Only 3 weeks left..ahhhh!
After getting back from the Galapagos to the newly rainy and cold Quito, I lasted about a week until heading to the beach again. This time, I visited Canoa, a beach about 6 hours away by bus. Since literally the moment I got off the plane in Quito, everyone had told me that Canoa was the best beach on the Ecuadorian mainland, and that I HAD to go there. So when a few friends decided to go for the weekend, I decided to join them to see what all the hype was about. Canoa was a really cool, tiny beach town and what I really liked was that since it was so small, all of the hostels were right on the beach—so no 30 minute trek like at other beaches. Also, one of the main reasons I went was to try and surf because it has the reputation as the best surfing beach in Ecuador, and for good reason…the waves are huge! So they ended up being way above my Wrightsville Beach surfing skills so that didn’t last long—but I did get some sweet rides on a boogy board :) It was kind of a bummer because it rained a lot even at the beach that weekend, so I only got a few hours on the beach each day—which I guess means I’ll have to make another trip back to get the full Canoa experience.
The Tuesday after I got back, one of my friends invited me to a “sweat hut”. My friend Mariana is from Peru, but she moved to Ecuador to teach yoga, so she’s all into that sort of hippy-ish cleansing rituals. Usually not my cup of tea but I decided to try it…why not? So we went to this huge house in between Quito and Cumbaya with a really big yard and one of these sweat huts out back. The idea is that you all go in to this really low mud hut and sit in circles around the center, which they fill with heated stones, straight out of a fire. Then they literally seal you in there, and this Shaman (like an indigenous medicine man or spiritual leader) starts chanting and people start singing and praying and you start sweating. Its like a sauna times a thousand, and you’re apparently sweating out all the toxins and everything bad in your body. Jesus it was hard…I’ve NEVER sweat so much in my life, including running cross country in Chapel Hill in August—it was unreal, and I was sitting in this pile of dirt that then turned to mud, and overall it was just a pretty uncomfortable experience. But hey, after pounding some water and showering afterwards I did feel pretty “clean”, and I guess its one of those things you should try just because you might not ever get the chance again. And if I do, I’ll probably turn it down.
And then the week got even more fun…I woke up Wednesday morning to a really bad stomach ache, nausea, and diarrhea, feeling utterly miserable. I knew I needed to see a doctor so I dragged myself on the less than comfortable 40 minute bus rides down to campus and went to the university’s clinic. They took a sample and after analyzing it, the doctor, who had been communicating with me completely in Spanish, looks up and says “ooooh, you have infection my friend”… Turns out I did have an infection, of not just one, but 3 different types of bacteria, plus 2 parasites which are luckily still in their “larval” form (basically laying dormant waiting to wreak their havoc later). The small drugstore of drugs they gave me worked like a charm though and after a day of feeling like I wanted to rip my stomach from my body, the next day I felt totally better…and good thing too because I had a 9 hour bus ride ahead of me!
Thursday afternoon, after making sure I felt 100%, I decided once again to head back to the beach. This time, we went back to Los Frailes, the beach we had visited during Carnaval in February, and in my opinion, the “real” best beach in Ecuador, especially since relatively few people still know about it. For 3 days we had the pristine beach completely to ourselves!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Gal-lap-a-laps!!
Got back to Quito from 8 days in the Galapagos on Sunday and it was way too much….I guess that just means I’ll have to talk to you all in person when I get back!
But really, the Galapagos are an absolutely amazing place…somewhat “off the beaten path”, and since literally the entire group of islands is considered a national park, it’s totally safe and really well conserved. I was surprised by the number of people there visiting, but not in a way that detracted at all from the experience.
In short, we flew in around 10:30 Saturday morning to the airport on an island called Baltra—but from there it was a bus, ferry, and then another bus to Puerto Ayora, on the main island of Santa Cruz. We hung out on the beach there until mid day Sunday, and then took a boat about 3 hours to another island called Isabella. It’s the biggest, and shaped like a sea horse! On Isabella, my hostel was literally 20 feet from the ocean. You walked out the door, right onto the sand, past a few hammocks, and into the sea. It was incredible—not to mention, it had AC in the rooms, a rarity in Ecuador! On Isabella we did some hiking around volcanoes that looked like Mars, snorkeling, and played lots of soccer on the beach. Me and the 2 other guys from Raleigh (“ the rough Raleigh all stars”…) ended up undefeated in the Galaps in case you were wondering (against some very futbol pretentious Ecuadorians…)!
At the crack of dawn Wednesday we went back to Santa Cruz, and in the afternoon, visited Las Grietas, 60m cliffs into a really deep canyon that you can jump off. One of the coolest things about the Galapagos is how quickly landscapes change—the cliffs looked a lot like the NC mountains with clearer water, right after being on beautiful beaches, in a rainforest, and on a volcano from outer space. Crazy! The next day we did a day tour of the island of Floreana: hiked up into the highlands, saw the giant turtles at one of the research stations, and then went snorkeling. This time I saw a shark and got to swim with TONS of sea lions. At one point I couldn’t see any other people, just about 20 really adorable sea lions—that was definitely a highlight.
On Friday we had a free day, and I went straight to the airline company in the morning to extend my ticket an extra day till Sunday. That’s something that airline companies in the States need to jump on…it was SO easy to change the flight—literally I walked in the office in my bikini, gave them my name, and they moved it to Sunday. Done. No bs, no waiting, no fees.
Anyway, Friday and Saturday were free days—we went back to Las Grietas, did some snorkeling, rented kayaks, and spent a lot of time just hanging out on the beach, especially Tortuga Bay. It was nice to end the week like that…in my opinion the perfect combination of structured activities and free time.
So now a few highlights: 1. One morning on Isabella I got up early to go on a run down this beautiful path that ran parallel to the beach. I went around a corner and standing right in the middle of the path was one of the huge Galapagos turtles—its extremely rare to see them in the wild outside of the research centers, and here I was basically face to face with one. Just as a ball park, if I had to guess, I’d say its shell was almost 4 ft in diameter! 2. On Saturday in Tortuga Bay my friend Sean and I rented sea kayaks to try and find sea turtles. We saw a bunch, but the coolest thing was as we were looking, a manta ray jumped out of the water, about a foot into the air, soared for a bit, and then dove back under—it was like straight “Planet Earth”. 3. The torta caprese from Il Giardino—the best desert in Ecuador BY FAR…2 layers of chocolate cake with nutella mouse in the middle and a chocolate nutella icing outside…the best $4 ever spent (everyday…)
And the only bad thing to happen all week: Duke winning the national championship?!?! WHAT! Me and the other kids from UNC had been planning to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of our national championship in style but when we found out about Duke we decided it wouldn’t be appropriate (also, half of them got food poisoning that night [or perhaps a physical reaction to the news?...] and weren’t really feeling up to it).
…sooo when I got back to Quito on Sunday it was cold and pouring rain. Apparently the rainy season moved in while we were gone, which I hate, so I’m headed to the beach again tomorrow!
Love you all!
Kate
But really, the Galapagos are an absolutely amazing place…somewhat “off the beaten path”, and since literally the entire group of islands is considered a national park, it’s totally safe and really well conserved. I was surprised by the number of people there visiting, but not in a way that detracted at all from the experience.
In short, we flew in around 10:30 Saturday morning to the airport on an island called Baltra—but from there it was a bus, ferry, and then another bus to Puerto Ayora, on the main island of Santa Cruz. We hung out on the beach there until mid day Sunday, and then took a boat about 3 hours to another island called Isabella. It’s the biggest, and shaped like a sea horse! On Isabella, my hostel was literally 20 feet from the ocean. You walked out the door, right onto the sand, past a few hammocks, and into the sea. It was incredible—not to mention, it had AC in the rooms, a rarity in Ecuador! On Isabella we did some hiking around volcanoes that looked like Mars, snorkeling, and played lots of soccer on the beach. Me and the 2 other guys from Raleigh (“ the rough Raleigh all stars”…) ended up undefeated in the Galaps in case you were wondering (against some very futbol pretentious Ecuadorians…)!
At the crack of dawn Wednesday we went back to Santa Cruz, and in the afternoon, visited Las Grietas, 60m cliffs into a really deep canyon that you can jump off. One of the coolest things about the Galapagos is how quickly landscapes change—the cliffs looked a lot like the NC mountains with clearer water, right after being on beautiful beaches, in a rainforest, and on a volcano from outer space. Crazy! The next day we did a day tour of the island of Floreana: hiked up into the highlands, saw the giant turtles at one of the research stations, and then went snorkeling. This time I saw a shark and got to swim with TONS of sea lions. At one point I couldn’t see any other people, just about 20 really adorable sea lions—that was definitely a highlight.
On Friday we had a free day, and I went straight to the airline company in the morning to extend my ticket an extra day till Sunday. That’s something that airline companies in the States need to jump on…it was SO easy to change the flight—literally I walked in the office in my bikini, gave them my name, and they moved it to Sunday. Done. No bs, no waiting, no fees.
Anyway, Friday and Saturday were free days—we went back to Las Grietas, did some snorkeling, rented kayaks, and spent a lot of time just hanging out on the beach, especially Tortuga Bay. It was nice to end the week like that…in my opinion the perfect combination of structured activities and free time.
So now a few highlights: 1. One morning on Isabella I got up early to go on a run down this beautiful path that ran parallel to the beach. I went around a corner and standing right in the middle of the path was one of the huge Galapagos turtles—its extremely rare to see them in the wild outside of the research centers, and here I was basically face to face with one. Just as a ball park, if I had to guess, I’d say its shell was almost 4 ft in diameter! 2. On Saturday in Tortuga Bay my friend Sean and I rented sea kayaks to try and find sea turtles. We saw a bunch, but the coolest thing was as we were looking, a manta ray jumped out of the water, about a foot into the air, soared for a bit, and then dove back under—it was like straight “Planet Earth”. 3. The torta caprese from Il Giardino—the best desert in Ecuador BY FAR…2 layers of chocolate cake with nutella mouse in the middle and a chocolate nutella icing outside…the best $4 ever spent (everyday…)
And the only bad thing to happen all week: Duke winning the national championship?!?! WHAT! Me and the other kids from UNC had been planning to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of our national championship in style but when we found out about Duke we decided it wouldn’t be appropriate (also, half of them got food poisoning that night [or perhaps a physical reaction to the news?...] and weren’t really feeling up to it).
…sooo when I got back to Quito on Sunday it was cold and pouring rain. Apparently the rainy season moved in while we were gone, which I hate, so I’m headed to the beach again tomorrow!
Love you all!
Kate
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
I'm still here
Hey everyone!
Wow, I haven’t updated this in a long time, which I knew for myself, but didn’t realize that anyone else noticed haha, so thanks for being interested! The last few weeks have been really busy, mostly playing the host for a bunch of visitors and doing just about everything besides school work. I’m still having an awesome time down here, and its still crazy to me when I stop and think about the fact that I’m getting credit for such an incredible experience. This counts as a semester but I’ve definitely realized that school really isn’t (and shouldn’t be) as big a priority here because in the long run, what I’m going to remember is the people and the time I spend with them in this amazing country. I chose Ecuador completely out of logistics: Spanish speaking, direct exchange, US calendar, but I feel so lucky because its turned out to be the perfect place, especially with the beach, the mountains, and the jungle all within a day’s trip. So anyway, now I’ll try and shortly recap whats been going on these past few weeks:
Two weeks ago, four friends from Saint Mary’s came to visit during UNC’s spring break. Margaret Cheatham and her friend Carrie came 2 Thursdays ago, and Elizabeth and Cat arrived the next Monday. It was great to see some familiar faces, catch up with old friends, and get to be the host in my new home. Both trips had their little mishaps, as is to be expected in Ecuador, but everyone had a blast and got home safely. The funnies thing from Margaret Cheatham and Carrie’s visit was our cab driver speeding away with one of Carrie’s shoes still in his taxi, leaving her barefoot during her first visit to the Mariscal, Quito’s crazy nightlife center! The next week, after everyone returned to Quito from spending the week exploring Banos, we were in El Centro, the historic district, showing Elizabeth and Cat around, when someone stole Cat’s purse from the back of her chair during lunch…with 4 people at the table! Her passport was inside, so that started a literal scavenger hunt of sorts around Quito, trying to track down everything we needed to get her a new passport in less than 24 hours…at 5:00 on a Friday afternoon. (side note, the US embassy is literally open officially 3 hours a day, 4 days a week, needless to say, NOT Friday afternoons!) LUCKILY, after tracking down documents, scraping together cash, and basically begging the emergency department at the embassy, she got a new passport made in time to leave the next morning…while Elizabeth, Maria, and I got to enjoy “happy hour” with the guards and staff at the embassy while we waited. Just another surreal experience in Ecuador…
The Monday after that eventful weekend, my dad came in to visit!! This had been a Christmas presents, and something I’d been looking forward to all semester. The first night, he stayed with me at my host family’s apartment, and we had a big family dinner with all my siblings and their families. It really meant a lot to me how welcoming my family here was to my real family, and despite a pretty steep language barrier, they got along really well! The next day, against the advice of pretty much everyone, we decided to brave the psycho Ecuadorian drivers and rent a car to head out to the jungle for the next 3 days. It was a long and slightly misguided drive down there, but for me it was INCREDIBLE not to be on a hot, crowded bus, and the scenery was spectacular…in places I swear, Ecuador looks just like Jurassic Park!
We spent the next couple days at Cotacocha Lodge, in a sweet cabin on a river in the Amazon Jungle. The first day we went on a boat trip down the river, stopping to see monkeys, a rescued animal reserve, and an indigenous village. That day, we also experienced first hand the meaning of the word “rainforest”, as it literally poured for hours on end, and no one thought twice about it. The next day we went on a rafting trip down a tributary of the Amazon river. We had great weather, a great guide, and a really fun group which made for a killer trip…our guide even let me kayak in the safety kayak over the last 2 rapids, and I think it might have started an addiction of sorts—I’m definitely going back to try to learn that some more!
On Friday, we drove back to Quito for the weekend. After checking into our hotel we went took my host family out to dinner at this restaurant on top of a building that looked over the whole city. I’m still not tired of seeing Quito by night from above and really hope I never will. The next day we explored the Old Town and then went up the Teliferico in the afternoon, basically a ski lift that takes you to the top of Pinchincha, the 5000m volcano that towers over Quito to the west. Every other Sunday, the city closes Avenue Amazonas, the main street that runs all the way from past the airport to the north to past El Centro to the south, to cars, and opens it only to bikers and joggers. We rented bikes and rode basically the whole thing…a pretty amazing feat for Dad, considering how much I’m affected by the altitude every time I come back to Quito even after just leaving for the weekend. It was a beautiful day, and a really neat way to see the city—also, it was National Day of Diversity so there were tons of people celebrating in the parks, with bands and other expositions. In the afternoon, we rode out to Mitad del Mundo, the monument for the equator, which obviously runs through and was actually discovered here. It was pretty much a tourist trap, but hey, if you’ve come this close…why not check it out?
It was a great visit overall—we fit a ton into a short amount of time and it was nice to spend some time with dad. Also, I’m not gonna lie, I liked getting to experience Quito on a little more than a student’s budget, especially the chance to try out a few of their better known restaurants :)
After the string of visits, this past weekend was the first in a while that I’ve gotten out of Quito to travel, after not spending very much time here at all at the beginning of the semester. On Saturday, Bret and I took the bus up to Otavalo to meet 2 other friends. I hadn’t had a chance to explore the famous Saturday market in Otavalo yet and it was pretty overwhelming to say the least…I’m glad I got to take a look before I come back and make some purchases. After a few hours in the market we took another bus to Ibarra, and then finally another to a tiny town called La Esperanza at the base of Imbabura Volcano. That night we camped out in the yard behind a hostel there and lucky enough for us, we visited on the night that the circus came to town. So for a dollar, we got to go to the “circus”, which ended up being about 2 hours of some acrobatics, clowns, juggling, etc…kind of lame, but kind of cool at the same time—how many people can say they’ve seen a circus in a tiny pueblo in Ecuador?
In the morning, after a delicious breakfast of pancakes with warm blackberry syrup (the first I’ve had here), we got a camioneta to drive us to the beginning of the hike, and from there we started our trek up Imbabura. Imbabura is a volcanic mountain in the series of mountains for training Coltopaxi. It took us about 5 hours to the top, which is 4,600m up, and the last 500m or so was basically a scramble up open rock. The whole way up and back down was completely clear, with awesome views of the valley and the giant snow-capped mountain, Cayambe. At the top however it was super cloudy so it literally seemed like we were at the edge of the world…summiting is a pretty powerful feeling. 3 bus rides and about 6 hours later I was back in Quito exhausted and ready to start the week. We’ve only got 3 days of school this week before our spring break starts, so that means on Saturday I’m flying out to the Galapagos!
Hope all of you are doing well…I missed everyone in Sherwood this weekend and can’t wait to see you all in May!
Love,
Kate
Wow, I haven’t updated this in a long time, which I knew for myself, but didn’t realize that anyone else noticed haha, so thanks for being interested! The last few weeks have been really busy, mostly playing the host for a bunch of visitors and doing just about everything besides school work. I’m still having an awesome time down here, and its still crazy to me when I stop and think about the fact that I’m getting credit for such an incredible experience. This counts as a semester but I’ve definitely realized that school really isn’t (and shouldn’t be) as big a priority here because in the long run, what I’m going to remember is the people and the time I spend with them in this amazing country. I chose Ecuador completely out of logistics: Spanish speaking, direct exchange, US calendar, but I feel so lucky because its turned out to be the perfect place, especially with the beach, the mountains, and the jungle all within a day’s trip. So anyway, now I’ll try and shortly recap whats been going on these past few weeks:
Two weeks ago, four friends from Saint Mary’s came to visit during UNC’s spring break. Margaret Cheatham and her friend Carrie came 2 Thursdays ago, and Elizabeth and Cat arrived the next Monday. It was great to see some familiar faces, catch up with old friends, and get to be the host in my new home. Both trips had their little mishaps, as is to be expected in Ecuador, but everyone had a blast and got home safely. The funnies thing from Margaret Cheatham and Carrie’s visit was our cab driver speeding away with one of Carrie’s shoes still in his taxi, leaving her barefoot during her first visit to the Mariscal, Quito’s crazy nightlife center! The next week, after everyone returned to Quito from spending the week exploring Banos, we were in El Centro, the historic district, showing Elizabeth and Cat around, when someone stole Cat’s purse from the back of her chair during lunch…with 4 people at the table! Her passport was inside, so that started a literal scavenger hunt of sorts around Quito, trying to track down everything we needed to get her a new passport in less than 24 hours…at 5:00 on a Friday afternoon. (side note, the US embassy is literally open officially 3 hours a day, 4 days a week, needless to say, NOT Friday afternoons!) LUCKILY, after tracking down documents, scraping together cash, and basically begging the emergency department at the embassy, she got a new passport made in time to leave the next morning…while Elizabeth, Maria, and I got to enjoy “happy hour” with the guards and staff at the embassy while we waited. Just another surreal experience in Ecuador…
The Monday after that eventful weekend, my dad came in to visit!! This had been a Christmas presents, and something I’d been looking forward to all semester. The first night, he stayed with me at my host family’s apartment, and we had a big family dinner with all my siblings and their families. It really meant a lot to me how welcoming my family here was to my real family, and despite a pretty steep language barrier, they got along really well! The next day, against the advice of pretty much everyone, we decided to brave the psycho Ecuadorian drivers and rent a car to head out to the jungle for the next 3 days. It was a long and slightly misguided drive down there, but for me it was INCREDIBLE not to be on a hot, crowded bus, and the scenery was spectacular…in places I swear, Ecuador looks just like Jurassic Park!
We spent the next couple days at Cotacocha Lodge, in a sweet cabin on a river in the Amazon Jungle. The first day we went on a boat trip down the river, stopping to see monkeys, a rescued animal reserve, and an indigenous village. That day, we also experienced first hand the meaning of the word “rainforest”, as it literally poured for hours on end, and no one thought twice about it. The next day we went on a rafting trip down a tributary of the Amazon river. We had great weather, a great guide, and a really fun group which made for a killer trip…our guide even let me kayak in the safety kayak over the last 2 rapids, and I think it might have started an addiction of sorts—I’m definitely going back to try to learn that some more!
On Friday, we drove back to Quito for the weekend. After checking into our hotel we went took my host family out to dinner at this restaurant on top of a building that looked over the whole city. I’m still not tired of seeing Quito by night from above and really hope I never will. The next day we explored the Old Town and then went up the Teliferico in the afternoon, basically a ski lift that takes you to the top of Pinchincha, the 5000m volcano that towers over Quito to the west. Every other Sunday, the city closes Avenue Amazonas, the main street that runs all the way from past the airport to the north to past El Centro to the south, to cars, and opens it only to bikers and joggers. We rented bikes and rode basically the whole thing…a pretty amazing feat for Dad, considering how much I’m affected by the altitude every time I come back to Quito even after just leaving for the weekend. It was a beautiful day, and a really neat way to see the city—also, it was National Day of Diversity so there were tons of people celebrating in the parks, with bands and other expositions. In the afternoon, we rode out to Mitad del Mundo, the monument for the equator, which obviously runs through and was actually discovered here. It was pretty much a tourist trap, but hey, if you’ve come this close…why not check it out?
It was a great visit overall—we fit a ton into a short amount of time and it was nice to spend some time with dad. Also, I’m not gonna lie, I liked getting to experience Quito on a little more than a student’s budget, especially the chance to try out a few of their better known restaurants :)
After the string of visits, this past weekend was the first in a while that I’ve gotten out of Quito to travel, after not spending very much time here at all at the beginning of the semester. On Saturday, Bret and I took the bus up to Otavalo to meet 2 other friends. I hadn’t had a chance to explore the famous Saturday market in Otavalo yet and it was pretty overwhelming to say the least…I’m glad I got to take a look before I come back and make some purchases. After a few hours in the market we took another bus to Ibarra, and then finally another to a tiny town called La Esperanza at the base of Imbabura Volcano. That night we camped out in the yard behind a hostel there and lucky enough for us, we visited on the night that the circus came to town. So for a dollar, we got to go to the “circus”, which ended up being about 2 hours of some acrobatics, clowns, juggling, etc…kind of lame, but kind of cool at the same time—how many people can say they’ve seen a circus in a tiny pueblo in Ecuador?
In the morning, after a delicious breakfast of pancakes with warm blackberry syrup (the first I’ve had here), we got a camioneta to drive us to the beginning of the hike, and from there we started our trek up Imbabura. Imbabura is a volcanic mountain in the series of mountains for training Coltopaxi. It took us about 5 hours to the top, which is 4,600m up, and the last 500m or so was basically a scramble up open rock. The whole way up and back down was completely clear, with awesome views of the valley and the giant snow-capped mountain, Cayambe. At the top however it was super cloudy so it literally seemed like we were at the edge of the world…summiting is a pretty powerful feeling. 3 bus rides and about 6 hours later I was back in Quito exhausted and ready to start the week. We’ve only got 3 days of school this week before our spring break starts, so that means on Saturday I’m flying out to the Galapagos!
Hope all of you are doing well…I missed everyone in Sherwood this weekend and can’t wait to see you all in May!
Love,
Kate
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
bodysurfing a tsunami (well, not really...)
Last Friday afternoon we left campus for our final volcanology fieldtrip to Crucita, a town on the coast. Fieldtrips to the beach are way cooler than field trips to art musuems...
It was a long 7 hour bus ride, but it was incomparably more comfortable than the ride down to the beach for carnaval, mainly because these were buses chartered by the school and we the ability to chose from a bunch of different movies. When we finaly got to the hotel in Crucita it was about 1 am but after sleeping on the bus, no one was too exhausted so we threw our stuff in our respective cabanas and hit the pool. The hotel was great, a series of cabins, each with their own porch and hammoks, all surrounding a central pool. And since there were about 40 of us between Theo's 2 classes, we basically had the place to ourselves.
The next morning we got up early to start the "academic" part of the feild trip, and I'm not gonna lie, it was a pretty miserable 3 hours of looking at rocks in the scortching sun and energy-sucking humidity..close enough to the beach that you could hear it, but not actually see it.
The afternoon made all of that worth it though. Around noon we stopped at a beach that I learned is actually in the northern sector of the huge national park that we visited over Carnaval. This meant that the stretch of beach was just as well preserved and almost as deserted as los Frailes. We stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, hanging out on the beach and playing in the ocean. Later in the afternoon we rode for about an hour back to Crucita, where we imediately hit the beach again until sunset. It was unbelievable conditions for body surfing, and we learned later that night that the waves were actually bigger because of the earthquake in Chile earlier that day. hah! i body surfed in the effects of an earthquake...but seriously, the waves were HUGE, definitely the biggest I'd ever seen.
That night after a delicious dinner of fresh fish ceviche we went out and just got to know some of the kids in the class...and our professor Theo was quite the hit at the discoteca...
On Sunday morning we looked at a few more rocks (not too many), and got to spend a few more hours on the beach before heading back to Quito around noon.
What more? Well, I've been here 2 months today and its crazy (and obviously cliche), how much time flies. In about a week I'll have been here half the time! As everyone told me beforehand, going abroad is definitely the right decision. For me, it sounds lazy but its a really enjoyable and much needed break from any sorts of responsibilities. My classes are interesting, but in the end the grades don't really matter so there's no stress there, and although I love everything I'm involved in at UNC, its nice not to have 6 meetings a week for different clubs, or be fireing emails in 20 different directions each day. And I know this will allow me to come back recharged and super energized for senior year, and then who knows what else after that.
Its also been great hearing from all my friends back home, those in Chapel Hill and those that are also abroad. You know you have a pretty awesome set of friends when you get back from a weekend without internet to updates from China, Cuba, New Zealand, Oxford England, and more. I love hearing what everyone else is up to, so if you haven't already, shoot me an email or something!
Love,
Kate
It was a long 7 hour bus ride, but it was incomparably more comfortable than the ride down to the beach for carnaval, mainly because these were buses chartered by the school and we the ability to chose from a bunch of different movies. When we finaly got to the hotel in Crucita it was about 1 am but after sleeping on the bus, no one was too exhausted so we threw our stuff in our respective cabanas and hit the pool. The hotel was great, a series of cabins, each with their own porch and hammoks, all surrounding a central pool. And since there were about 40 of us between Theo's 2 classes, we basically had the place to ourselves.
The next morning we got up early to start the "academic" part of the feild trip, and I'm not gonna lie, it was a pretty miserable 3 hours of looking at rocks in the scortching sun and energy-sucking humidity..close enough to the beach that you could hear it, but not actually see it.
The afternoon made all of that worth it though. Around noon we stopped at a beach that I learned is actually in the northern sector of the huge national park that we visited over Carnaval. This meant that the stretch of beach was just as well preserved and almost as deserted as los Frailes. We stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, hanging out on the beach and playing in the ocean. Later in the afternoon we rode for about an hour back to Crucita, where we imediately hit the beach again until sunset. It was unbelievable conditions for body surfing, and we learned later that night that the waves were actually bigger because of the earthquake in Chile earlier that day. hah! i body surfed in the effects of an earthquake...but seriously, the waves were HUGE, definitely the biggest I'd ever seen.
That night after a delicious dinner of fresh fish ceviche we went out and just got to know some of the kids in the class...and our professor Theo was quite the hit at the discoteca...
On Sunday morning we looked at a few more rocks (not too many), and got to spend a few more hours on the beach before heading back to Quito around noon.
What more? Well, I've been here 2 months today and its crazy (and obviously cliche), how much time flies. In about a week I'll have been here half the time! As everyone told me beforehand, going abroad is definitely the right decision. For me, it sounds lazy but its a really enjoyable and much needed break from any sorts of responsibilities. My classes are interesting, but in the end the grades don't really matter so there's no stress there, and although I love everything I'm involved in at UNC, its nice not to have 6 meetings a week for different clubs, or be fireing emails in 20 different directions each day. And I know this will allow me to come back recharged and super energized for senior year, and then who knows what else after that.
Its also been great hearing from all my friends back home, those in Chapel Hill and those that are also abroad. You know you have a pretty awesome set of friends when you get back from a weekend without internet to updates from China, Cuba, New Zealand, Oxford England, and more. I love hearing what everyone else is up to, so if you haven't already, shoot me an email or something!
Love,
Kate
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Pasachoa
So I don’t usually post more than once a week, but this Sunday deserves its own. In short, at around 12:30 Saturday night, a couple of my friends told me about their plans to summit the mountain Pasochoa in the morning. Of course I wanted in, so we stopped by my apartment to grab my stuff, and drove to Cumbaya (the suburb of my university) to spend the night at my friend Esteban’s house, so that we could leave early in the morning to start the climb.
After about 3 hours of sleep, we woke up at 5:45, drank some coffee, grabbed some sandwiches, and hopped in the car to Pasochoa Forest Reserve where the mountain is located, about an hour and a half away from Cumbaya. Pasachoa has an elevation of about 4200 km, and is one of the mountains in a series of training summits for people training to climb Cotopaxi (the mountain with the glacier we visited). So our group was a really cool group of people, a lot of whom were working their way up to climbing Cotopaxi in the future. Esteban’s friend Mario was our guide, along with a few other guys who had climbed Cotopaxi and a bunch of other really difficult mountains before, so it was great getting to hear all their stories!
It took about 4.5 hours up to the top, and it wasn’t anything really technical but just a really scenic, sometimes challenging hike. The top was a rock face from which you could see everything, including a huge caldera where a volcano had collapsed behind us, and the peaks of a few of the famous volcanoes in the country. It was pretty surreal, especially to think about how quickly everything had changed to bring me up there—just a really spontaneous decision a few hours before..
Up at the top we took a bunch of pictures (duh) and had a snack before starting the descent. On the way back once it flattened out towards the base we took our time and getting to know some of the people in our group and enjoying the scenery. At the bottom we were all exhausted and hungry but super satisfied. I’d only summited one mountain before (Mt. Leconte on the NC-TN) border, but it’s a pretty addicting feeling to make it to the top…hopefully I’ll get some more opportunities like this as the semester goes on!
ps. new pictures up on picassa, and soon to come on facebook hopefully!
After about 3 hours of sleep, we woke up at 5:45, drank some coffee, grabbed some sandwiches, and hopped in the car to Pasochoa Forest Reserve where the mountain is located, about an hour and a half away from Cumbaya. Pasachoa has an elevation of about 4200 km, and is one of the mountains in a series of training summits for people training to climb Cotopaxi (the mountain with the glacier we visited). So our group was a really cool group of people, a lot of whom were working their way up to climbing Cotopaxi in the future. Esteban’s friend Mario was our guide, along with a few other guys who had climbed Cotopaxi and a bunch of other really difficult mountains before, so it was great getting to hear all their stories!
It took about 4.5 hours up to the top, and it wasn’t anything really technical but just a really scenic, sometimes challenging hike. The top was a rock face from which you could see everything, including a huge caldera where a volcano had collapsed behind us, and the peaks of a few of the famous volcanoes in the country. It was pretty surreal, especially to think about how quickly everything had changed to bring me up there—just a really spontaneous decision a few hours before..
Up at the top we took a bunch of pictures (duh) and had a snack before starting the descent. On the way back once it flattened out towards the base we took our time and getting to know some of the people in our group and enjoying the scenery. At the bottom we were all exhausted and hungry but super satisfied. I’d only summited one mountain before (Mt. Leconte on the NC-TN) border, but it’s a pretty addicting feeling to make it to the top…hopefully I’ll get some more opportunities like this as the semester goes on!
ps. new pictures up on picassa, and soon to come on facebook hopefully!
Friday, February 19, 2010
A la playa!!
At 4:30 Wednesday morning, I got back from a 5 day trip to the beach, and I’m almost speechless. Almost. Actually, I’m really excited to talk about it!
This past week was the Ecuadorian holiday Carnaval , which if I’m correct, is a celebration to mark the start of Lent…sort of an extended Fat Tuesday. So everyone had Monday and Tuesday off from school or work, and since most of us don’t have classes anyway on Friday, it quickly turned into an extremely extended long weekend (which was much needed). However, we actually got pretty lucky, none of the exchange kids really realized the magnitude of Carnaval, and we figured we’d just be able to go to the beach like any other weekend, sort of on the fly, spur of the moment. NOT so. Once people told us to make reservations, I actually spend about 2 hours on the phone with hostals, all of them completely full. Once we finally found a place to stay, we had to go to about 3 different bus companies to find one that wasn’t sold out…so like I said, we were quite lucky that everything actually worked out. And after the slight mishap of getting my cell phone pick pocketed on the bus to catch the overnight bus we took to the coast, everything went better than expected.
The bus ride there was long, cramped, and sticky—we left Quito at about 8 pm Thursday and arrived in Puerto Lopez (a beach town to the south) at about 6:30 in the morning. After stumbling into our hostel and taking a quick power nap, we ate breakfast and spent 3 out of the next 4 days on the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. But also the hostel couldn’t have been better—it was run by really cool, friendly people, and it was $10 a night for a clean room with private bathrooms, hot water, and a ballin breakfast of rolls, eggs, fruit salad, and coffee…and hammocks!! Also, our hostel-mates happened to be the squad of extra police that they decided to bring in to control the festivities so I guess we were either super secure there, or suffocated by corruption (however you want to look at the Ecuadorian police..) The beach in Puerto Lopez itself was super crowded (picture Wrightsville on memorial day weekend or something), but about 20 minutes down the road was the entrance to Machalilla National Forest, the only national park on the coast. Here, with our student visas, we paid a $5 entrance fee good for 4 days, and had free reign to explore the 3 beaches nearby: Los Frailes, Tortuga, and La Playa Negra (with black sand!!). The beaches were so deserted and pristine, and I’d never been anywhere with such a striking combination of rocky capes and cliffs (like northern Cali) with long stretches of sandy coastline like in North Carolina. The surf was safe but exciting, and every day we packed a lunch from in town, and spent the day reading, relaxing, swimming, exploring, throwing a Frisbee…etc. paradise. And at night back in Puerto Lopez we ate ridiculously cheap and fresh seafood and experienced the carnaval night life with some of the guys that worked at our hostel.
One of the days (Sunday), we went to Isla de la Plata, an island 42 km off the coast of Puerto Lopez that’s apparently the “poor man’s Galapagos” with a similar geological history and so a lot of the same wildlife. It was about a 2 hour boatride out there, and then we went on some hikes, ate lunch, and snorkeled! After snorkeling, the tour group that we went out there with (which was run by one of the owners of our hostal), sent the rest of the (less cool…) groups back on other boats because one of our motors broke and we stayed hanging out on the boat, jumping from the top and making friends with the crew. With the broken motor it was a slower ride back but really relaxing and beautiful. Also, when the crew found out I knew how to drive a boat using all the navigational tools and depth readers, etc they made me la capitan for about an hour (thanks Captain Ford!)
The last morning I got up early and went for a bike ride with one of the guys who ran the hostel. We biked (slash pushed most of the way) to the top of this mountain in the national park, and from there you could see everything—the mountains to the east and the pacific ocean out to the west. Whoa. Then it was a really fast, windy downhill coast back to the main road. Whoa. We spent the rest of that day on the beach in Puerto Lopez just to check it out, and it was the only day we had any rain, which for me is always a good sign if it rains on the day you’re supposed to leave the beach. That night after packing up, eating one last bowl of $2.50 ceviche, and saying goodbye to our new “family” in Puerto Lopez, ie. The people at the hostel, we left on the overnight bus at about 8 for the trip back to Quito. And where the last one had been suffocatingly hot, this one was sub artic, but about 2 hours shorter for no apparent reason really…so we got to Quito at 4:30 am exhausted, sunburned, and satisfied. And speaking of the sunburn, a) they aren't lying when they say sun on the equator is actually stronger...spf 15 ain't gonna cut it, and b) despite how cheap everything else is here, since gringos are the only ones buying sunscreen they jack the price of that incredibly high...i payed $14 for a regular sized bottle the other day!!! but don't worry mom, even the extreme tightwad in me isn't willing to risk 3rd degree burns..
So as is the life of study abroad, I had classes Wednesday and Thursday before the start of another 3 day weekend…tough huh? On Thursday afternoon I witnessed a HUGE protest in the park against Correa the president, we’ll see what happens on that front. Last night I went with my family to the birthday party of a 10 year old cousin, complete with make your own pizza and a Hanna Montana birthday cake. Then we watched Forrest Gump with all the cousins…did I even leave my family in the states?! JK MISS YOU GUYS TONS!
Anyway, enjoy the last week of February everyone!
Love,
Kate
This past week was the Ecuadorian holiday Carnaval , which if I’m correct, is a celebration to mark the start of Lent…sort of an extended Fat Tuesday. So everyone had Monday and Tuesday off from school or work, and since most of us don’t have classes anyway on Friday, it quickly turned into an extremely extended long weekend (which was much needed). However, we actually got pretty lucky, none of the exchange kids really realized the magnitude of Carnaval, and we figured we’d just be able to go to the beach like any other weekend, sort of on the fly, spur of the moment. NOT so. Once people told us to make reservations, I actually spend about 2 hours on the phone with hostals, all of them completely full. Once we finally found a place to stay, we had to go to about 3 different bus companies to find one that wasn’t sold out…so like I said, we were quite lucky that everything actually worked out. And after the slight mishap of getting my cell phone pick pocketed on the bus to catch the overnight bus we took to the coast, everything went better than expected.
The bus ride there was long, cramped, and sticky—we left Quito at about 8 pm Thursday and arrived in Puerto Lopez (a beach town to the south) at about 6:30 in the morning. After stumbling into our hostel and taking a quick power nap, we ate breakfast and spent 3 out of the next 4 days on the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. But also the hostel couldn’t have been better—it was run by really cool, friendly people, and it was $10 a night for a clean room with private bathrooms, hot water, and a ballin breakfast of rolls, eggs, fruit salad, and coffee…and hammocks!! Also, our hostel-mates happened to be the squad of extra police that they decided to bring in to control the festivities so I guess we were either super secure there, or suffocated by corruption (however you want to look at the Ecuadorian police..) The beach in Puerto Lopez itself was super crowded (picture Wrightsville on memorial day weekend or something), but about 20 minutes down the road was the entrance to Machalilla National Forest, the only national park on the coast. Here, with our student visas, we paid a $5 entrance fee good for 4 days, and had free reign to explore the 3 beaches nearby: Los Frailes, Tortuga, and La Playa Negra (with black sand!!). The beaches were so deserted and pristine, and I’d never been anywhere with such a striking combination of rocky capes and cliffs (like northern Cali) with long stretches of sandy coastline like in North Carolina. The surf was safe but exciting, and every day we packed a lunch from in town, and spent the day reading, relaxing, swimming, exploring, throwing a Frisbee…etc. paradise. And at night back in Puerto Lopez we ate ridiculously cheap and fresh seafood and experienced the carnaval night life with some of the guys that worked at our hostel.
One of the days (Sunday), we went to Isla de la Plata, an island 42 km off the coast of Puerto Lopez that’s apparently the “poor man’s Galapagos” with a similar geological history and so a lot of the same wildlife. It was about a 2 hour boatride out there, and then we went on some hikes, ate lunch, and snorkeled! After snorkeling, the tour group that we went out there with (which was run by one of the owners of our hostal), sent the rest of the (less cool…) groups back on other boats because one of our motors broke and we stayed hanging out on the boat, jumping from the top and making friends with the crew. With the broken motor it was a slower ride back but really relaxing and beautiful. Also, when the crew found out I knew how to drive a boat using all the navigational tools and depth readers, etc they made me la capitan for about an hour (thanks Captain Ford!)
The last morning I got up early and went for a bike ride with one of the guys who ran the hostel. We biked (slash pushed most of the way) to the top of this mountain in the national park, and from there you could see everything—the mountains to the east and the pacific ocean out to the west. Whoa. Then it was a really fast, windy downhill coast back to the main road. Whoa. We spent the rest of that day on the beach in Puerto Lopez just to check it out, and it was the only day we had any rain, which for me is always a good sign if it rains on the day you’re supposed to leave the beach. That night after packing up, eating one last bowl of $2.50 ceviche, and saying goodbye to our new “family” in Puerto Lopez, ie. The people at the hostel, we left on the overnight bus at about 8 for the trip back to Quito. And where the last one had been suffocatingly hot, this one was sub artic, but about 2 hours shorter for no apparent reason really…so we got to Quito at 4:30 am exhausted, sunburned, and satisfied. And speaking of the sunburn, a) they aren't lying when they say sun on the equator is actually stronger...spf 15 ain't gonna cut it, and b) despite how cheap everything else is here, since gringos are the only ones buying sunscreen they jack the price of that incredibly high...i payed $14 for a regular sized bottle the other day!!! but don't worry mom, even the extreme tightwad in me isn't willing to risk 3rd degree burns..
So as is the life of study abroad, I had classes Wednesday and Thursday before the start of another 3 day weekend…tough huh? On Thursday afternoon I witnessed a HUGE protest in the park against Correa the president, we’ll see what happens on that front. Last night I went with my family to the birthday party of a 10 year old cousin, complete with make your own pizza and a Hanna Montana birthday cake. Then we watched Forrest Gump with all the cousins…did I even leave my family in the states?! JK MISS YOU GUYS TONS!
Anyway, enjoy the last week of February everyone!
Love,
Kate
Monday, February 8, 2010
...and thats how I ended up in prison..
Exciting weekend! After spending an extremely frustrating amount of time Friday unsuccessfully trying to make reservations at the beach for next weekend, a holiday, Saturday and Sunday were full of adventure.
Saturday morning we left at 7 am from Quito, for Cotopaxi National Park as a field trip for our volcanology class. Cotopaxi is a really tall, famous volcanic mountain about 3 hours from Quito (google it!) We drove a little ways up the mountain, then got out of the buses and hiked the rest of the way up to the glacier. It was extremely exhausting but totally worth it! It’s a pretty unbelievable feeling to go from 75 degrees in Quito to surrounded by snow on the slope of a volcano in less than 3 hours. Unfortunately, our professor is slightly absent-minded and didn’t tell to come to the fieldtrip prepared for cold, so I climbed it in pants and a light fleece. It took about 3 hours to thaw out after that experience…
In the early evening we arrived in the city of Banos, a popular tourist destination for extranjeros and Ecuadorians alike because of all the outdoors activities nearby, and that’s where we spent the night. Most of the Ecuadorians on the trip had been to Banos and sort of knew the lay of the land, so they knew what to do to have a good time there. That night they organized a “chiva”—picture an open air-party bus, with a dance floor in the back half—to take us to a lookout spot above the city. So we rode to the top of this hill, and from there you could see all of Banos spread out below and the volcano Tungurahua (which explodes every 20-30 minutes) in the distance.
We woke up at 5 am Sunday to head to Pailon del Diablo, a huge waterfall outside of Banos. We hiked about 30 minutes down a canyon to the waterfall as the sun was coming up. Seeing the falls from the bottom was pretty incredible, but the main attraction is the tunnel that they built that winds its way up behind the falls to a lookout spot at the top, directly behind the flow of water. Unfortunately, it was so early that the entrance to that path was still locked…and this is how I should have ended up in jail:
Our teacher, Theo, was pretty disappointed for us that we weren’t going to get to go to the top of the waterfall, so he said off handedly to me, “you should just see if you can climb up that wall and over the gate at the entrance”. Well, if he was being sarcastic I couldn’t tell (a combination of his greek accent and broken Spanish)… I went for it. I made it over the top of the gate and to the other side, where I looked around, unsuccessfully, for the key to let the others in. I couldn’t find it, but I figured since I was already over, I HAD to go see the top, right? So I walked up the path, wedged my way through the tunnel, and came out behind the cascade with the wall of water falling all around me. It was incredible (and probably slightly more so knowing it was slightly illegal…)! As I made my way back to the group, a few others had climbed over, so I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who got to see it.
After hiking back to the bus, we returned to Banos for a much needed breakfast, and then set off for the volcano Tungurahua, the most active volcano in Ecuador because it produces a small explosion of ash, rock, and vapor every 20 or 30 minutes. Even though it happens so consistently, it was still a pretty unfamiliar feeling to sit on the slope of a volcano while it erupts over your shoulder! Around mid afternoon we hit the road back to Quito—Theo had promised to have us back in time for the Super Bowl… I think the weekend got the best of me and I got pretty sick Sunday night but I’m feeling better now, and pretty invincible after facing a glacier, freezing rain, a near escape from the Ecuadorian legal system, a hike down a canyon in the pitch darkness, the most active volcano in Ecuador, and the “24 hr bug” in less than 2 days!
Saturday morning we left at 7 am from Quito, for Cotopaxi National Park as a field trip for our volcanology class. Cotopaxi is a really tall, famous volcanic mountain about 3 hours from Quito (google it!) We drove a little ways up the mountain, then got out of the buses and hiked the rest of the way up to the glacier. It was extremely exhausting but totally worth it! It’s a pretty unbelievable feeling to go from 75 degrees in Quito to surrounded by snow on the slope of a volcano in less than 3 hours. Unfortunately, our professor is slightly absent-minded and didn’t tell to come to the fieldtrip prepared for cold, so I climbed it in pants and a light fleece. It took about 3 hours to thaw out after that experience…
In the early evening we arrived in the city of Banos, a popular tourist destination for extranjeros and Ecuadorians alike because of all the outdoors activities nearby, and that’s where we spent the night. Most of the Ecuadorians on the trip had been to Banos and sort of knew the lay of the land, so they knew what to do to have a good time there. That night they organized a “chiva”—picture an open air-party bus, with a dance floor in the back half—to take us to a lookout spot above the city. So we rode to the top of this hill, and from there you could see all of Banos spread out below and the volcano Tungurahua (which explodes every 20-30 minutes) in the distance.
We woke up at 5 am Sunday to head to Pailon del Diablo, a huge waterfall outside of Banos. We hiked about 30 minutes down a canyon to the waterfall as the sun was coming up. Seeing the falls from the bottom was pretty incredible, but the main attraction is the tunnel that they built that winds its way up behind the falls to a lookout spot at the top, directly behind the flow of water. Unfortunately, it was so early that the entrance to that path was still locked…and this is how I should have ended up in jail:
Our teacher, Theo, was pretty disappointed for us that we weren’t going to get to go to the top of the waterfall, so he said off handedly to me, “you should just see if you can climb up that wall and over the gate at the entrance”. Well, if he was being sarcastic I couldn’t tell (a combination of his greek accent and broken Spanish)… I went for it. I made it over the top of the gate and to the other side, where I looked around, unsuccessfully, for the key to let the others in. I couldn’t find it, but I figured since I was already over, I HAD to go see the top, right? So I walked up the path, wedged my way through the tunnel, and came out behind the cascade with the wall of water falling all around me. It was incredible (and probably slightly more so knowing it was slightly illegal…)! As I made my way back to the group, a few others had climbed over, so I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who got to see it.
After hiking back to the bus, we returned to Banos for a much needed breakfast, and then set off for the volcano Tungurahua, the most active volcano in Ecuador because it produces a small explosion of ash, rock, and vapor every 20 or 30 minutes. Even though it happens so consistently, it was still a pretty unfamiliar feeling to sit on the slope of a volcano while it erupts over your shoulder! Around mid afternoon we hit the road back to Quito—Theo had promised to have us back in time for the Super Bowl… I think the weekend got the best of me and I got pretty sick Sunday night but I’m feeling better now, and pretty invincible after facing a glacier, freezing rain, a near escape from the Ecuadorian legal system, a hike down a canyon in the pitch darkness, the most active volcano in Ecuador, and the “24 hr bug” in less than 2 days!
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