Like I've said, I spent the past five months (well, four months and three weeks to the day if you want to get technical about it, and I always have to get technical about it) in Ecuador. I studied at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, which is actually in a small town called Cumbaya. It was definitely an amazing experience, and I had enough adventures and mishaps there to make it interesting. So many things happened that I began to think I was cursed while I was there.
The biggest mishap of my time there happened one morning while I was walking to class. It was raining, and I slipped on wet steps and broke my leg. Two days later I found out that I needed surgery. I ended up spending a night in the hospital, and I now have seven screws and a plate in my right ankle. The good thing is, I don't set off metal detectors. I was kind of worried for a while that I would.
The other element of bad luck that I had can be blamed on a volcano. The volcano Guagua Pichincha is right outside the city and has decided over the course of the past year to become gradually more active. We never thought it would actually do anything until one day when we were all stranded where we happened to be because ash had started falling on the city and traffic pretty much shut down. Then, two days later, on October 7, the volcano actually erupted. Once life went back to normal, selling volcano souvenirs became a huge business for the city. People were all over the streets selling photos (which is where I got mine-- to see it, click here), keychains, posters, calendars, you name it. Things pretty much calmed down for a while, until around Thanksgiving. That's when the spoiled child ("guagua" means "baby" in Quichua) decided to act up again. The worst part is that my mom was supposed to come to visit the night before Thanksgiving, but that flight never even left because the guagua erupted that afternoon. She managed to get another flight the next afternoon, which actually took off and made its scheduled stop in Bogota, Colombia, but just before they took off again, ash began to fall. So, she spent her Thanksgiving vacation stranded in Bogota.
But, aside from being cursed, I really had a great time. I got to see some pretty incredible things. In August, we spent 5 days at the Tiputini Biological Preserve in the rainforest. I must say that the highlight of my time in Ecuador was the five days we spent in the Galapagos Islands. We spent our time on small boats and travelled from island to island. We saw so many animals there, like sea lions, seals, iguanas, crabs, dolphins, turtles, and birds. The best part was how approachable the animals were. You could literally walk right up to them, and some even walked up to you. Ok, so maybe the best part of the Galapagos was the fact that I turned 21 there. :)
Photos of Ecuador
"La U"-- La Universidad San Francisco de Quito
Tiputini-- The Rainforest
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