Jack Bond: Ecuador
I woke up at 3 a.m on July 25th and flew to the
Miami International Airport to meet 24 other strangers who were in the exact
same position as myself, maybe with a little bit more rest. My flight in Miami
landed around 8:30 and I was challenged with my first difficult task of the
trip, which was to find my group in the 8th largest airport in the
United States. After crossing the airport to find my leader along with some
airport food breakfast, we endured an 8-hour layover before our connecting flight
to Quito. We played games in the airport, attracting attention from the entire
terminal as we made fools of ourselves by having dance-offs while we waited for
the plane to board. We arrived to Quito that night, where we spent the next 5
days taking Spanish placement exams, exploring the city, and taking Spanish
classes at the EIL headquarters. We visited Parque de Carolina, Panecillo, a
statue that overlooks the entire city of Quito
and
multiple indigenous fruit and meat markets, where entire pigs were roasting in
front of the customers. Afterwards, we took a bus to Riobamba where we spent a few
days with our home-stay family, who we would be with for the next four weeks.
After half a week with our family, we hiked up Mount Chimborazo, the sixth largest volcano in the world.
Once we
reached the summit, we mountain biked down through dirt roads and rocky hills
that overlooked Ecuador’s natural beauty. When we got back to Riobamba, we
spent three consecutive days painting the outside walls of an orphanage with
Disney characters and played with the kids for most of the day. The next week,
we visited the equator museum where we learned about the indigenous people of
Ecuador and their cultural lifestyle.
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Later, we also
took a trip to Nariz del Diablo, where we took a train through the mountains
and valleys of Alausi, the Ecuadorian city where Nariz del Diablo is located.
We visited more indigenous markets and interacted with the natives before
returning to Riobamba. We soon took a bus through the mountains of Ecuador to
Quito where we flew to the Galapagos Islands
and stayed in a hotel on one of the islands for a night and visited a fish
market,
visited the beach,
and went to a discoteca with our leader. The next day, we packed up and moved
to the boat, where we spent the next five days, visiting each island to see
Galapagos turtles, Iguanas, and different animals unique to the Galapagos.
After the Galapagos, we took a plane to the Amazon
jungle, where we stayed in a lodge on the Napo River in the Eastern border-line
of Ecuador. In our last few days in Ecuador, we drove to Baños, a city full of
extreme sports and beautiful waterfalls. We rode across a valley in a gondola
across a waterfall and hiked a mountain in our one full day there and flew back
for our last few days with our homestay. We enjoyed a group dinner with all of
the homestay families and sang karaoke and spent one last night on the town in
Riobamba before flying back to the United States.
Overall, the trip gave me not
only a better knowledge of the Spanish language, but also taught me more than I
could ever imagine about South American culture and lifestyle. I will forever
remember Ecuador and all that I was able to do in my 40 days there. I would
like to personally thank the Wilson family for their generous support of my
trip.
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