going to be a fun month. Actually, seriously, it probably will be and I know it will fly by.


Okay… so the rest of Galápagos real quick before I have to go to class... it's a shorter story than the first posting because we didn't do as much.

We went to the last island that we were going to visit on Sunday morning. We had a long time in the boat – 2½ hours for the first part … then we stopped for lunch on a tiny island and went snorkeling … and then another 2 hours and 24 minutes. Most of the day was spent traveling between the islands. By the time we got to Isabella the sun was already setting. We had about an hour to get settled into the new hotel and walk around a bit. Then we met up for supper and we talked for a little over an hour about the trip and went to bed.

I didn’t go snorkeling this day because it had taken me so long to warm up the day before. Jorge didn’t think it was a good idea. It ended up being okay because the other students didn’t see anything that we hadn’t seen the day before… and I didn’t freeze all over again. I also had a chance to talk with some of the other guides and learn more about the natural history of the islands.

One really cool thing did happen though while we were on the boat. It had been quite for about an hour and one of my friends jumped up in the back of the boat and started yelling for everyone to get up and come look. There were dolphins everywhere!! There must have been near 100 of them. They were jumping out of the water and so, so amazing to watch. We also saw a whale. We only saw it once and for a very brief moment. But this was cool too. It’s uncommon to see whales at this time of year.

Monday was adventure day on Isabella and by far my favorite day of the Galápagos trip. We woke up and had breakfast. Then we took a bus to an interior part of the island. Isabella is very volcanically active and we were going to go see the crater of the volcano. It’s the third largest active crater in the world… it was so cool! We actually traveled on horseback for about 2½-3 miles and looked down over the crater. It was really amazing. The horses were a little crazy, but it was okay. We all improved our skills. :-)

We did a little hiking around the volcano and we were able to explore a bit. It was really peaceful. I saw an amazing owl (I was walking alone and scrambling up some of the rocks). We rode the horses back down the same trail we had come up and then went to a restaurant for a late lunch. It was a simple day, but amazing all the same. After the late lunch we all had our first real opportunity to rest, so we took advantage of it. We did some beach exploring and were able to get more familiar with the island. It was so beautiful!!

The next morning we had breakfast and left Isabella early. We had a 1:30 flight and we had to make it back to Baltra. It was a boat ride there (long, again) and then we went straight to the airport. Not much of a Galápagos exploration day – more just traveling.

Overall the trip was a lot of fun. There was so much to see and learn and do! I would recommend it!


I’m bummed I don’t have more time to write… I need to get to class and get some studying done. I miss everyone back at home! I’ll try to be better about writing more often. Love!

Galapagos Part I

Well I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to go to the Amazon without posting at least part of the English Galapagos blog. Because things have been so busy lately I’m finding myself awake and finishing this thing at 4am the morning of the Amazon trip… but hey, it’s cool… at least it will finally be done!! Well, at least the first part, I’m not anticipating being able to post the whole thing.

So… Galapagos…

We left from Quito early on a Friday morning. We flew down to Guayaquil (a city on the southern coast of Ecuador – where Tania is from! – that is actually bigger than Quito). After a short layover in Guayaquil we left for the Galapagos!

We flew into the island of Baltra. It’s really, really small. Basically it’s only purpose is to house one of the two small airports that the Galapagos Islands has. Even yet, as soon as we landed it was very clear that we were in a very different environment than the one we are used to in Quito. It was so dry! Right now Galapagos is just about at the end of its dry season and it was very clear. There was a huge iguana sunbathing on the runway as we got off the plane. He was just kind of hanging there and lifted his head a little to look at the plane full of people, then went back to sunbathing.

We went through a baggage check to make sure that we were not bringing any restricted items with us to the islands. Galapagos is such a unique and preserved environment that many things are not allowed to be brought (mainly produce, nuts, seeds, things of this sort). From there we met up with our guide, Jorge, and our environmental professor from Quito, Hugo. We took a bus to the other end of the island and then a small boat to cross a short distance to the island of Santa Cruz.

The boat ride was really short but definitely exciting. We saw so many blue-footed boobies. These little birds are hardcore – they were flying in circles and then diving really fast into the water to try to catch some food. They would be under water for a little while and then come back up and start flying all over again. They were pretty cool.

Once we got to Santa Cruz we took another bus to cross the island. It was really cool to see how much the landscape and vegetation changes when you cross the island. The lowest part of the island, the coast all around, is very, very dry. But as you go up higher there is more vegetation, more life, and more greenness in general. We were going to stay the night in a hotel on Santa Cruz. We checked in there and went to have lunch and then walked over to the Charles Darwin Science and Research Center. The walk alone was really cool. We saw lots of crabs and iguanas and lizards all sunbathing by the shore. We also saw pelicans and sea lions. There are many plants that are endemic to the Galapagos Islands and Hugo and Jorge started to tell us a bit about some of them – my favorite was a cactus… that really looks like a tree and then you look up and oh, hey, that’s a huge cactus-of-a-tree up there.

We spent some time at the research center and learned about some of the environmental problems and concerns in the Galapagos. We also saw some of the giant tortoises and the famous “Solitary George” – a poor little (well not so little, more like 400 pounds) guy of a turtle who is the only one left of his kind. The turtles were cool. They were big, and kind of smelly, but definitely cool. They can live for over 250 years!

We stopped by a different part of the coast, an area more like a beach, on our way back to the hotel. By this time it was getting late and the sun was starting to set. It was so pretty! The beach was neat too because the “sand” was really all crushed volcanic rock (p.s. – the Galapagos Islands were formed by a huge hotspot and are still very volcanically active).

We had supper and then rested for the rest of the night. It was nice to have some free time to explore the island a little bit. One of my favorite things had to be how safe the islands are. Unlike Quito, you can walk around and not have to constantly be paranoid about getting robbed or messed with at any minute. This was good – it gave us more of an opportunity to relax and learn and take in the culture/environment without having to worry about getting into trouble. The stars were amazing!!!

Jorge was really great. He hung out with us the whole time and taught us so much! You are actually not allowed to visit the Galapagos Islands without a guide. This is because of all the environmental protection laws to make sure that the islands are well taken care of. Either way, we got lucky to have a really cool guide. He was a lot of fun, informative, and helpful with Spanish, too. Late on Friday he decided to ask us a question that he would proceed to torment us with for the following days – If giant turtles can’t swim for long distances and all of the Galapagos Islands are separated from each other by quite a bit of space, then way are there giant turtles on all of the islands and not just one or two? This question made me nuts because I wanted so badly to know the answer or to figure it out. At first I though it had something to do with the islands moving… then I realized that’s probably not it because of the hotspot and the way of volcanic formation for the area. Then I though maybe the islands had originally been bigger and erosion was a factor. I tried that one on Jorge. Not so much. He kind of laughed at me.

We got up early on Saturday morning and had breakfast – complete with tons of medicine to prevent motion sickness. We got our stuff together and went down to one of the docks of the island. We had to do another baggage check (to make sure we were not bringing anything restricted between the islands) and then we got on to two small boats. For real, small boats. 10 students were in my boat and the remaining 14 went in the other. This would be how we would travel between the islands. Our destination was the island of San Cristobal.

The boats are rough on you. They go fast and are constantly thrown around in the wind – it makes them hit pretty hard against the water. I was sore as a result for almost a week after we got back to Quito. They also make you seasick very quickly and very easily. But honestly, because of the uniqueness of the Galapagos and how important it is to properly preserve them, I’d rather travel in these boats than in one of the big tourist cruise ships. I saw those hanging around the dock too and it really just kind of made me angry. The little boats seemed like they were the lesser of two evils.

We traveled for about 45 minutes and stopped near the very small island of Santa Fe to go snorkeling. This was an amazing and awesome part of our trip that I will never forget. One of my overall highlights from Ecuador all together. It was cold… really, really, really cold, but totally worth it. We had our suits and some basic snorkel gear. We jumped off the sides of the boats and into the FREEZING water… swam a little bit… and ended up on a reef near Santa Fe. It was so cool! There were fish everywhere and sea lions all along the rocks on the coast of the island. I saw this really cool fish – it was huge and brilliant colors or reds and blues and yellows. At only point I put my face down into the water and found myself alone in the middle of a school of hundreds of fish. They swam all around me and were so pretty! I went over with the rest of the group – a little more towards the coast – and the sea lions started jumping into the water. Before we knew it they were swimming with us. They were so much fun – they would come up really close to you and play with you, and then go back to the rocks, climb up, jump back in, and do the whole thing over again. Really fun!

I don’t think I have ever been as cold as I was when I swam back to the boat. I don’t like the water too much but I am still a pretty strong swimmer. But it was so cold that my muscles were not wanting to work anymore and I really struggled just to make it back to the boat. When I got there one of the other guides lifted me out of the water and back into the boat because I didn’t have enough strength to climb up by myself. We were all cold – they gave us juice and pop and all kinds of foods and sugars to help us warm up. I was kind of bummed because it didn’t take the other students too long to warm up again but it took me a really long time. Jorge ended up wrapping me up in extra towels and his jacket and then sitting me in the warmest (sheltered) part of the boat. We still had almost 2 hours to go by boat before we would make it to San Cristobal. I eventually started to warm up a little. One of my friends lent me her ipod and I listened to that as we traveled. Another one fell asleep on top of me - good for warmth as well. The music served as a nice distraction and was actually really peaceful. I ended up being really at ease and relaxed, despite the cold, and haven’t felt that connected to the earth and life and God in a long time. Eventually I found myself not caring about the cold because I was so relaxed and so content with just being there and in that moment.

We made it to San Cristobal and checked in to the hotel where we were going to stay for the night. Then we went to another research center and saw more turtles and wildlife that is also native and endemic to the islands. We did some hiking – which I loved! – and then Jorge tormented us a little more with his question saying that whoever got the answer would win a guide t-shirt from the Galapagos. None of us could get it.

We went for another walk around the island. This one was longer and less formal – more just so that we could observe our surroundings and appreciate them. A lot of the students were chatting as they walked but I think the cold took a lot out of me and I wanted to be quiet and walk a little separated from everyone else. But during that time I got to thinking about Jorge’s question… and I figured it out!

I went to ask him about it… my theory was that because the islands are all formed by the same hotspot, and as a result the depth of the water between the islands is not as deep as it would be if you were out in the middle of the ocean… it’s actually more or less shallow. So, with that and given the fact that the earth naturally goes though hot and cold cycles, what would happed if there was an ice age? I though that maybe if there was an ice age and more water was to freeze at the poles of the earth, it would lower the overall sea level enough so that more land of the Galapagos was exposed. If that were to happen, maybe the islands would be connected to each other for a temporary time – allowing turtles to walk (not swim) between the different areas. At the end of the ice age when the water level rose again the turtles would remain on all the islands and not just one or two. I went to ask Jorge and he said I was right. I was excited. Not only did I win a t-shirt but the question was finally off of my mind!

We hung out on the island until evening and then went and had supper. It was suprising to me how developed the two islands we first went to were. Only 3% of the overall land of Galapagos is like this - the remaining 97% is protected - but still, I wasn't expecting the level of development and high population that we saw on Santa Cruz and San Cristobal. We did a little more exploring and then went to bed. We were going to move between islands again the next morning and we all wanted to rest. The next day was Isabella - less people, more environmental, and a very active island volcanically.

Okay… y’all have two of the five days we spent traveling (don’t worry, day five is pretty boring, so you have half the story here). I need to go shower and finish packing for this next adventure to the Amazon (I have to be at the airport in two hours!!!) but I will post the rest of this thing on Monday night. I love you all back in the States and I hope you’re doing well. Happy November! I miss all of you and can’t wait for some hugs and visits NEXT MONTH!!

p.s. Pat – getting on your knees like a little kid and begging for sweets on Halloween is pathetic!! But did it work!?!? You crack me up! I’ll bet you I could do better… if I dress up… most people think I’m 14 anyways (21 in a month!)! Next year it’s on! Let’s see who can do better. Your height hurts you. :-) Miss you!!!!