Saying Goodbye

I never thought saying goodbye would be so hard.  For the past 8 months, I have made Quito my home.  And now, I must say goodbye, not knowing if I will have the chance to return.  When I left West Chester, I knew I would be back - that I would see my family and friends again and that my home would always be there waiting for me.  But with leaving Quito, I am facing the unknown, something that makes me uneasy.  I don't know if I'll see these people that I have called my best friends for the last year again, or if I'll be able to visit the ACF shelter again, or if I'll be able to visit my favorite coffee shop again.   I am leaving today with both fear of the unknown, but also esperanza that I will return to Quito once again.

Timmy Trip to Chontapunta

Finally, I have visited all four geographical regions of Ecuador.  Up until last week, I had visited la Sierra (Andes mountains), la Costa (the coast) y los Galapagos, and was only missing el Oriente (the jungle).   With a final Timmy medical brigade, I was able to check el Oriente off my list.  

One day after returning from Perú, I left for Chontapunta, a very small "town" within the Amazon jungle, to work on one last Timmy brigade before heading home to the states.   As always, I absolutely LOVED the experience!  We stayed in wood cabins in the middle of the jungle, with freezing water and electricity only between 6pm and 10pm and absolutely no wifi - it was quite the "Amazon experience".  The clinics were very similar to those of my past brigades, though I did see much more acute problems and infections, rather than mainly chronic issues.  While interpreting, I saw patients with a anthrax, snake bites, and lots of parasites, to name a few.  Needless to say, everyday at clinic was fun and interesting.  

As the brigade was 10 days long instead of 7, we had a rest day half-way through.  And what better way to spend the day than to go rafting on some of the most well-known white water rapids of the world.  It was amazing, enough said!

Another amazing Timmy trip is in the books.  Hopefully, I have the chance to return to Ecuador on another Timmy trip in the future!  

Welcome to the jungle!

Our cabins - pretty nice for in the middle of the jungle!

The river right by our cabins - after long, hot clinic days, a nice swim couldn't be more refreshing

Swimming in the river!

One of our clinic sites

Perú: A Quick Trip Across the Border

The past week has been a week of running, hiking, buses, and lots of delicious food.  Lauren and I arrived in Lima, Perú early Friday morning.  Friday and Saturday were spent exploring Lima and trying lots of delicious Peruvian food.  It was fun to see the similarities and differences between Quito and Lima.  And I loved the change in food flavors (Peruvian food had a lot of Asian influence)!  Sunday, I ran my first ever half-marathon (yes - ran the WHOLE thing!).  While I enjoyed running through the city (kinda like a city-tour), I think I'm gonna stick with swimming :)

Five hours after we finished our races, we boarded our bus headed to Cusco (probably not the best idea considering it was a 22 hour bus ride).   Once we arrived in Cusco, we took an hour and half bus ride to Ollantaytambo, where we caught a 2 hour train to Aguas Calientes.  Midnight on Monday. we at our final destination, the town of Machu Picchu!  We spent Tuesday exploring Machu Picchu (and trust me, the travel was SOOOOO worth it - Machu Picchu was absolutely amazing!).  We hiked La Montaña Machu Picchu in the morning, giving us a wonderful view of the whole ruins site, and then spent the afternoon wandering throughout the ruins.  Wednesday morning, we hiked around the town of Ollantaytambo before heading back to Cusco to catch another 22 hour bus back to Lima.  In Lima, we had our final Peruvian meal before catching our flight back to Quito. 

Overall, it was a very quick trip, but so worth it!  Now, the adventures continue as I head off to the Amazon for 10 days on another Timmy brigade before heading back home to the states.  See you in 15 days West Chester!

Excited for our races!

Cusco plaza - I loved the backdrop of mountains!

On top of Montaña MachuPicchu

Looking out as the clouds cleared

Wandering through the ruins

A hike through ruins in Ollantaytambo before heading back to Lima

The Freedom Climb

Throughout my time here, I have become involved with several different organizations and foundations, one of which is Dunamis.  Dunamis is a ministry that focuses on teaching life skills to women who have been victims of rape, sex trafficking, domestic abuse and labor trafficking.  The girls from ACF visit Dunamis three times a week.  Dunamis holds workshops to teach the girls the basic skills of jewelry-making, sewing, and beauty, hoping to increase the girls' chances of finding a job and decrease the girls' chances of returning to prostitution.  

Every year, Dunamis holds "The Freedom Climb", a challenging hike on one of Ecuador's mountains with the goal to raise awareness of the human trafficking problem in Ecuador.   This year, we hiked Guagua Pichincha (the mountain that the TeleferiQo is on).  This hike was one of the hardest hikes I have ever done - I swear we were climbing at a 90 degree incline.  I was so proud to see all my ACF girls finish, as I know it was even more challenging for them.  Overall, a great hike with great people for a great cause.  

With Mar-loes and Melissa - two of my closest friends throughout this experience

The Dunamis team + me!

The End at 3,936 meters!

Congratulations after finishing the hike

An Adventure Weekend in Baños

As my time here is quickly coming to an end, I have been super busy: visiting some final places on my bucket list, working my final days at the shelter, and beginning to say many difficult goodbyes to my friends and family here.  With that being said, get ready for multiple posts with some updates on my past few weeks of adventures!

First, my trip to Baños.   A few weekends ago, Melissa, Bijan (from Timmy global health) and I traveled to Baños (known as the "Adventure Capital of Ecuador") for a long weekend.  Baños is a half Andean/half Amazonian town at the base of the Tungurahua volcano.  We arrived on a Friday around noon and immediately went to the market for some lunch (add that to the list of things I will miss from Ecuador: $2 delicious lunches!). After lunch, we started out on hike #1.  We hiked to the top of a mountain in order to get a view of Tungurahua and it was a success!  We finished off the day with some meat and cheese fondue - so yummy!  The next day, we decided to rent bikes to visit the multiple waterfalls just outside of town.  The pouring rain didn't stop us :)  By noon, we had visited all the waterfalls and still had plenty of energy, so we decided to keep riding for a little longer.  Three hours and 60km later, we reached Puyo, Ecuador's largest jungle town.  After a little rest, we caught a bus back to Baños as we couldn't even imagine sitting on those bikes for a minute more.  Sunday morning, we woke up bright and early to hike up to "La Casa de Arból" (the famous tree house of Baños), where you can "swing at the end of the world".  

Tungurahua Volcano

"Swinging at the end of the world"

Quick Trip To Mindo

I know this is long overdue, but better late than never right :) 

Over Easter weekend, my friend Melissa and I decided to take a quick trip to explore Mindo, a cloud forest reserve.  As Mindo is a little less than 2 hours from Quito, a day trip was entirely possible - we just wanted to do some hiking and get out of the city for a bit.   After arriving early Saturday morning, we hired a truck to take us up the mountain to a cable car (a very rickety cable car), which we would use to cross over a canyon to get to the waterfalls.  Once across the canyon, we spent the morning hiking through jungle-like forestation, and lots of mud, to about 7 different waterfalls.  It was absolutely gorgeous, especially how green everything was.  Plus, as Mindo is known for its butterflies, it was fun to see how many we could spot along the way.  After a full 4 hours of hiking, we returned to the center of Mindo for lunch.  We then caught our bus home to Quito, early enough that I could help Matele with some final preparations for Easter lunch the next day! 

Passing over the canyon in the cable car

Melissa and I

Semana Santa en Quito

Easter has definitely been my favorite holiday spent here in Ecuador.  Holy Week, or Semana Santa, is a very big celebration here. This past week has been filled with events throughout Quito, plus lots of family time :)  

I went to several concerts in the old town - an Andean orchestra outside in the Presidential Plaza, a children's choir and a Mexican musical group both in churches of the Centro Historico (including the Compania - possibly one of the most extravagant churches in Quito).  I loved hearing live music - the orchestra especially made me realize how much I miss orchestra and the cello!  

On Good Friday, or Viernes Santo, I went to the Old Town for the processions.  Some of you may have heard or seen photos of this, especially of the "KKK-like" people.  I'm so glad I had the chance to experience this religious tradition.  I went to the "Jesus del Gran Poder" processions (the most popular and largest), which lasted for about 3 hours and went all about the Old Town.  This was maybe one of the most intense parades I have ever seen.  The  streets were filled with cucuruchos, people dressed in all purple with the large cones on their heads.  The cones are a symbol of humility and the color purple symbolizes pentinence; these people walk in the parade as an act of faith to god for all to witness.  While it took me some time to get accustomed to thousands of "KKK-like" people flooding the streets, it was not this that shocked me the most.  People also walked dressed as Jesus bearing HUGE crosses (remember - Quito's Old Town is full of hills), wrapped themselves with barbed wire, cacti, nettles and thorns, and even lashed themselves.  Some dressed as Romans and walked along side of those dressed as Jesus, whipping them repeatedly.  And, almost everyone walked in barefoot - it was a very, very hot day.  You could see their immense pain and exhaustion as the people passed.  After the processions, I went to Chiri's (the sister of Matele) house for Fanesca - the typical Ecuadorean meal of Semana Santa.  It is a soup made with 12 grains to represent the 12 apostles and fish to represent Jesus himself.  The soup is soooo delicious - maybe one of my favorite parts of Semana Santa :)

On Saturday, a friend and I took a trip to Mindo, the cloud forest about 2 hours north of Quito, to do some hiking.  Since this was not related what-so-ever to Semana Santa, and I'm waiting to get some photos from my friend, I'll save this trip for my next posting.  

Today, we celebrated "Pascua" or Easter much like my family does in the States.  Matele's family came over for a wonderful lunch of hornado, a typical Ecuadorean dish very similar to pulled-pork but so much better (Matele made this because I had mentioned that we usually have ham at home).  We even had an Easter egg hunt in our apartment.  And we finished off the day with a night-time Easter service. 

Weekend Adventures: Cotopaxi and Papallacta

After catching the "travel bug"  while my parents and Hannah were here, I have decided to use my final months here visiting the final places on my Ecuador bucketlist.   

Two weekends ago, I visited Cotopaxi National Park, the home of the Cotopaxi volcano, the second highest volcano in Ecuador and one of the tallest, most active in the world.  The park is about an hour and half bus ride from Quito, so a friend and I planned for a day visit.  After waking up before the buses were even running, we arrived at the park around 8 in the morning, just as the gates were opening.  We rented a 4x4 truck to drive us around the park for the day.  Our first stop was the refuge, a small hut at 4,800m and about a 45 minute hike up the volcano.  This is the farthest point that people can hike without official guides, as after this point the climb gets very technical and full of glaciers.  Our next stop was a beautiful lagoon, where we did a nice easy hour hike.  Before leaving, we did one final hike along the valleys formed by the lava flow and eroded from storms.  Overall, it was great to get out of the city for some fresh mountain air.  

This past weekend, I visited Papallacta, thermal volcanic hot springs.  After palm sunday mass, a few friends and I headed off to the springs for a day filled with relaxation.  The springs are far up in the mountains.  The resort we visited had about 15 different pools, all different sizes and temperatures.  Plus, a river ran right through the resort, so if you were very brave, you could hop into the freezing water as a little refresher before getting back into the spas.  

Now, I just need to visit Mindo, a cloud forest reserve, and Banos, an adventure town at the base of volcano Tungurahua (the one that has been erupting for the past 2 months now) in order to finish my Ecuador bucketlist!  

Cotopaxi Peak

The lagoon

Hitchhiking home!  Kidding - we were just getting a bus :)