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