Siguiente parada....Naciones Unidas.

Hello, everyone!! I hope you are all doing well. It’s sort of unbelievable that I’ll be home in a little over THREE WEEKS! Time is flying….a little too quickly, I think. I’ve been spending my weekends in Quito studying and working as the semester winds down and the work load picks up. Luckily, I'm done with the behemoth workshop (12 page writeup and one hour presentation, both in Spanish) on homosexuality and discrimination that I had to develop and present. It went really well but there definitely seems to be a trend here to save the majority of assignments for the last month. I’ve been living in libraries and cafes with free WIFI. I think it might be a good thing though because it will make it easier for me to leave. I’ll probably be ready for a break by the time May 22^nd rolls around. And because I’m spending more time in the city, it’s starting to feel a lot more like home. Quito has definitely grown on me.

It’s just hard to imagine that in three weeks, I’ll be leaving Ecuador, possibly forever. It’s really sad. Ecuador, and the people I've met here, have changed my life and I can see that even before this experience is over! Being separated from the life I put together for myself has made it a lot easier to reflect on it. The beautiful thing is: this experience has been extremely reaffirming. It’s like seeing my life through a new set of eyes…and liking what I see! On the one hand I’m ecstatic to jump back into my life with this newfound clarity but on the other hand, I don’t want to risk losing this perspective that I’ve gained. I definitely have mixed feelings about leaving Ecuador.

Luckily, I still have time here. Unfortunately, I’ll be spending a lot of it on my laptop typing papers and planning projects. I have been, however, making a point to carry my camera around as I stay here in Quito so I have some photos of my home, host-family, and Quiteño adventures to share. Seeing as I spend most of my time here in the city, I know I am way overdue for a Quito- themed blog post. I may not be jumping off of bridges everyday but it’s definitely a wonderful life! Enjoy.

Chronicles of the Quito version of adventuring: girlfriends, dresses, and dancing!

After a few requests for photos of my host family...here they are! Marcela is on the right and Rebe is on the left. They are both fantastic and are really good at making me feel at home here.

Jose y Daniela. I seriously love these guys. They are a lot of fun and oftentimes I find myself laughing through entire dinners when they are over. No photos of Carola yet, she wasn't around when I took these.

Emily, Carley, and I in Plaza Foch for Jenny's birthday party. Tapas!

Taking a breather (AKA taking a photograph).

"Too cool" (to make peace signs in photos).

My room...with my new bed. My old bed was so concaved in the middle, it seriously felt like I was sleeping in a bowl. It was better than a lot of other sleeping arrangements I've had, but the new bed is definitely better than the bowl bed.

Formal dining room. I like this photo because Marcela painted all three of the paintings shown here. She's really, really good.

The Caspicara sculpture that Marcela smuggled out of Museo Banco Central in her sweater. See the Factoids section of the Fuya Fuya blog post.

Lock(s) on the back door. There's a sixth component at the bottom, near the floor. This house is serious about security.

Marcela has set this out every Saturday and Sunday that she has lived in this house, well over a decade. She picks the flowers from the garden out back.

PUCE's courtyard. There aren't any students in this photo because I was too embarrassed to take this on a week day.

PUCE, or at least the part I use. Psychology in Tower 1 on the right and Art in Tower 2 on the left.

Contrary to popular opinion, I do study here! Photographic proof. Ahem...Dad!

Ecovia. My stop, Naciones Unidas (hence the title). There are probably about 200 people crammed into that bus. We are packed so tightly sometimes that I could be holding on to nothing as the bus screeches to a halt and not even stumble.

View from my bedroom window. That is the famed Pichincha (behind the power lines).

Awkward table suspended from the ceiling. Cool restaurant though. We could draw in the menus but I can't draw, so I just left one of my favorite quotes.

Concert in Plaza Foch, Mariscal. Somewhere in that crowd of people is a man dressed, head to toe, in metallic gold.

Market in Plaza Foch.

At Amber's house making brownies and I got excited because we got to use the alternative "high altitude" recipe. Less vegetable oil. Excitement!

Please appreciate this photo. Yes, that is a lawn mower strapped to a bicycle.

And now for the next edition of....

FACTOIDS!

• Running in the park a few days ago, I came across one of the twelve women in Quito with blonde hair (actual blonde hair. Ecuadorians tend to think I'm blonde. False). Anyways, this Gringa had a pretty awesome fanny pack, complete with cup holders. In the first cup holder, a bottle of water. In the second, a bottle of vodka. Represent.
• I went to the vivarium a few weeks ago and saw a shockingly huge frog; it was about 9 inches tall. But there wasn’t much info about it provided, so I googled “giant frog” and about the only things that came up were “Devil frog,” “frog from Hell,” and a Wikipedia stub about a frog from Dungeons and Dragons.
• On my bed, I have SEVEN blankets, not including the sheets. I’m convinced that instead of putting the spare bedding in a linen closet, they just put it all on my bed. Not complaining. LOVE it.
• I need four different keys to get into the house. Marcela color-coded them for me.
• My Biodiversity professor, Hugo, used to be jogging buddies with Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, back when Correa was an Econ professor at USFQ. Correa also used to teach Economics with my study program. Earlier in the semester, there was some confusion with an outdated syllabus. But we soon realized that, no, the EcuaPres is not making any regular appearances at IES.
• EcuaPolice are not investigators. When a car accident is reported, EVERYONE involved is taken to jail and stays there for up to three weeks until lawyers can sort everything out. Needless to say, accident victims rarely report incidents to the police.
• Recently I got a text message from an unknown sender that began "Eres uno de los elegidos..." (Translation: "You are one of the chosen.")
• In my Psychology of Sexuality class at PUCE, the professor was using a poorly translated English source, which included some words that had not been translated at all. As a result, I was asked to please explain, for the entire class, the significance of the English terms “petting” and “necking.” I'm really coming to love that class.

So that’s it for now. I've put this off long enough but I was motivated to get going since I have an adventure planned for tomorrow and I didn't want to get backed up. So you'll probably hear from me again soon. I am climbing (part of) Cotopaxi in the morning, or at least I hope I am. I have a cold so breathing might be an issue. Seeing as respiration is a pretty essential life process, I'm going to play it by ear. Until then, Peace!

PS I would just like to add that, moments after posting this, Marcela brought me hot tea to my room for my cough because she knows that I'm climbing a ridiculously cold (by Ecua standards) mountain tomorrow. She is pretty much wonderful.

One "Hey, baby" too many

To every piropo-giving man of Quito, Ecuador: this song is for you.

I have had enough of the Hey baby's, Que rico's, and hissing. EcuaMen: Hissing is not flattering. Not to American women; not to Ecuadorian women. Please stop.

Other than that, wonderful evening! Love Quito, love friends, love life! More to come soon!

Galápagos Islands!

Fresh off the boat. First view of the Islands.

First sea lions! Plenty more where that came from!

Uno de los Gemelos.

Pam the Tortuga!

One of MANY lizards.

Hahaha! Of course.

Toddler tortugas!

Lonesome George.

Matt in the Galapagos. Next to an Iguana Crossing.

Beach.

Path through the Mangroves.

Amber and I overlooking Sierra Negra, the 2nd largest volcanic crater in the World.

Giant volcanic crater

Rock formations and such from the eruption of Volcán (not so) Chico.

Don't linger too long when sniffing these flowers....they can have drug-like effects.

Harbor on San Cristóbal.

I actually took plenty of photos, for once. I had to keep reminding myself to get my camera out. After all, it is the...

Galápagos Islands!

The Galapagos were seriously cool. At times I felt like I was on another planet. Definitely one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Its kind hard to do this trip justice when describing it so I’ll try to keep it short and include lots of photos.

I went with my study abroad program so there were 24 students and three professors. A big group…but also a group rate. I will never again be able to travel to the Galapagos for so little money. We stayed five days and visited four islands: Santa Cruz, Isabela, Floreana, and San Cristóbal. We flew into Baltra (I’m not counting that in my island count because we were only there for about twenty minutes) and took big motor boats between the rest of the islands and flew out of San Cristóbal.

The first day we took a five minute boat ride from Baltra (an island that used to be a US Naval base during the Second World War) to Santa Cruz. We first visited Los Gemelos, twin volcanic craters, and then a huge tunnel formed by a river of lava. Lastly, we visited a giant tortoise reserve but could only stay a little while and didn’t see many tortoises.

Day two, we went to the Charles Darwin Research Center and a much, much larger Centro de Crianza for Giant Tortoises. Between the two, I must have seen hundreds of tortoises. In the evening we swam at both a beach and a gorgeous mangrove swamp.

Day three, on Isabela, we went on a fourteen mile hike along Sierra Negra, the world’s second largest volcanic crater, to the site of the huge eruption of Volcán Chico. When we got to the eruption site and saw all of the dried lava and rock formations, I seriously felt like I was on another planet. Someone said it looked like a Salvador Dalí painting and she was right: it looked like there should be clocks dripping off of everything. The hike felt great. It was nice to finally get some exercise at sea-level. That evening we went snorkeling and I saw all sorts of cool animals in the wild: a giant marine tortoise, sea lions, a penguin (my personal favorite because it was the fastest and therefore the luckiest find), sting rays, tons of regal tang fish (Dory from Finding Nemo!), and a bunch of other cool marine life I don’t even know the names for.

Day four involved lots of traveling via motor boat, and therefore lots of sea-sickness. We started on Isabela, went to Floreana, and ended at San Cristóbal. On the Isabela to Floreana leg, we saw a huge school of dolphins (Wikipedia says they can also be a “pod” of dolphins). It was just so cool to see what seemed like hundreds of dolphins jumping and swimming all around us. When we got to land, we visited “Las Cuevas de las Piratas” or some caves constructed by pirates near one of the only two fresh-water sources on the islands. They were really neat. Someone made a really funny comment: “It looks like this should be Universal Studios, but its real!” So true. It was rainy and muddy and I was wearing flip-flops so I did the hike barefoot. That night we went snorkeling again and I saw a lot of the same animals, but this time I saw many more tortoises and was able to follow them around for ages just watching them. I also had a huge school of almost iridescent fish swim right under me. So neat.

We spent our last day visiting a beautiful lagoon followed by some beach time and a little museum. After a walk down San Cristóbal’s seaside main street and some ice cream, we headed back home to Quito.

It was a really relaxing trip where I got to enjoy nature at a whole new level. In retrospect, though, I wish my Biodiversity professor would have waited until after the trip to have me present on the effects of the tourism industry on the Islands. I was feeling guilty for a lot of the trip. Even though they were beautiful, I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there, like I was contributing to the destruction of that beauty.

But now for the Galapagos edition of…

FACTOIDS!

· I got to meet George, a giant tortoise who is over 100 years old and the last of his species, the Negrita de la Isla Pinta, earning him nicknames such as “Lonesome George.” For the longest time, scientists thought he was gay because he wasn’t interested in any of the female Tortugas. But finally, after 36 years, a little lady caught his eye. Still no baby tortoises though.

· Breakdown of a tortoise battle: First they face each other. Then stare. Then they stretch out their necks as far as they can. Tortoise with the shortest neck loses. Usually the losing tortoise is in denial so they do it a few more time just to be sure. When shorter necked tortoise finally realizes his neck is shorter, he walks away. End battle.

· In the Galapagos, the goat is pretty much the most hated creature ever. They eat everything, destroying endemic vegetation and taking food from endangered tortoise species. So a few years back, the project “Island Restoration via Mammal Eradication,” a systematic extermination of all goats, commenced. They used helicopters, hunting dogs, and even “Judas goats,” or goats with trackers attached to them, to eliminate the goats. Goats on Isabela and several other islands have been eliminated, however goat discrimination has not.

· I went the entire trip without getting a sun burn. I used half a bottle of sun-block and have advanced to expert sun-block applicator.

Okay. Weekend plans TBD. Vamos a ver. Until then, ¡que le vaya bien!