The Beach Town

It’s never a bad idea to spend the weekend at the beach, so that’s exactly what we did last weekend. Seven friends and I packed up to take an overnight bus on Thursday to a little town called Canoa, which is pretty much straight west of Quito. We arrived on Friday morning and spent the …

The Volcano Lake

This weekend, I had the chance to go to Quilotoa, a lake nestled inside a volcanic crater. But we made two stops along the way: the first was at an artisanal store and the second was at a lookout point. The art is called Tigua and it’s made by some of the indigenous people of …

Where the Wild Things Are

After a week full of tests, now seems like the perfect time to sit down, unwind, and try to catch up on writing some of the stories that I have to tell. I think that the highlight of my week was going to work at Tueri. On Monday, we had a new snake to take …

The Weekend in Review

There was a lot going on this past weekend, so although most of my classmates went out of town, I decided to stay in Quito. One reason was because it was the last weekend that I could spend with my host sister because she’s going (or should I say, she left) to study in Buenos …

Market Anyone?

Some days, I feel like I have nothing to do. Other days, I feel like I have nothing that I want to do as I sit next to a pile of homework and try to decide the best use of my time procrastinating. Which leads me to my blog, possibly the best way to feel …

The Chapel of Man

La Capilla del Hombre, or the Chapel of Man, is an art museum that I visited today with a few of my friends. Our art class requires that we go to La Capilla del Hombre for a field trip, but because we want to travel the weekend that the field trip is scheduled, we decided …

Journey to Middle Earth

At least, a line that they call the middle of the earth. Anyway, last week I went to Mitad del Mundo with some of my friends from the program, but I never sat down a blogged about it. Basically it’s a line drawn “on the Equator” with museums and shops around it (I say “on …

To the Mountain We Go

After a pretty regular class week, a few of us decided that a good way to spend the start to our weekend was to go up the TeleferiQo to the top of Pichincha, one of the mountains overlooking Quito. It’s best to go in the morning, so we decided to meet some friends there at …

A Day With Wildlife

Sometimes, it’s hard to fit everything that I want to into one post. So though I did a lot this weekend, I’m going to narrow it down to one thing: my environmental diversity class field trip. To some people, that might sound as exciting as watching grass grow. If so, you’ll love the part when …

I Wish I Would Have Known….

When I came down to Ecuador, I didn't do a whole lot of research. Sure, I knew it was in South America, the primary language was Spanish, and it was a heck of a lot warmer than Minnesota. But here are some things that I´ve learned that might have been useful to know before coming …