As of today I am officially done with my junior year of college and I am now on summer vacation (like this whole semester hasn’t been vacation). I can’t believe how fast this semester has gone! I also can’t believe how amazing this semester has been. I honestly can’t imagine a better study abroad program and I feel lucky to have been able to go on it. I thought about doing a “reflective blog” about my semester here but I can’t bear the thought of admitting it is over. Therefore I am going to skip that whole step and just [View Full Entry]

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The last day on the islands was rather extreme for me and therefore I felt it deserved a blog entry. We awoke at the break of dawn and boated for about an hour to a rock up-cropping that is famous for the large amount of sharks that hang out there. We went as early as we could since sharks are apparently most active in the morning. The group who went there the day before us had reported seeing around 150 hammerheads (I have know idea how they got this “estimate”) but either way it was daunting. I had been snorkeling [View Full Entry]

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I am now nearing the end of my time on the Galapagos and I am so sad! The last three weeks have been so amazing, I can’t believe that they are already over! I finished the last of my tests today and tomorrow we are going snorkeling for our fun day. Then it is back to Quito for the weekend. A little recap of my two weeks on San Cristobal: I spent a lot of time working on my marine ecology project. Myself and two others ended up taking more of a community conservation approach rather than a strictly scientific approach [View Full Entry]

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How do I even begin to describe my boat tour of the Galapagos? All I can say is it is by far the coolest thing I have ever done and I had quite possibly the best week of my life. Since I saw way too many cool things to even began to describe I decided that a “top 5” list would work 1) Snorkeling! We snorkeled at least once a day and over the week I snorkeled with manta rays, eagle rays, sharks, sea turtles, sea lions, penguins, and so many beautiful fish. At some points I would be swimming behind [View Full Entry]

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Today my friend Anna and I decided to enjoy the first semi-warm day in weeks and explore the city. We agreed that this would best be done by taking a random bus somewhere and getting off when we felt the time was right. We ended up near a park that rented rowboats. We jumped at the chance and were soon sitting in an old rowboat in a very crowded lagoon, bumping into countless Ecuadorian couples trying to have a romantic row in the park. Our bumbling attempts at rowing quickly drew attention and pretty soon an old man decided to help [View Full Entry]

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My mom arrived late Sunday night and we hit the ground running Monday morning. We woke up early and had the first of several meals with very odd communication. My mom speaks no Spanish and my host mom speaks no English, this leaves me, who barely speaks Spanish and who is often hard to understand in English, to translate. We next went to my school where she got the grand tour as well as got to hear me blabber on about insect diversity for my project presentation. After school we went out to lunch at my favorite Ecuadorian restaurant and then [View Full Entry]

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The last week in the Amazon was rather uneventful. Much of it consisted of studying for our Terrestrial Ecology final and finishing up our research projects. We present our projects on Monday back in Quito, so my mom will be lucky enough to sit through all those presentations if she comes to school with me. It has rained a little less this last week so it has been nice to dry out a little. In total I have mold growing on my backpack, wallet, books, slippers, and travel scrabble. I am only upset about the last two. Sadly, I do [View Full Entry]

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After spending more time in the Amazon I have came to the conclusion that I would be a terrible researcher. Prior to this excursion I still maintained the belief that I could in fact research since my only future career goal was being outside. I now know that I better start looking into other career fields to get me outside because I could possibly be the sloppiest data collector in the world. I realize that the fact that I have absolutely no patience and have the attention span of a three year old is not new information, but I have [View Full Entry]

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Tiputini website: http://www.usfq.edu.ec/tiputini/ I only have a few minutes to write so this blog is kind of shaky and quick. I apologize. Arrival: The field station we are staying at is called Tiptutini and is located in the “most biodivesrse place on the planet” and is literally in the middle of nowhere. How in the middle of nowhere? Here is our itinerary to get here: Hour long plane ride- ½ hour bus ride- 2 ½ hour long boat ride- 2 ½ long bus ride (this “bus” was more of a semi with pews in the back)- 2 ½ long boat ride [View Full Entry]

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This week was my long-awaited trip to the coast. The trip started out early Saturday morning with a 9-hour drive to the coast. Luckily the drive turned out to be pretty fun, especially considering how long it was. We stopped by palm oil and banana plantations, fruit markets, and a beach to swim. It was awesome to get out of the city and the Andes but it was also really shocking to see how bad the deforestation is in the lowlands of Ecuador. The first three nights of our trip were spent in a dry-forest reserve that Ceiba set up [View Full Entry]

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