What. A. Month. I feel safe to say that
April was one of, if not my best month on exchange. Where to even begin. It started with vacation
for Semana Santa where I went to the beach to see a friend and get some quality
sun time. After a fun week of vacation I had a week of school and then started
the final Rotary trip of the year. All the other trips from the year were
usually only 4 days or so, but this trip was 10 days. Theres the famous rotary
trip in Europe called Euro Tour where the exchange students from Europe go on a
bus for 3 weeks. Ours isn’t quite three weeks but we’ve adopted the name
EcuaTour for our trip. And this time it was all 140 exchange students in
Ecuador together again. And when we’re all together it’s bound to be a fun time
no matter where we go. We went all over the Ecuadorian Sierra region in bus. 4
buses actually. We started in Quito, and then went north to Ibarra, Otavalo and
Cotocachi. We then came back to the famous historical center of Quito. From
there we went south to Baños then Riobamaba. Later to Guayaquil, Machala, and
finished in the beautiful city of Cuenca. I’d love to tell you what I did
everyday but that’s quite impossible because we did SO much. I mean a big part
of the trip we were on a bus, but still that was fun because we were all
together. Some notable things were that I was on the trip for my birthday,
which was really something special. We were in Baños that day, which is one of
the biggest tourist attractions in Ecuador. It’s a small little town that’s
right on the boarder where the amazon jungle starts and the sierra mountains
stop. It’s home to Ecuador’s most famous waterfalls.
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| Pilon del Diablo |
On this one road you can
see a dozen at least. Probably the most famous, El Pilon del Diablo, is the
biggest in the amount of water that rushes over this cliff. You can walk down
on this nice trail and then hike up right under the waterfall and behind it. It
was really cool to be there on my birthday and take a waterfall shower. The
next day we went to Ecuador’s tallest mountain, volcano actually, Chimborazo.
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| Chimborazo |
 |
| first snowman in ages |
Its at 6310 meters, or 20,702 ft. We climbed until 5,000 meters which is about
16,400 ft. I had already done this with my family back in November or so. But
what was so special was that we hit the perfect day to go. Not only was it perfectly
blue sky with no clouds covering the volcano, but it had snowed the day before
so the normally snow capped mountain, had snow quite far down. So I got to
touch snow for the first time in a year and a half. So that was really fun.
Later on in the trip we went to a llama farm where I got to eat llama. Not all
that good, really really chewy. We also went to a banana/cocoa/ostrich farm. I
got to try ostrich meat, which I was kind of hesitant to eat at first but
turned out to be really delicious. We stayed in a different hotel every night,
except for the last 3 nights we stayed in the same. In Machala we went to
dinner and while we were there it started to rain and when we went to leave
later on all the streets were flooded and it was coming into all the stores and
hotels. Its quite typical I learned. So we walked back to our hotel in knee-deep
water. We got to the hotel and were like screw it, lets have some fun. So we
took off out cloths just to underwear and then went into the streets and just
went swimming. We were running up and down the street yelling and kicking water
and having so much fun. It was such a cool moment that’ll I’ll never forget.
The whole reason of this trip was to get to the national Rotary conference in
Cuenca. So we got to Cuenca and we were there for 2 days.
 |
| Right out of Willy Wonka's factory. Cocoa forest |
The first day we went
to these Incan ruins that were soooo cool to see. The precision of building and
constructing what they did is out of this world. The fact that we can hardly
replicate it now with the technology that we have is so mind blowing to me.
That night was talent show, like the one we had way back in October at the
beach trip with everyone. I played drums again with my friend Kelcey who wrote
a new song about Galapagos. Heres the link to that http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhthybZmoCU&feature=youtu.be
. The last day was the conference and it was a really special day. We had a
tour of the city in the morning and then later in the afternoon we went to the
conference. Everyone wore their Rotary blazers with all the pins and
everything. It was so cool to see all the people so proud of their countries as
they were waving their flags and singing songs in their languages. We then
walked into the conference by country as everyone applauded. There was probably
about 300 or so Rotarians at the conference. They had asked Kelcey and I to
play again because they loved the song form the night before, so we played.
Then a friend of mine made a speech and slideshow about her exchange in Ecuador
which was really cool because we could all relate to it. As that wrapped up the
final thing that we had planned for us to do was sing We Are the World. So when
that song came on all 140 exchange students went to the front of this giant
room and just linked arms and we all sang We Are the World. Again this was an
incredibly special moment for everyone I think. We all started crying because
for a lot of us its the last time we’ll see each other possibly ever again.
We’ve spent this incredible year together and all have become so close that I
can’t picture living without them. They’re such a big part of life and I love
them all so much. That night we all stayed up all night together until we ate
breakfast in the morning and then boarded the buses to leave. We all stood
outside the buses for about an hour just saying goodbye to everyone. A lot of
them live in Quito and I’m still going to see them but it was still so
emotional to even think about saying goodbye. I consider these people that I’ve
only know for 8 months my best friends. Most of them better than the friends
back home that I’ve know for years and years. There’s no possible way to
describe in words the connection and experiences that bring together exchange
students. Something about all going through the ups and downs of exchange
together and just experiencing the world and what it has to offer together is a
bond stronger than any other and the only way to describe it is if you live it
and are part of it yourself. We all bought Ecuador flags and all signed each
other’s. It brought me back to senior year and year books, everyone wanting and
asking to write on your flag. But how special this flag is, it has all the
names and messages from all the other exchange students. I’m never going to
lose this thing and will cherish it for the rest of my life. Standing outside
the buses hugging and saying goodbye to people was maybe the hardest thing so
far on this exchange. Everyone was crying, yeah because we were sad, but they
were mostly tears of joy. Joy to have met all these wonderful people and share
an amazing year with them. If it was that hard to say goodbye to these people I
can’t imagine how hard it will be to say goodbye to my family and friends from
school. With only a little over a month and a half left on my exchange I’m
freaking out. Where did time go? I still feel like it was just yesterday that I
was getting of the plane and seeing my host family for the first time. And when
I got here it felt like a year would be sooo long, but here I am 9 months later
and it’s passed in the blink of an eye. I still have so much I want to do, so
much to learn, and so much to live. And I know that the next month and a half
are going to pass by even faster, and it completely scares the shit out of me.
This is my life here and I honestly can’t imagine my life without these people I’m
surrounded by; my wonderful friends that I’ve made both in school and out, all
the exchange students, but most of all my spectacular family. They mean so much
to me and I feel so incredibly lucky to have gotten them, and even more that I
didn’t have to switch families like everyone else. It’s going to be hardest to
say goodbye to them. Not many people in the world can say they have two
families, and even less can say they have two wonderful families. I can.
 |
| streets of Machala |
 |
| Incan Ruins |
The first day we went
to these Incan ruins that were soooo cool to see. The precision of building and
constructing what they did is out of this world. The fact that we can hardly
replicate it now with the technology that we have is so mind blowing to me.
That night was talent show, like the one we had way back in October at the
beach trip with everyone. I played drums again with my friend Kelcey who wrote
a new song about Galapagos. Heres the link to that http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhthybZmoCU&feature=youtu.be
. The last day was the conference and it was a really special day. We had a
tour of the city in the morning and then later in the afternoon we went to the
conference. Everyone wore their Rotary blazers with all the pins and
everything. It was so cool to see all the people so proud of their countries as
they were waving their flags and singing songs in their languages. We then
walked into the conference by country as everyone applauded. There was probably
about 300 or so Rotarians at the conference. They had asked Kelcey and I to
play again because they loved the song form the night before, so we played.
Then a friend of mine made a speech and slideshow about her exchange in Ecuador
which was really cool because we could all relate to it. As that wrapped up the
final thing that we had planned for us to do was sing We Are the World. So when
that song came on all 140 exchange students went to the front of this giant
room and just linked arms and we all sang We Are the World. Again this was an
incredibly special moment for everyone I think. We all started crying because
for a lot of us its the last time we’ll see each other possibly ever again.
We’ve spent this incredible year together and all have become so close that I
can’t picture living without them. They’re such a big part of life and I love
them all so much. That night we all stayed up all night together until we ate
breakfast in the morning and then boarded the buses to leave. We all stood
outside the buses for about an hour just saying goodbye to everyone. A lot of
them live in Quito and I’m still going to see them but it was still so
emotional to even think about saying goodbye. I consider these people that I’ve
only know for 8 months my best friends. Most of them better than the friends
back home that I’ve know for years and years. There’s no possible way to
describe in words the connection and experiences that bring together exchange
students. Something about all going through the ups and downs of exchange
together and just experiencing the world and what it has to offer together is a
bond stronger than any other and the only way to describe it is if you live it
and are part of it yourself. We all bought Ecuador flags and all signed each
other’s. It brought me back to senior year and year books, everyone wanting and
asking to write on your flag. But how special this flag is, it has all the
names and messages from all the other exchange students. I’m never going to
lose this thing and will cherish it for the rest of my life. Standing outside
the buses hugging and saying goodbye to people was maybe the hardest thing so
far on this exchange. Everyone was crying, yeah because we were sad, but they
were mostly tears of joy. Joy to have met all these wonderful people and share
an amazing year with them. If it was that hard to say goodbye to these people I
can’t imagine how hard it will be to say goodbye to my family and friends from
school. With only a little over a month and a half left on my exchange I’m
freaking out. Where did time go? I still feel like it was just yesterday that I
was getting of the plane and seeing my host family for the first time. And when
I got here it felt like a year would be sooo long, but here I am 9 months later
and it’s passed in the blink of an eye. I still have so much I want to do, so
much to learn, and so much to live. And I know that the next month and a half
are going to pass by even faster, and it completely scares the shit out of me.
This is my life here and I honestly can’t imagine my life without these people I’m
surrounded by; my wonderful friends that I’ve made both in school and out, all
the exchange students, but most of all my spectacular family. They mean so much
to me and I feel so incredibly lucky to have gotten them, and even more that I
didn’t have to switch families like everyone else. It’s going to be hardest to
say goodbye to them. Not many people in the world can say they have two
families, and even less can say they have two wonderful families. I can. 
