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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On Thursday night I went to the event that ranks next to church for most Ecuadorians: a soccer/futbol game. I was expecting the game to be big but I was still surprised when we arrived. There were so many people as well as fireworks and pre-game performances. There was also a large number of riot police with very vicious looking dogs in case the game got out of control. This was all for a Liga game, which isn’t even the big team in Ecuador. We somehow ended up in the visitors section so we were cheering for Colombians rather than [View Full Entry]

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I got my internship set up for the last month of my program. I will be at the Rio Muchacho organic farm on the coast! I don't know too many details right now but from what I have been told I will be planting (something?) in the morning and possibly working on environmental education in the afternoons. Check it out: http://www.riomuchacho.com/html/riomuchacho.html http://www.riomuchacho.com/html/volunteer_main.htm * Dad, I will try my hardest to steal you some potato seeds :) Also, I loaded a few pictures on this website: http://picasaweb.google.com/hannahmotl/EcuadorI?pli=1 [View Full Entry]

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Tonight when I arrived home school I was greeted by a pleasant surprise: noodles with butter (Yes Lilly, I thought of you)! I have not had/ seen noodles since my arrival in Quito so I was pretty pumped for this dinner. However, before I could eat my first forkful, a sad little thing called reality dampened my excitement. And the reality in Ecuador is that you never eat food plain. In fact, you never eat anything without first adding several other seemingly unnecessary ingredients into it. Hence, my plate of buttery noodles turned into a plate of noodles with ketchup, [View Full Entry]

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This weekend my program visited a cloud forest reserve that the Ceiba foundation (the foundation I am studying through) set up 11 years ago. We left early Friday morning and made our first stop at the original equator statute. There we proceeded to do the normal tourist stuff such as take pictures with our legs straddling the two hemispheres etc. However, we didn’t go as far as to purchase the certificates stating that “I have stood on the equator” (Don’t worry, I plan on making myself one later to set on the mantle of all my future homes). After this [View Full Entry]

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El Centro Historica y las Iglesias On Sunday a small group of us went to the Centro Historica of Quito (Aka Old Town). This center consists of a lot of old buildings, churches, statutes, and markets. We started out our tour by taking a cab up to the giant statue of Virgin Mary that is on one of the hills overlooking Quito. We next went to an open-air market where I scored a new pair of slippers/ booties (yes, I am aware I have about 10 pairs by now). I was also planning on buying breakfast there, but after seeing an [View Full Entry]

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Classes/ School My first week of school was a complete whirlwind but overall it was a success. My first hurdle was figuring out the bus systems. I figured out which buses I need to take to get to school but I am still nailing down which stop to get off on when returning home. I have to take two buses to get to school and my total commute time ends up being around one to one and half hours each way. This makes for a long day since I have 7 hours of school everyday this month. However, I can’t complain [View Full Entry]

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I have now moved in with my new (and hopefully last) host family. The family consists of only a mother and father (all their children are already out of the house) so I am currently their very spoiled “host child”. I live in a beautiful home in the northwest side of Quito and my room overlooks their garden and fountain (The only downfall is the frogs get really loud at night- kinda like a noise machine). Overall, I feel pretty lucky! They also own a farm/plantation which I can go to on the weekends and ride horses (so excited!! But also [View Full Entry]

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Jan. 7th, 2008 Arrival: My adventure started out on the right foot. As I was preparing to board my plane from Salt Lake to Atlanta (where I had an 17 hour layover) a Delta employee asked if anyone was willing to take a later flight out since the flight was overbooked. I jumped at the opportunity and ended up with a free suite for the night, several meal vouchers, and a $400 flight voucher. As if this wasn’t good enough I also got bumped up to first class on my flight to Ecuador and got to sit next to my friend [View Full Entry]

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As of now my tentative plan for the semester is as follows: January: 4: Leave the great state of Montana and head towards Ecuador 7-end of Jan?: Conservation biology and spanish (eek!) classes is Quito. 18-20: Montane Forest Trip: El Pahuma Orchid Reserve 26-27: Alpine Trip (Looking at volcanoes in a little plane!) February: 2-7: Pacific coast trip 11-29: Amazon rainforest: Tiputini Biodiversity Station March: 4-11: Spring Break (possibly Peru?) 12-14: Quito preparing for Galapagos 16-23: Boat tour of Galapagos 23- April 4th: GAIAS station, Isla San Cristobal April 8- May 4: Conservation Internship (location TBA) May 9: End of Program [View Full Entry]

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