On Monday the 9th my parents arrived in Quito! Their trip was much anticipated and could not have been timed better seeing as I had taken my last final exam earlier that morning. The end of that exam was so freeing. I had completed all of my course work for the semester and was officially on vacation from school for a little while! It felt so great to finally be done with the studying part of my study abroad experience because that had been the most trying/annoying/unenjoyable part of this semester (haha, isn't class/studying always the worst part of the semester?). Isabel drove me to the airport and then waited in the car so she could work on some homework and not leave her computer unattended in the car. This was definitely a good thing seeing as I started to tear up just standing in the airport looking at all of the people waiting and knowing that my parents were going to be coming through the doors at any moment. A very exciting and emotional day. The doors slid open to let other people through and I peeked through for my parents. As soon as I saw them with all their luggage looking a little bit confused and tired I began to laugh. They came through the doors and didn't even cry when they saw me! I guess they didn't miss me too much. ;) We met up with Isabel and then she drove us to the hotel, with me translating along the way. Good practice for the rest of their stay in Ecuador when I would be constantly translating. We arrived at the hotel, checked in, and got to our room. What a shock compared to my usual hostel experiences. This room had a nice TV with cable, a phone, carpet, and was soooo nice! Of course my parents felt right at home seeing as it mirrored American hotel rooms. :) After a few hours chatting and catching up, we slept.
In the morning we marveled at the beautiful view (of the hotel pool, the valley that contains Cumbayá, and the beautifully manicured lawn) and slowly prepared for their first day in Ecuador. I was peppered with questions about what kinds of clothes to wear, what the weather was going to be like, exactly how to avoid being robbed (tons of questions about this one, I think I scared them a little bit too much with my promise that they would be robbed if we weren't extremely cautious), etc. and then we were off. I don't know the area around Hotel Quito too well so it took us a little while to find the Ecovia which we took to Rio Coca. There dad and I got some street empanadas for breakfast (cheap and delicious, a combination we all know Dirk Snoek loves) and mom got some coffee. Then we took the Agua Clara bus to Ofelia and finally a bus from Ofelia to Mitad del Mundo or the Equator! They tried very hard to keep the names of the buses and stations straight but they found it a little bit difficult. It was hard for me to remember how overwhelmingly different everything felt when I first arrived so I may not have been as empathetic as I should have been. They were real troupers on the buses though. We had money hidden in various shoe insoles and they left their phones, passports, credit cards, and the majority of their money in the safe at the hotel. They got to see how I've been traveling around Quito this whole semester and got to see a lot of Quito through the bus windows. When we got to Mitad del Mundo we decided to go visit the Pululahua Geobiological Reserve which is kind of a hike up through some grass and flower-covered hills to see the crater of a dormant volcano. Simply beautiful and I enjoyed translating the information from our guide to them the whole time. We even had some hallucinogenic berries painted on our faces! Then we went to the Mitad del Mundo museum that is the real GPS-calculated equator but not the one with the big monument. They tried some Ecuadorian helados (ice-cream treats) and then we got a tour with various other English-speaking tourists of the museum. The highlights were the real shrunken head of a 12-year old (done by an indigenous Ecuadorian tribe), 2 large boa constrictors, some freshly picked free orito (little gold) bananas, a depiction of a tomb a different indigeous tribe used to use, and the different scientific tests to show how things are different on the equator (ej. strength, the direction water turns, balancing an egg on a nail, etc.). We had lunch at a typical Ecuadorian restaurant (our $2.25 meals included soup, a very typical part of Ecuadorian lunch, that had chicken's feet in it--now that's how you know you're not in the US anymore) and because the combination of travel and altitude had tired them out we headed back to Quito without taking pictures at the Mitad del Mundo monument. Their thinking: we had pictures of us on the real equator, why would we want them on the fake equator? We took the bus back into Quito and then took a $4 taxi ride back to the hotel, the cheapness of which astounded my father. We rested for a while and then got cleaned up to go to my apartment for dinner with my host family! In the taxi on the way there tears just started streaming down my face uncontrollably. I thought that I was mentally prepared to leave Ecuador and excited to go home, but I think how much I didn't want to leave and how much I was going to miss everything and everyone here struck me in that taxi. I was an absolute mess when I got to my host family's apartment. Such a mess that I forgot for a moment that my families couldn't understand one another. I held onto Joaquín as I showed my parents my home for the semester and tearfully translated for my families. I calmed down and we had a simply delightful dinner of chicken with peaches, rice (of course. :)), a pea and tomato salad, maracuyá juice, and a jello dessert. We had some tea afterwords and then decided to head back to the hotel because it was past my dad's bedtime (aka after 9:00 pm). Dinner conversation was delightful and ranged from discussion of the success of the semester, how grateful I was to my host family, and the different things that most struck my parents about Ecuador.
On Wednesday we packed up our bags for Mindo and our day in Cumbaya, put the rest in storage at Hotel Quito, and took some buses off to Cumbaya to see my university! We first visited SuperMaxi, the supermarket close to my school so that we could get some bus snacks and so that they could see the differences in prices and products between Ecuador and Michigan. Things like different fruits, chips, chocolates, books, and hygiene products and a huge increase in prices of makeup ($20.00 for a tube of mascara) and a huge decrease in prices of things like chips/crackers, fruits and bread. We bought some snacks for our 2-hour bus trip to Mindo and then headed to the university for a little tour. When I say "little" I definitely mean it. While MSU's campus would take a good half-day to visit thouroughly, USFQ took about 20 minutes. We visited the biggest library in Ecuador (the one at my school which is 1/8 the size of the one at MSU), some of my classroom buildings, and the lagoon near which I would study frequently. We joined up with my friends Tracy and Christina and went to La Pizzeria El Hornero for their lunch specials, delicious and cheap, another Ecuadorian and Dirk favorite. After lunch we went to Iomi, a healthy frozen yogurt shop which I like to think is fashioned after a not-so-healthy yogurt shop in an episode of Seinfeld. We left the beautiful and safe area of Cumbaya to take our chances on the buses and make our way to Mindo. After a bus ride, a taxi ride, and another beautiful yet terrifying bus ride later, we were finally in Mindo, a tiny town in the center of the Ecuadorian cloud forest. Exhausted from our adventures we checked into our hostel and fell asleep swathed in our mosquito nets. The next day [Thursday] we went off on an adventure. For the first part of the day we hopped in a pickup truck taxi and went to do some zip-lining. I had already been when I came to Mindo in January with my friends so I listened to music, looked out at the cloud forest, and swung in a hammock while the parents went off on the zip-lines with 2 guides who spoke minimal English. Before they took off I translated the very important safety instructions just to be sure they didn't misunderstand any of the guides' instructions. We went to El Cheff (a restaurant on the main street of Mindo that I had been to before) for a hearty Ecuadorian lunch, chilled at the hostel reading and napping for awhile, and then took another pickup truck taxi ride (me and dad hanging on for dear life in the back while it rained mind you) to "Mindo Lindo" a place with a hummingbird viewing area and some paths to walk on. We drank freshly made lemongrass tea (from the actual lemongrass), ate some cookies, and watched tons of hummingbirds feeding. In North America there are 2 kinds of hummingbirds, but in Ecuador alone there are 125 species. Crazy! That evening we had some more Ecuadorian food (sangria, helado, and patacones con queso fresco) and then headed off to bed early so we could catch our 6:30am bus back to Quito the next morning.
Friday we headed back into Quito and then split ways. I went back to my host family's apartment to pack up the rest of my belongings and get everything figured out back there while the parents headed back to Hotel Quito to rest for the morning. We went swimming in the hotel pool while it rained in the afternoon and just had a chill, relaxing day. That evening I took them to Red Hot Chili Peppers, a Mexican restaurant in the Mariscal that my friends and I frequent. We shared some grande drinks (piña colada and strawberry daiquiri), chicken faijitas, and chips, salsa, and guacamole. Delicious! We wandered around Plaza Foch for a while, taking in the sights and sounds and then had one more drink at BBQ & Co so dad could catch the end of some basketball game. We sent dad home in a cab and mom and I headed to meet my friends to do some chiva-ing!
Saturday was our day to visit various things around Quito. We got breakfast and then headed to Joaquín's 1st birthday party! [To get to the bus station we took a cab and it was the first female cab driver I've even seen in Ecuador!] His birthday is the 12th of May and my host family had planned a birthday party for the Saturday after. It was a lovely affair. Even though we were 45 minutes late, we were still the first people there besides my host family! That's Ecua-time for you! We helped set up, ate some snacks, hung out and took pictures of Joaquín and greeted all the new arrivals with a kiss on the cheek (and me explaining that these strange white people were my parents and that they didn't speak Spanish). There was a clown at the party who did some face-painting, led games, did a little puppet show, and led the singing of Happy Birthday. An Ecuadorian tradition that I was unaware of that we got to witness is having one of the parents (probably the birthday boy/girl when they're old enough take a bite out of the cake before it is cut. Isabel did the honors and skillfully avoided having her head pushed into the cake. :) After a tearful goodbye the parents and I were off to Telefériqo. The Telefériqo is a gondala-type thing that goes up one of the mountains around Quito so that you can look out over the city. Although it was a bit cloudy we ended up being able to walk around and see both North and South Quito! A beautiful view and a good way to kind of wrap up my time living in Quito. After that we went to the Mariscal Market to buy some gifts and things and then to Crepes & Waffles (another one of our favorite restaurants in Ecuador) for dinner before heading back to the hotel to chill after our crazy-busy day. Later that night I went out with some of the girls for snacks and coffee, my last night out in Quito. :(
Sunday was our final day in Ecuador and we took the day to go visit the historical district of Quito (Centro Historico). While touring this crowded place I was interviewed twice by middle-school student Quiteños. They probably both went to the same school (maybe they were even in the same class) and needed to have themselves filmed interviewing a foreigner in English. I was happy to oblige and it was a very interesting experience. We started out at the Basilica (a big old gothic church) and then walked through the streets of Centro Historico, visiting both La Plaza de La Independencia and Plaza de San Fransisco. We also visited El Banco Central where we saw some interesting causes and effects of dollarization. It started raining so we went to Cafe Tianguez (another restaurant I went to once that I really liked) where dad got humitas, mom ceviche, and me locro. They were great about trying lots of Ecuadorian dishes and got to try a lot of different Ecuadorian and Latin American foods! After wandering around some more we headed back to the hotel. Later that night we went out to a more American dinner and then worked on packing up all of our stuff. A great tip for future study-abroad travelers is that it is MUCH easier to pack up going home when you have about 4 times the space than when you came. You accrue a lot of new belongings (be it gifts or clothes or things you forgot or needed to buy while abroad) and they will not fit in the suitcase that you stuffed and restuffed before you arrived. It was great that my parents could take a lot of my stuff in their bags.
Now I'm just sitting on the plane, listening to some music and writing this in preparation for when I next have internet and can post it. Getting on the plane this morning was such a strange sensation. Rebecca and I boarded together and it was so weird to realize that the next time my feet would be touching land it would be in the United States. Such a strange concept. For those who haven't studied abroad there are a lot of things that are probably hard to understand about the experience, simply because it is so unique and strange. I still feel like this isn't real life. I can't believe that it is May 16. When I bought my plane ticket last semester even January 4 (when I arrived) seemed so far away, May 16 even farther, and now I'm on a plane going home. The past 18 weeks have absolutely FLOWN by. I know they say that time flies, but when you're studying abroad it really really does. It is hard to explain how I feel or what exactly I'm thinking. I'm sad to leave but I'm excited to be back in the United States, but my feelings are so much more complicated than that. I want so many more chapters of my life to look like the last one and I truly have hope that they will.
-EM
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