As unbelievable as it is, my time here is coming to its end...
Tomorrow I have my final test and evaluations of the program. Then, I will be off to watch the Huskies play their first March Madness game to distract myself as I await my family´s arrival! We will spend the weekend touring Quito and then head off to the Galapagos Islands next week. Then, HOME! Yay! I can not wait to eat some Chinese food, and Thai food, and teriyaki, and Indian food...basically anything non-Ecuadorian or from Trader Joe´s (how I´ve missed thee).
I have had an incredible experience here. From jungles to ruins to volcanoes to rivers to cities to beaches, I´ve pretty much seen it all! I will definitely treasure all the memories I have made and all the, probably, once in a lifetime experiences I have had. I am glad to have stepped off the normal paths of study abroads, as much as I am sure I would have enjoyed constantly eating gelato in Italy. I´ll still make it there someday! Mostly, it has been a huge growing experience where many times I have had to go outside my comfort zone. I hope I can carry back home the patience, spontaneity, flexibility and spanish speaking abilities that I have grown so much in.
I will look forward to catching up with all of you soon after I get back to the US (the 28th). Hope everyone does well on finals and has a safe and fun-filled spring break! Or that your next week of work goes smoothly if you´re no longer living the college life. Love to you all! Thanks for reading!
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Sleeping with Scorpions, Spiders and Cockroaches
Believe it! We did find and sleep with (after killing) all these creatures on our class trip to the Amazon. Despìte the creepy crawlies, I had an incredible time visiting the jungle region of Ecuador last week (as in the first week of March, not the week that just happened). School really can´t get much better than that!
We set off on Tuesday and arrived at the Cabanas Alinahui where we were staying for the week. Promptly after getting settled, and killing out first round of bugs, we headed out for a jungle trek with our guide, Pedro. He taught us about medicinal plants, how to identify ant colonies vs. termite colonies that seem to grow like tumors on the trees, how to swing on a liana (vine) and about the ¨walking trees¨that grow there that have roots above ground and constantly grow new ones to move towards the sunlight. We also saw a baby vulture that was nested among the giant roots of a tree. It´s mother was high above in the tree and the baby stays hidden in the roots (about 3 feet high) until it matures and flies out. We headed back for dinner and to get ready for more adventures the next day!
Wednesday morning we got the amazing surprise of being served pancakes for breakfast. We were all super excited and gobbled them up! Then, we headed out for another jungle hike to a waterfall. Along the way, we learned more about how the indigenous people use plants to build houses, eat, clothe themselves, etc. Pretty much nothing goes to waste and they´re pretty creative people, even if by necessity! The waterfall we finally arrived at was beautiful and we could climb on the face of it and behind it while big Blue Morph butterflies fluttered around. Afterwards, we ate a picnic lunch by the river that flowed out of the waterfall. Just another day of school...after lunch we headed to a mariposario (or butterfly house basically) where we saw all the stages of a butterfly and so many varieties it was dizzying try to photograph them all. Way of transport from the waterfall to the mariposario: the TOP of a bus. I have had some crazy bus rides but this by far was the scariest! The bus was too full for us to ride inside so the obvious solution to our guide was for us to all climb up on top. Even our teacher was a little sketched out but we all made it there safely after a couple close calls with tree branches. Our final stop was a small town by the river where Capuchin monkeys live in the city square by day to get fed by the locals and toursists and live in trees by the river at night. These monkeys were super smart and not afraid at all of humans. One guy in our class, Steven, had brought a bag of fruit and was trying to get it open to give to the monkeys when one of them jumped up on him, impatient to get the fruit he knew was inside the bag. Steven freaked a little and threw the bag towards the other monkeys. They all proceeded to open the bag and split up the fruit. One monkey even turned the bag inside out and licked up the mushed banana inside. Crazy smart!
The next day was a blast! We took a motored canoe down the Rio Napo, which flows into the Amazon river, and also got to float down in tubes for part of it. We picnicked again by the river, then visited a museum of indigenous people, where we got eaten alive by mosquitos. Finally, we headed to the AmaZOOnico, a rehabilitation, rescue and release place for animals that have been taken from the jungle as pets or to be sold in markets or are injured. It was sad to hear how people think an ocelot cub will be a good pet and then can´t handle it when it grows up or how birds are carried to markets and even if only 1 out of 10 lives, the smuggler still makes a profit. They had beautiful, rare animals like capaberas, the largest rodent in the world, picture the size of a pig but with the appearance of a guinea pig. We got to see a jagurundi, a small black jungle cat attack a piece of meat for lunch and drink blood!
After our class events officially ended, we all stayed one more night, went on another hike to a waterfall and lagoon and then headed home to avoid getting more bug bites. I must have had 50 or 60 by the end of the trip! Thankfully, they are healing up now! And all the itchiness was totally worth it...
We set off on Tuesday and arrived at the Cabanas Alinahui where we were staying for the week. Promptly after getting settled, and killing out first round of bugs, we headed out for a jungle trek with our guide, Pedro. He taught us about medicinal plants, how to identify ant colonies vs. termite colonies that seem to grow like tumors on the trees, how to swing on a liana (vine) and about the ¨walking trees¨that grow there that have roots above ground and constantly grow new ones to move towards the sunlight. We also saw a baby vulture that was nested among the giant roots of a tree. It´s mother was high above in the tree and the baby stays hidden in the roots (about 3 feet high) until it matures and flies out. We headed back for dinner and to get ready for more adventures the next day!
Wednesday morning we got the amazing surprise of being served pancakes for breakfast. We were all super excited and gobbled them up! Then, we headed out for another jungle hike to a waterfall. Along the way, we learned more about how the indigenous people use plants to build houses, eat, clothe themselves, etc. Pretty much nothing goes to waste and they´re pretty creative people, even if by necessity! The waterfall we finally arrived at was beautiful and we could climb on the face of it and behind it while big Blue Morph butterflies fluttered around. Afterwards, we ate a picnic lunch by the river that flowed out of the waterfall. Just another day of school...after lunch we headed to a mariposario (or butterfly house basically) where we saw all the stages of a butterfly and so many varieties it was dizzying try to photograph them all. Way of transport from the waterfall to the mariposario: the TOP of a bus. I have had some crazy bus rides but this by far was the scariest! The bus was too full for us to ride inside so the obvious solution to our guide was for us to all climb up on top. Even our teacher was a little sketched out but we all made it there safely after a couple close calls with tree branches. Our final stop was a small town by the river where Capuchin monkeys live in the city square by day to get fed by the locals and toursists and live in trees by the river at night. These monkeys were super smart and not afraid at all of humans. One guy in our class, Steven, had brought a bag of fruit and was trying to get it open to give to the monkeys when one of them jumped up on him, impatient to get the fruit he knew was inside the bag. Steven freaked a little and threw the bag towards the other monkeys. They all proceeded to open the bag and split up the fruit. One monkey even turned the bag inside out and licked up the mushed banana inside. Crazy smart!
The next day was a blast! We took a motored canoe down the Rio Napo, which flows into the Amazon river, and also got to float down in tubes for part of it. We picnicked again by the river, then visited a museum of indigenous people, where we got eaten alive by mosquitos. Finally, we headed to the AmaZOOnico, a rehabilitation, rescue and release place for animals that have been taken from the jungle as pets or to be sold in markets or are injured. It was sad to hear how people think an ocelot cub will be a good pet and then can´t handle it when it grows up or how birds are carried to markets and even if only 1 out of 10 lives, the smuggler still makes a profit. They had beautiful, rare animals like capaberas, the largest rodent in the world, picture the size of a pig but with the appearance of a guinea pig. We got to see a jagurundi, a small black jungle cat attack a piece of meat for lunch and drink blood!
After our class events officially ended, we all stayed one more night, went on another hike to a waterfall and lagoon and then headed home to avoid getting more bug bites. I must have had 50 or 60 by the end of the trip! Thankfully, they are healing up now! And all the itchiness was totally worth it...
Monday, March 2, 2009
Viva Peru!
If you ever get the chance, go to Macchu Picchu! I am extremely grateful that I took advantage of my proximity and decided to go. It was AMAZING! The Incas were truly a genius culture and their ruins are incredibly intact because of this. It was crazy to see almost whole buildings still standing after 400 years, including withstanding enormous earthquakes (in the 1600s and 1700s).
Josh and I flew first to Lima, Peru, then to the city of Cusco. From there, we took a number of buses around to other Incan ruin sites, Pisac and Ollantaytambo. One of the train routes to Macchu Picchu leaves from Ollantaytambo, so we stayed the night there. In the darkness of 4:30am we headed for the train station on Friday. The train arrived in Aguas Calientes, a town at the base of the mountain where Macchu Picchu is. A quick hair-pin turning bus ride and we were there!! At 7:30am it was still fogged in which lent a cool, eerie feeling like we were the only ones there and trying to discover what lay beyond our visiblity. Later in the day it cleared up and we were able to take amazing panoramic pictures and the typical postcard pictures too. After trekking around most of Macchu Picchu we hiked up Wayna Picchu, another ruin very close by that is at the top of a very, very steep peak. It was quite the climb! An hour and a half climbing straight up tiny stone stairways but simply astonishing views at the top. It´s so hard to describe in words all that I saw, really only pictures do it justice.
We spent the rest of our time in Peru in Cusco, a beautiful, very Spanish influenced city and also very touristy. We saw gorgeous churches and some more astounding Incan ruins where the stones fit so perfectly together you can barely see the creases where they meet. In the Cathedral there, we took an audio tour (super unseen here in South America! we were shocked!) and learned a bunch about how the Spanish mixed indigenous ideologies into the architecture and art to appeal to the native people. Also in the Cathedral is the first cross to ever arrive in South America which was brought on the expedition of Francisco Pissaro in the 1500s. For lunch one day, we tasted alpaca, an animal like a llama that is very popular in Peru. It was actually really good! Kind of like a more tender and juicy pork chop?
Well, I would love to write more but I´ve got to get going and pack for a school trip tomorrow to the Amazon jungle! Pray that I don´t get eaten alive by mosquitos!
Josh and I flew first to Lima, Peru, then to the city of Cusco. From there, we took a number of buses around to other Incan ruin sites, Pisac and Ollantaytambo. One of the train routes to Macchu Picchu leaves from Ollantaytambo, so we stayed the night there. In the darkness of 4:30am we headed for the train station on Friday. The train arrived in Aguas Calientes, a town at the base of the mountain where Macchu Picchu is. A quick hair-pin turning bus ride and we were there!! At 7:30am it was still fogged in which lent a cool, eerie feeling like we were the only ones there and trying to discover what lay beyond our visiblity. Later in the day it cleared up and we were able to take amazing panoramic pictures and the typical postcard pictures too. After trekking around most of Macchu Picchu we hiked up Wayna Picchu, another ruin very close by that is at the top of a very, very steep peak. It was quite the climb! An hour and a half climbing straight up tiny stone stairways but simply astonishing views at the top. It´s so hard to describe in words all that I saw, really only pictures do it justice.
We spent the rest of our time in Peru in Cusco, a beautiful, very Spanish influenced city and also very touristy. We saw gorgeous churches and some more astounding Incan ruins where the stones fit so perfectly together you can barely see the creases where they meet. In the Cathedral there, we took an audio tour (super unseen here in South America! we were shocked!) and learned a bunch about how the Spanish mixed indigenous ideologies into the architecture and art to appeal to the native people. Also in the Cathedral is the first cross to ever arrive in South America which was brought on the expedition of Francisco Pissaro in the 1500s. For lunch one day, we tasted alpaca, an animal like a llama that is very popular in Peru. It was actually really good! Kind of like a more tender and juicy pork chop?
Well, I would love to write more but I´ve got to get going and pack for a school trip tomorrow to the Amazon jungle! Pray that I don´t get eaten alive by mosquitos!
CARNAVAL baby!
Let´s just say that there is no comparison in the US to Carnaval here in South America. Never ever would American people tolerate, nevertheless enjoy, getting water balloons, buckets of water, eggs, powder and other various amunition chucked at them by total strangers for 4 days.
For Carnaval me, Josh and a bunch of our friends from our program headed to a beach town called Canoa. Distance wise, it´s probably only as far away as Spokane, but the bus ride took 21 hours! You can imagine what state of Madeline I was in by that time...long story short, a ton of rain here washed out highways to the coast so we had to travel all the way south thru the center of the country and then back up north along the coast. Buses here are not efficient and the drivers aren´t really too worried about getting you there as quickly as possible. If they get hungry, they will stop and pick up some food or have a smoke. I have learned here that patience is more than a virtue, it is a means of survival!
We arrived in time for a beautiful sunset which only tempered my inner rage a tad bit. We settled into our hostel, full of ¨character,¨ including a bar next door that played music at top volume until 3 or 4am every night that pounded into our room thru the bamboo slat walls. I spent the days laying on the beach, surfing, or getting rocked by waves more in my case, people watching and reading. After the first day I was FRIED despite reapplying sunscreen probably every hour. The sun is killer here! Thankfully, the beach was lined with little tents you can rent for $1 a day, so I gladly coughed up my coin and hid out. At night, there was the Reina (Queen) de Carnaval contest during which a bunch of ladies were put through rigorous amounts of dancing and included a token white blond girl who apparently immigrated to the Ecuadorian beach life from the US.
All in all, it was a blast, 99% worth the horrid bus ride there in my opinion. And the flight home was worth every cent!
For Carnaval me, Josh and a bunch of our friends from our program headed to a beach town called Canoa. Distance wise, it´s probably only as far away as Spokane, but the bus ride took 21 hours! You can imagine what state of Madeline I was in by that time...long story short, a ton of rain here washed out highways to the coast so we had to travel all the way south thru the center of the country and then back up north along the coast. Buses here are not efficient and the drivers aren´t really too worried about getting you there as quickly as possible. If they get hungry, they will stop and pick up some food or have a smoke. I have learned here that patience is more than a virtue, it is a means of survival!
We arrived in time for a beautiful sunset which only tempered my inner rage a tad bit. We settled into our hostel, full of ¨character,¨ including a bar next door that played music at top volume until 3 or 4am every night that pounded into our room thru the bamboo slat walls. I spent the days laying on the beach, surfing, or getting rocked by waves more in my case, people watching and reading. After the first day I was FRIED despite reapplying sunscreen probably every hour. The sun is killer here! Thankfully, the beach was lined with little tents you can rent for $1 a day, so I gladly coughed up my coin and hid out. At night, there was the Reina (Queen) de Carnaval contest during which a bunch of ladies were put through rigorous amounts of dancing and included a token white blond girl who apparently immigrated to the Ecuadorian beach life from the US.
All in all, it was a blast, 99% worth the horrid bus ride there in my opinion. And the flight home was worth every cent!
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