Things I miss from home and things that challenge me here often go hand-in-hand.
To just ramble... I really (REALLY) miss blue skies. I also miss clean, fresh air. I miss what that blue sky, and clean and fresh air does for my lungs, my skin and my attitude. I miss clean streets and I cringe seeing people toss trash out of their cars and the bus as if Mother Nature is their trashcan. I miss vegetables and having more energy. I get frustrated when the first bus passes me in the morning and just mad when the fourth does. I miss being invisible. I miss being able to wear sweatshirts and I miss my wardrobe (who would've thought). I miss some aspects of my old concept of time, and not being cut in lines. I miss drinking water out of the tap. I get extremely frustrated at my agency every morning, which makes me miss structure, discipline and respect. I miss having control and having some power. I miss not being able to communicate exactly how I want. I get frustrated thinking about the politics here, and my own country, although I miss the steps we've made. I miss thinking that I understood a good amount.
and then there are the things that I love...
I love saying that I live in Ecuador. I love catching the bus and riding it - probably one of the most successful feelings ever. I love when my host parents play loud bachata or reggaetone music in the house. I love feeling more comfortable walking down the street and people not staring at me as much (or me not noticing). I love swimming in the pool at the university, sitting on the many beaches in Ecuador and feeling the warm air whip my hair in my face on the bus. I can't believe that I can communicate in Spanish. I love laughing with my host mom because she thinks it’s crazy that I like green salads, especially with ‘big’ pieces of vegetables. I adore my ceiling fan and often say hello to it when I walk in my room. I smile when people sing along to songs on the radio in public, when little children pass out on their mothers shoulder on the bus, and when I bargain down a taxi ride. I love hanging out with my host sister and her boyfriend, and sometimes his mom and grandma. I love learning and traveling. I love looking at the lights on mountains when traveling at night. I love the terrain of Ecuador and its transportation. I love all of the conversations I've had. I love that my friend and I wrote down 30 questions about Ecuador that we hope to answer by the end of December. I love that I still have about 20% of my experience left. I love the relationship I have with my 80 year old host dad who makes me laugh when he asks me, everyday, if I've gotten a boyfriend yet, or when he helps me with my bug bites and stomach problems, or when he makes a joke that I don't really understand but I don't want to ruin the moment so I smile anyway. I love that my 'loves' outweigh my 'misses,' and that, in the future, I'm pretty sure they're all that I'll remember.
domingo, 23 de noviembre de 2008
The Galapagos Islands...
The Galapagos Islands were absolutely stunning and I am so glad I had the opportunity to go. I'm going to write just a little bit about what we did and what we got to see, but I've posted two photo albums from facebook on the bottom of this post, which will be able to show how beautiful it was, probably better than my writing.
I stayed on a boat, The Rumba, for 5 days and 4 nights with 6 other students from the international group at my university, a Canadian couple and another student from Germany. The boat was very nice, and one of the cheapest from the others that we saw. It was cozy and small, and many of us had some seasickness so, when on the boat, we spent the majority of the time soaking up the sun and feeling the fresh salty air sitting on the top. Our cook, Carlos, made spectacular food that I couldn't wait to eat at every meal, and our tour guide, Leonidas, was great. Our days had a pretty basic pattern of waking up early for breakfast, taking the small boat out to an island, walking around for a little, then coming back for lunch, and going back out in the afternoon for snorkeling.
The most exciting thing about the first day was what we saw at night. This was the only night we didn't travel, and so we went out to the top to look at the stars. Absolutely stunning. I've never seen clearer or that many stars before. There were absolutely no lights except for 2 cruise ships nearby (who eventually turned their lights off) and the water was very calm. After enjoying just talking and watching for shooting stars, one of us discovered tons of small, flashing and shiny things in the water. This was so cool! My friend, who's a biology major, explained that it was some sort of fish (possibly plankton?) that soaks up the sun in the day and then emits the light at night. We had stars not just in the sky but also in the water. :)
The next day was full of seeing sea lions, which were very entertaining. There was an island full of them and they would do silly things like climb all over each other, or use what seemed like a lot of energy to roll, horizontally, to the water to just stop right before and lie there. They cracked me up, although the dominate males were slightly terrifying with their loud cry and huge amount of weight. We went snorkeling that afternoon and I saw a SHARK!!! I was a little ways away from the group and it slickly swam about 10 feet under me. Don't worry, everyone! The sharks are very nice to humans in the Galapagos because they have such an ample supply of food, that they don't touch humans. Later, we hiked around on a different island, which was very dry and had a crazy looking iguana (there's a picture). That night, the Canadian couple played some songs on guitar and I actually ended up getting quite seasick (not fun at all).
The next morning I woke up and took a sea sickness pill, which made walking around on the island very hard, but still enjoyable. We saw tons of iguanas and the famous blue footed boobies. Once again we went snorkeling, and had some time lie on the beach along with the sea lions. :) When arriving at our next destination, we had a very rare and incredible experience. A huge (I mean HUGE), group of dolphins surrounded us and the surrounding boats. All of a sudden there were 5-10 dolphins playing and racing with our boat and there were probably about 100 total out in the bay playing with each other and the other boats. It was SO COOL! Even our tour guide and some of the other crew members got their cameras and came to the front to enjoy the dolphins. Our tour guide at the end of our trip said they came because of the good energy we had. :)
The fourth day we went to an island that had a post office where whalers used to leave their mail in a barrel. The idea is that you write and address a postcard, without a stamp, and stick it in the barrel so that the next person who lives near you that comes by, can pick it up and hand deliver it! So, you have absolutely no idea how long it'll take to get to you, or if it ever will. Luckily, it didn't matter that I didn't know the zip code of the new house in Connecticut. :) After writing postcards and taking some, we walked through a lava cave, and ended up scaring the next young group by hiding in the pitch black. It was fun. That afternoon we traveled farther to get to the best snorkeling spot. Here we saw tons of sting rays, starfish, a couple turtles and a handful of sharks! The sharks swam quite close to us. A couple times you'd be swimming along and a sea lion would swim right in front of you as well. Haha. We went to another island to see a flamingo lagoon and turtle beach, but ended up only seeing the turtles swimming in the water.
We parked near one of the islands, where people live, for the night and went on land the next morning to see HUGE and old turtles. One of which is named George, who is apparently the last turtle of his species (good news though, they put a couple of female turtles in with him and a couple of months ago some eggs were found!). We ended the trip with seeing an exhibit on Darwin.
Some of us actually ended up staying for another 2 nights on the island. For the extra day, we went to an extremely remote beach, and walked around the town during the other time. All in all, the trip was stunning and worthwhile. I could use many more adjectives to describe the Galapagos Islands... I'm so happy I got to go. If you ever get the opportunity to go, take advantage of it! It was really an interesting type of vacation that involved a lot of education, pure nature, and seasickness. :)
I have posted the two albums that have already been put up on facebook. If you highlight and paste these two links (one at a time!) into your internet browser it should work. Let me know if it doesn't.
Hope you enjoy them!!!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032898&l=83681&id=1143060069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032903&l=e02fd&id=1143060069
I stayed on a boat, The Rumba, for 5 days and 4 nights with 6 other students from the international group at my university, a Canadian couple and another student from Germany. The boat was very nice, and one of the cheapest from the others that we saw. It was cozy and small, and many of us had some seasickness so, when on the boat, we spent the majority of the time soaking up the sun and feeling the fresh salty air sitting on the top. Our cook, Carlos, made spectacular food that I couldn't wait to eat at every meal, and our tour guide, Leonidas, was great. Our days had a pretty basic pattern of waking up early for breakfast, taking the small boat out to an island, walking around for a little, then coming back for lunch, and going back out in the afternoon for snorkeling.
The most exciting thing about the first day was what we saw at night. This was the only night we didn't travel, and so we went out to the top to look at the stars. Absolutely stunning. I've never seen clearer or that many stars before. There were absolutely no lights except for 2 cruise ships nearby (who eventually turned their lights off) and the water was very calm. After enjoying just talking and watching for shooting stars, one of us discovered tons of small, flashing and shiny things in the water. This was so cool! My friend, who's a biology major, explained that it was some sort of fish (possibly plankton?) that soaks up the sun in the day and then emits the light at night. We had stars not just in the sky but also in the water. :)
The next day was full of seeing sea lions, which were very entertaining. There was an island full of them and they would do silly things like climb all over each other, or use what seemed like a lot of energy to roll, horizontally, to the water to just stop right before and lie there. They cracked me up, although the dominate males were slightly terrifying with their loud cry and huge amount of weight. We went snorkeling that afternoon and I saw a SHARK!!! I was a little ways away from the group and it slickly swam about 10 feet under me. Don't worry, everyone! The sharks are very nice to humans in the Galapagos because they have such an ample supply of food, that they don't touch humans. Later, we hiked around on a different island, which was very dry and had a crazy looking iguana (there's a picture). That night, the Canadian couple played some songs on guitar and I actually ended up getting quite seasick (not fun at all).
The next morning I woke up and took a sea sickness pill, which made walking around on the island very hard, but still enjoyable. We saw tons of iguanas and the famous blue footed boobies. Once again we went snorkeling, and had some time lie on the beach along with the sea lions. :) When arriving at our next destination, we had a very rare and incredible experience. A huge (I mean HUGE), group of dolphins surrounded us and the surrounding boats. All of a sudden there were 5-10 dolphins playing and racing with our boat and there were probably about 100 total out in the bay playing with each other and the other boats. It was SO COOL! Even our tour guide and some of the other crew members got their cameras and came to the front to enjoy the dolphins. Our tour guide at the end of our trip said they came because of the good energy we had. :)
The fourth day we went to an island that had a post office where whalers used to leave their mail in a barrel. The idea is that you write and address a postcard, without a stamp, and stick it in the barrel so that the next person who lives near you that comes by, can pick it up and hand deliver it! So, you have absolutely no idea how long it'll take to get to you, or if it ever will. Luckily, it didn't matter that I didn't know the zip code of the new house in Connecticut. :) After writing postcards and taking some, we walked through a lava cave, and ended up scaring the next young group by hiding in the pitch black. It was fun. That afternoon we traveled farther to get to the best snorkeling spot. Here we saw tons of sting rays, starfish, a couple turtles and a handful of sharks! The sharks swam quite close to us. A couple times you'd be swimming along and a sea lion would swim right in front of you as well. Haha. We went to another island to see a flamingo lagoon and turtle beach, but ended up only seeing the turtles swimming in the water.
We parked near one of the islands, where people live, for the night and went on land the next morning to see HUGE and old turtles. One of which is named George, who is apparently the last turtle of his species (good news though, they put a couple of female turtles in with him and a couple of months ago some eggs were found!). We ended the trip with seeing an exhibit on Darwin.
Some of us actually ended up staying for another 2 nights on the island. For the extra day, we went to an extremely remote beach, and walked around the town during the other time. All in all, the trip was stunning and worthwhile. I could use many more adjectives to describe the Galapagos Islands... I'm so happy I got to go. If you ever get the opportunity to go, take advantage of it! It was really an interesting type of vacation that involved a lot of education, pure nature, and seasickness. :)
I have posted the two albums that have already been put up on facebook. If you highlight and paste these two links (one at a time!) into your internet browser it should work. Let me know if it doesn't.
Hope you enjoy them!!!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032898&l=83681&id=1143060069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032903&l=e02fd&id=1143060069
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