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