Wrapping things up?

After signing in to write this blog entry I could not believe that it had been more than two months since my last post and that I was titling this post "wrapping things up!" Since my Patagonian adventures and my sister's visit, I spent the month of May finding a rhythm of life for myself in Mendoza. Being the Type-A, planner-loving person that I am, I have struggled to adjust to some of the quirks of Mendocine life, for example:

- Buses are 100% unpredictable. You can wait from a range of 1 minute-30 minutes for a bus, and there is no set schedule that anybody knows.
- Like our program director told us on our first day, "time is not money in Mendoza." This phrase shines through in numerous, comical ways throughout my day. At the gym I joined, I am not allowed to turn on the treadmill, bike or any machine by myself; I have to go to the front desk and wait for the receptionist to signal to the "trainer" to come press the power button on my machine. (After two weeks of attempting to follow their method, I gave up and started just turning the machines on on my own, but I still can't tell if his daily "jokes" at me doing my own thing are subtle hints that I really need to start obeying the "gym rules.")
- Class at the University NEVER starts on time; we only have class about 70% of the scheduled class days, and it is not uncommon for me to think we have class, go to class, and find out that either the teachers are on strike, the teacher's aren't giving class because the students have other exams that week, or everyone is mysteriously attending some conference that I wasn't aware of!

But, I have definitely begun to notice that these things no longer annoy me half as much as they used to, and I now mostly just find them humorous. Although I felt slightly antsy at times during the month of May, looking back, I am glad I decided to stay in Mendoza every weekend and not travel, because it gave me time to be committed to the things that I was a part of here. I sang in a wedding with my choir and had my first choir concert which both went really well. The only slight downside was the curtain-like red dresses we had to wear as a uniform!


Jon came to visit from Buenos Aires for the weekend and I enjoyed showing him around Mendoza and re-visiting one of my favorite vineyards, bodega NORTON, in which they let you taste wine in each stage of the aging process so you can distinguish the differences in taste. Although I now know all of the official wine smelling and tasting tricks, my friends and I often joke here as we try to identify the smells and tastes that the back of the bottle says we are supposed to perceive. I've basically learned that no matter what the bottle, if I guess oak, red fruits and vanilla, I'll be sure to get at least one right!

I have spent the past two weekends traveling, first to Chile where I spent about 2 days in Santiago and two days in Valparaiso. In Santiago I was lucky enough to be able to meet up with Erin Becker, a TarHeel from Iowa doing a research project, Shepard Daniels, a Carolina grad on a Rotary Scholarship, and Grace Van Voorhis, a fellow West High grad studying abroad in Santiago! I've been so lucky to be able to visit and be visited by so many wonderful people even though I'm so far from home! Despite the pretty intense smog, I enjoyed the cafe-culture and European feel of Santiago, and most especially enjoyed the time-efficient and reliable transportation system! I then headed to Valparaiso, known as Chile's "cultural capital," and really fell in love with it even though I was only there for a few days. The port-city is built upon a number of hills, so the houses are all stacked on top of one another, and there are 'accensores,' or escalators scattered throughout the city that people take to get up to a certain level from which they then walk to their houses. All of the streets are curved and criss-crossed around, so it made it a very fun place to just walk around. I was also able to meet up with another Carolina friend, Raley White, who is studying in Vina del Mar, Valparaiso's neighboring city. Aside from my time spent in Chile, the drive from Mendoza to Chile was exquisitely beautiful! I was able to watch the sun setting over the Andes mountains and be reminded that I am currently in the Andean region (something that is surprisingly easy to forget from daily life in Mendoza). I took the picture on the right through the bus window on the way out of Mendoza.

Last weekend I traveled with Sally, Alli and Caitlyn to Cordoba and La Cumbre (a small, quaint outskirt town). We did a lot of walking, exploring, a little bit of hiking and ended the weekend off with a 'cuatriciclo' (four-wheeling) adventure.

I am now back in Mendoza and have less than three weeks left here! This week and next week are going to fly by due to final papers and exams, and then I have one more week to prepare for my final in my university class, and my time is pretty much over! Now that my time is almsot up I feel like I have so many things I still want to do here, but I guess life always seems to work that way. It will be strange to leave South America after spending all of 2009 here so far, but I am also looking forward to traveling to England with my family to visit relatives in the end of July and then heading back to Carolina in August!

Settling into Mendoza & Patagonian Travels

It seems like so long since I last wrote, yet I cannot believe that I have already been in Argentina for almost two months! I have finally chosen my classes for the semester and am trying to settle into a weekly schedule here. I am taking two classes offered by our program: a Spanish language class and a class about Argentine development, one class at la Universidad de Cuyo about problems in public health and an introduction to guitar class at an art and music institute. Classes here meet fewer days a week for longer blocks of time and either meet in the morning before siesta or in the evening, so the earliest I start any day is 1 p.m. and sometimes I get done as late as 8:30. I am glad to finally know what I will be taking and now can hopefully get to know my classmates in the classes I have chosen! I also recently joined a choir that rehearses twice a week and will perform around Mendoza for gigs and festivals to raise money for their trip to Europe. I find it really hard to make time for choir at Carolina, so I am really excited to have an opportunity to sing and meet other people here my age.

I just returned from a 10-day traveling stint in the north of the Patagonia in Bariloche and El Bolson with three girls from my program: Caitlyn and Alli from UNC and Sally who goes to Cornell. We had a few days off of classes for Semana Santa (Easter week), so most of the people in our program took advantage of the time to travel south before the weather gets too cold. Bariloche is considered the "gateway into the Andean Lake District" and is definitely one of the most naturally beautiful places I have ever been. It is a popular skiing destination, so the town itself is quite touristy with lots of little shops and restaurants, but it faces a gorgeous lake, Lake Nahuel Huapi. We were originally planning on traveling farther south, but we fell in love with Bariloche and realized it wasn't worth it to spend the majority of our precious vacation time in buses. We happened to meet some professional fly fisherman who lead fly fishing tours in Iceland and the Patagonia, and they volunteered to take us fly fishing and camping. We dressed in the official garb but didn't end up doing too much fly fishing ourselves because none of us had any fly fishing experience. My only fishing experience is fishing in the Coralville Recreation Center pond with my 8th grade P.E. class ... needless to say I was quite the amateur.

After following the tournament games by quick and sporadic glimpses at the NCAA webpage, we happened to meet a group of people at our hostel who found a "bar" that was playing the national championship game! With wooden toys and gadgets hanging from the ceilings, it was much more like Geppetto's workshop where he made Pinocchio than it was like a cafe/restaurant, and it made for quite the hilarious watching environment. Alli and Caitlyn and I forced the entire cafe to celebrate with us, and it was definitely a great night (although we were all quite depressed that we weren't celebrating on Franklin). Aside from celebrating, we went on a long day hike to a refuge in the mountains and spent the night at the top enjoying the beautiful view. We spent a weekend in El Bolson, known as "hippie-ville" Patagonia for its small artisan market, handicrafts and number of organic farms. We stayed in an adorable hostel outside of the town which served us homemade jam in the morning and had apples from the apple trees surrounding the hostel.
With all of the leaves beginning to change color, snow capped mountains in the background and the reflection of the mountains and the trees in the lake, all of the sights in and around Bariloche were breathtaking.

One day after returning from the Patagonia, Priyanka visited me for the end of her semana santa vacations. In between attempting to catch up from being gone I showed her around Mendoza and enjoyed picnicking with her and my host sister, cooking Indian food with her for my host family and doing a "bike and wine" excursion with her and friends from my program. She is now on her way back to Ecuador to take final exams and wrap up her year before she heads back to Iowa for the summer and then starts med school in the fall.

As I am getting re-adjusted to life in Mendoza after being gone it has been interesting to reflect on my past four months abroad and this study abroad experience in general. It is really hard to move from a busy, fast-paced academic life at Carolina to a school system here that seems much more laid-back and disorganized. The students have up to two years after finishing a class to take their final exams, and it is quite common to fail a subject and retake it, so that creates for a very different academic environment. The social environment is also quite different here because the majority of people live with their family until they are married and stay close to home for college and university, so most of their closest friends are their friends from elementary, middle and high school, not friends they meet in their classes at the university. Also, because they only spend time on campus to go to their classes, there is not a campus community feel like there is at a lot of universities in the US.

We don't have any longer breaks so from now on I will be spending the majority of my time in Mendoza and probably only traveling two or three weekends from now until when I leave in July, which will be good to help me continue to settle into life here. It feels strange to think that I'm still settling in after being here for almost two months, but everything moves at such a slower pace and I often feel like I am in a completely different time universe down here with the temperature cooling down for fall and the summer-vibe ending as everyone at UNC is getting ready for final exams and starting their summer vacations!

La Vida Mendocina (The Mendocine Life)

While it has been almost a month since I last wrote, I decided that I would wait until I felt more settled in my life in Mendoza before I gave my first update. The week after I last wrote I traveled to Iguazu Falls with Alli, who is studying in Mendoza with me. Iguazu Falls is made up of more than 250 waterfalls and is an incredibly impressive sight. The falls are on the border of Brazil and Argentina and can be seen from national parks on both sides. A visa is needed to enter Brazil, so we stuck to the Argentine side, but it kept us more than occupied with trails around the base and tops of the falls allowing us to see them from all angles.

The next week our orientation program began with three days of touring and information sessions in Buenos Aires followed by a flight to Mendoza on Friday Feburary 27. The “family matching” process felt like a more awkward, confusing version of the first day of kindergarten. The 33 students from the program walked through the gate into the waiting room to see 33 Argentine families waving sheets of paper and shouting our names. After finding and greeting my host mother, I set off for my first weekend in Mendoza in which I went to a birthday party in a vineyard, a big family luncheon and explored Mendoza with my host sisters. My family consists of my mother Patricia, a 50 some year old woman who runs a jewelery store in Mendoza, is absolutely hilarious, exaggerates and fusses over everything, and is really quite a diva--constantly adorned in bright clothing, bright lipstick and straightened white-gray hair. I have three sisters that live in the house, the eldest of whom is Marta, a 27-year old public relations student who has spent a lot of time traveling in Europe, and is one of the most generous and kind people I’ve met here. The next sister, Paula, is 23, she studies gastronomy in Mendoza, she has a lovely sense of humor and has been so great about inviting me to do things with her, or showing me how to properly make maté (the national drink of Argentina consumed in a gourd and considered an extremely important part of Argentina culture. It is impossible to pass a park, plaza, or even street corner without seeing a gathering of people drinking maté together.) The next sister, Pachi, is 22 and an economics student at one of the universities I am attending. She is definitely the social butterfly of the family so she spends less time in the house, but she loves to sing and asks me to sing Moulin Rouge and Disney songs with her when we are on car rides with the family. The other two siblings, Carlos and Belen do not live in the house. Belen is 29 and owns an apartment in Mendoza, but spends a fair amount of time in the house so I see her quite regularly. Carlos is studying to be a priest outside of Buenos Aires, but spent the past two weeks at home on his school vacation. He left Friday and won’t be back until right before I leave in July, but I really enjoyed getting to know him and attempting to converse about religion and philosophy in Spanish … I’m not sure if all my responses were coherent and tactful, but I enjoyed his company. (I couldn't find/haven't taken a picture of the whole family, but this picture shows, from left to right, Pachi, Patricia, the grandmother, Marta and Paula).

I spent my first week here getting adjusted to the city, getting accustomed to the “siesta schedule” (where everything closes between 1 p.m.-5 p.m. and people return to their houses to eat lunch and rest) and attending lots of orientation sessions. Mendoza itself is absolutely beautiful; each street is lined with trees watered by acequias (special irrigation ditches that run throughout the city). There are tons of plazas with benches, and green space, and there is a huge, beautiful park which is always filled with people picnicking, drinking mate, or taking the public aerobic class (which I will surely soon be taking, not so much for exercise as for the experience of doing hip-hop/jazz moves with middle-aged Mendocines). Paula, Marta and I often go to the park to walk or run with their beloved dog Pancho (which means hot dog in Spanish).

Last week Ben joined me for his spring break at Carolina and we got a taste of the traditions and attractions of Menodza, starting with the yearly Festival de la Vendimia [harvest festival] that culminated last weekend. The festival celebrates the grape harvest and production of wine that Menodza is most famous for. We attended parades with floats from each of Mendoza’s provinces in which their elected queen tossed grapes, melons, and sometimes steak into the crowd!

The following day we toured some vineyards, learned about the process of wine making and practiced proper wine-drinking etiquette. We attended an asado [essentially a barbeque where families and friends get together to eat steak and empanadas, drink wine, and relax outdoors] with my family, which has become one of my favorite things to do in Mendoza. My family is extremely social and constantly attends lunches, asados and birthday parties that I’m always invited to, which has allowed me to meet a lot of people and practice my Spanish. When I wasn’t in class the rest of the week, Ben and I spent time in the number of plazas lining the town center, having mate picnics with my sister or friends from the program, exploring restaurants on Aristedes, a street lined with restaurants and outdoor seating areas, and finished off the week with a horseback riding adventure in the mountains. My sister Paula, her cousin, and Alli accompanied us and it was quite the adventure considering our limited horse riding skills, but the paths were beautiful, and it wasn’t too hard to get a hang of how to direct the horses.

Ben left on Saturday and I headed off to San Rafael, another province of Mendoza, with other students from my program. We stayed in cabins near a river and spent the weekend outdoors on the beach, rafting/tubing down the river, hiking, and enjoying the warm climate and gorgeous scenery. Our program has 33 students from universities all over the United States, and pictured on the right are the three of us from UNC, Alli who I traveled with, and Caitlyn.

I am now back in Mendoza and will soon be beginning my university classes. All of the classes start on different dates, so it has been extremely confusing to figure out what I’m taking and where/when I have classes, but hopefuly it will all be sorted out in the next few weeks and I will finally begin feeling like a real student again … maybe?

The End of Ecuador ... and intro to Buenos Aires

Even though it hasn't been quite two weeks since I last posted, it feels like much longer because of all of the traveling I have been doing! After Jon arrived in Quito, I gave him less than 12 hours to get adjusted to the altitude and time zone before we were off on a day of Quito exploration! We took the TelefériQo, a cable-car like lift up the east side of the Pichincha Volcano, which transports you from Quito's altitude of about 8,800 feet to 13,400 feet! We took up a picnic and spent a few hours looking out over a beautiful view of Quito. The part of Quito I had been trekking around on a daily basis seemed so manageable and small that it really surprised me to see how the city spreads through the entire valley. After our picnic we proceeded to another Quito landmark, the Basilica de Voto Nacional, a beautiful church in the historic part of Quito containing 24 different chapels. We climbed up a number of wobbly staircases and ladders to reach the top of the highest tower where you can sit out on a ledge with your legs dangling ... one of the many things that would NEVER be allowed in the US!

The following day we headed to Baños, a city in central Ecuador named for its hot springs. Although it was quite touristy, it was small, sweet, and full of outdoor excursions! The first afternoon we rented bikes and biked along roads and paths to a number of different waterfalls. The following day we got ready early for a morning of repelling down waterfalls! There was nobody else signed up at our time, so Jon and I had our own private guide and were allowed to try more waterfalls than usual. Despite my attractive wetsuit and helmet, I was a little nervous because I had never repelled before, but it was a truly terrific experience.

That evening we headed to Tena, a small city in the Amazon that is a popular jumping off point for jungle excursions. We spent a night there, and left the following morning for Cabañas Shangrila, a beautiful lodge over the Rio Anzu (River Anzu), with an impressive view of the jungle vegetation. There was only one available guide, so we didn't have as much flexibility to choose our activities as we would have liked, but we spent the morning touring an indigenous community and the afternoon "canyoning," which consisted of a walk in which we occasionally walked through caves with bottoms too narrow to walk through, so we had to walk/climb with our legs and arms spread apart. I was the shortest one in the group, and the cave walls were decently spaced out ... so it proved to be difficult at times, but also very enjoyable. It was great just to walk along the jungle floor and admire the impressive diversity of vegetation! Unfortunately we didn't witness too many animals aside from bats in the caves and some unique species of butterflies.

After the jungle we headed back to Quito in time for Amit's goodbye bash at the language school, so I was able to see all of the professors/my classmates at school again, and we had a great final afternoon. The following day we made our last Ecuadorian excursion, a trip to Otavalo market, a market full of indigenous artisans selling handicrafts. In all, i had an excellent time in Ecuador and loved being able to live with my sister, spend time with Amit, Hudson, Angella and other students from school, improve on my Spanish and travel with Jon!

Jon and I left on Sunday morning, flew through Lima, Peru, and finally arrived in Buenos Aires. We spent the first evening with a family friend of his, and the next day Jon moved in with his host family and I moved into my hostel. Even after being in Buenos Aires for one day, it was immediately clear how different it is from Quito and other parts of Central/South America! True to popular perception, it looks extremely European and reminds me of a fusion of Madrid, New York City and London. It has distinct "barrios" which each have their own flavor, but as a whole, it is full of parks and greenery, and very beautiful.

I spent the first day roaming around downtown, trying to get my bearings and visiting a few popular landmarks, such as Casa Rosada, a salmon-colored building that houses some government offices and is located right behind Plaza de Mayo, a plaza known for the weekly march of Las Madres de La Plaza de Mayo, which I'll talk about a little later. I spent the evening taking a Tango class at my hostel ... which was quite interesting considering there wasn't an equal ratio of girls/boys taking the class, so I spent a good portion of the evening dancing with a 70-year-old German grandmother ... comical to say the least.
The following day I spent the morning in Recoleta, the wealthiest and most fashionable part of Buenos Aires that houses the famous Cemeterio de la Recoleta, a cemetery filled with a number of important Argentinian historical figures, including Evita. I also visited Museo Nacional de las Bellas Artes, Argentina's main art museum. I then crossed over into Palermo, an area filled with a number of beautiful parks and gardens, including the Botanical garden and Japanese gardens. While searching for the Japanese gardens I ran into a German traveler named Manfred who was also looking for the same place, so we ended up spending the afternoon together. I have realized that one of the best things about traveling alone is that it gives you the opportunity to meet and talk to so many different people, and I have really enjoyed the random encounters with other travelers this week. Yesterday I went back to Palermo, but instead went to the "downtown" area, and then headed back mid town to the busy streets Santa Fe and Florida which have the true city feel and a number of cafes, shops and restaurants that were a nice break from the SCORCHING heat of upper 80s-mid 90s! I have been spending a few hours here and there with Jon when he has breaks from his orientation, and that has been a nice break from exploring alone.

I spent this morning in La Boca, an immigrant neighborhood known for its vibrantly-colored buildings. In the late 1800s after painting the shipping barges, port dwellers put the remains of the paint on their houses, giving La Boca its rainbow colored decor. I then went back to La Plaza de Mayo to see the march of Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo (The mothers of the Plaza De Mayo), an association of women whose children "disappeared" during the Argentinian dictatorship of 1976-1983. In protest they march around the Plaza every Thursday wearing white headscarves with the embroidered names of their children who were lost.
I have one and a half days more of explorining in Buenos Aires, and then on Saturday I am heading north to Iguazu Falls with Alli O'Connel, a fellow Tarheel who will be studying with me in Mendoza! After we return, we have one day more in Buenos Aires before our orientation starts next Wednesday and we head to Mendoza next Friday. I have recieved information about my host family and have communicated with my mother, Patricia, and am really looking forward to heading to Mendoza! Sorry for the long post, and I will next write from Mendoza!

Wrapping Up in Quito

Two more weeks in Quito have flown by and I am now done with classes and volunteering and getting ready for a week of travel in Ecuador before heading to Argentina! After the weekend in Mindo, my next week back at school brought a change of Spanish professors from Fernando to Laura, a more adventurous week at CEMOPLAF and an interesting salsa class.

Each week at school we had a big activity or presentation, and that week we were all assigned Ecuadorian musical artists and were asked to present about our artist and then perform our song. Although some of the students are not as musically inclined as others, after the director served us each glasses of rum ... the songs and dances soon followed.

That week at CEMOPLAF I accompanied Nelly (the social worker I shadowed) to an elementary school about 2 hours away from where I live. We split the third graders into pairs of one boy and one girl and asked them to trace images of their bodies onto paper and write about the physical and personality qualities they like and dislike about themselves as well as more general likes and dislikes about their families or society. After the drawings, Nelly led them in a discussion about sexuality, health, and gender. I was most struck by the following entry. "No me gustan que maten a las personas, que roben, que pegen los hombres a las mujeres." "I don't like that people kill other people, that people rob, that men hit women."

Aside from volunteering and taking Spanish classes, I have taken three salsa lessons in a little salsa studio that is about a 10-minute walk from my language school. They have all been enjoyable and fun, but also quite amusing at times as my salsa teacher asks me to teach him English phrases and occasionally slips in sly comments along the way.

Last weekend a group of us went to Papallacta, a small village about 2 hours outside of Quito with beautiful natural hot springs designed in a resort-style way with 25 different pools. We have quite the Carolina crew gathering in Quito now with my sister, Amit, Hudson, and our friend Angella, a fellow Rotary Scholar studying Spanish at our school who went to public health school at UNC. On Sunday, after Papallacta, I visited a museum of the famous Ecuadorian artist Guayasamin and then attended an "asado" (roast) at my sister's old host family's house.

This past week was sad as I had to say goodbye to Nelly and others at CEMOPLAF as well as finish up my time at language school. But after my CEMOPLAF volunteering ended midweek, I had some more free time to explore, so Hudson and I went to El Panecillo, a large hill between southern and central Quito with a beautiful view of the city from the top of the "Virgen de Quito," a statue that rests on the hill.

We also explored a beautiful cemetery built in 1872 named Cemeterio San Diego, which had a mixture of huge grandiose tombstones and then tall wall-like segments of concrete with lots of individual tombs with decorated areas on the front specific to each person.

After giving a final presentation at school yesterday on a brief history of US Feminism and a little bit about my life and studies at Carolina, all of the students went to an orchid display at a park which looks over Quito.

Jon Waldmann arrives tonight and we will soon be off to Baños (named for hot springs and its proximity to waterfalls) and then to the Amazon!

Greetings from Quito!

I have now been in Quito for almost two weeks and the time has absolutely flown by. My sister Priyanka has a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to attend Public Health school in Quito for the year, so am living with her for a month while I take language classes and volunteer before I head off to study abroad in Argentina. My days here are pretty packed, starting with a 20 minute walk to take the Trolé bus to language school in the morning. The public transportation system in Ecuador is convenient and fairly easy to figure out, but RIDICULOUSLY BUSY during peak travel hours. I had one slight incident getting my foot stuck in the door as it closed ... but for the most part my travels in and around Quito have been okay. After a 10 minute Trolé ride, I arrive at my language school, La Academia de Español, where I take one-on-one Spanish classes for four hours with a 30 minute "pausa" in which we go up to the terrace and have coffee and snacks. The view from the terrace shows a typical street in Quito with the greenery and hills in the distant background. I have a great professor named Fernando who, despite having no top teeth, is a phenomenal Spanish professor! Even when we are just having casual conversation, he pays close attention to how I speak in order to help me correct all of my grammar mistakes and vocabulary slips. After 4 hours at school and lunch with my fellow classmates, including Amit and a few other great students, ranging from their 20s-50s, I head to my afternoon of volunteering/interning. I am working at CEMOPLAF (El Centro Médico de Orientación y Planificación Familiar) which is a clinic that provides counseling and medical services at low costs, mostly to women and children. I shadow a social worker who registers new patients and takes their sexual and reproductive health history. She also provides longer counseling sessions for women or couples seeking birth control and other reproductive-related counseling.. After my first few days just watching her, she has begun to allow me to register the patients and ask them about their health histories. Although it has been great for my Spanish, it has also been extremely challenging because they all speak extremely fast and I often end up stumbling over my words. The afternoons at CEMOPLAF are often a lot slower than the mornings, so I sometimes leave early, but usually leave around 4:30 and head back to the apartment where my sister lives. After an hour of homework, helping with dinner, eating with my sister and her roommate, my day is pretty much over.
I don't have time to do much traveling around Quito during the week, but we trekked to La Mitad del Mundo (The Center of the World) last weekend. There is one area with a monument (pictured on the left) with a beautiful view of the mountains and a row of provincial flags. About 200 meters in another direction, there is a smaller area with a little museum that is actually at 0 degrees latitude. At the museum, the guide demonstrates a number of "phenomenons" that occur at 0 degrees latitude, including water falling straight down when a sink is unplugged, an ability to easily (ish) balance an egg on a nail, and an inability to walk in a straight line with your eyes closed. I don't know how faithfully I believe in everything they showed us, but it was definitely pretty amazing to be standing on both hemispheres at the same time! Aside from classes and volunteering, this past week included a trip to La Mariscal, or what Ecuadorians refer to as "Gringoland," the part of Quito where there are a lot of hostels, bars and tourist-centered areas. I've tried to avoid it for the most part, but it was convenient this week as we were looking for a place to watch the inauguration! I am extremely jealous of all of you that got to travel to DC to see it live, but I did at least get to watch it with a lot of other cheering gringos supporting Obama all the way from Ecuador.

This past weekend I headed to Mindo, a gorgeous, plush cloud forest about 2.5 hours west of Quito by bus. We had a group of 8 traveling with us: me, my sister, her roommate Peter (another Rotary scholar), his friend, Amit, Hudson (who will be traveling with Amit in South America after a stint in Quito), a friend from language school, and another British traveler that we met at the bus station!

After arriving on Saturday morning we hiked up to zipline through the Cloud Forests! The $15 excursions gave us two private guides, and almost 2 hours of ziplining, in which we could either fly across by ourselves, or go across with a guide, allowing us to go over hands free ... or completely upside down! After ziplining, we visited a butterfly garden with a number of beautiful, native-Ecuadorian butterflies. We ended the night with a "Frog Concert," which was more like a night hike in which we saw a number of unique critters and heard a variety of frog songs.
We stayed in a hostel with great log-cabin style rooms and a garden filled with hummingbirds. On Sunday we went on a cable car ride and then hiked 45 minutes to a huge waterfall. After climbing up stairs and stumbling along rocks, we were able to get pretty close up to quite an amazing view.

I have now returned to Quito and will be here taking classes and volunteering for two weeks before traveling for a week with Jon Waldmann before we both head down to study in Argentina!