Prepare yourself. This post is going to be a long one.
First, let's talk about the last few days. This week consisted of just regular old classes at USFQ, finishing our papers for Marine Research. It was stressful, but mostly uneventful until my computer mysteriously acquired a very broken screen. It'll be fixed soon enough, thankfully, but until then I'm borrowing gadgets and won't be able to share pictures.
That day finished off with a rather negative reminder of which city I'm currently in. Someone must have watched me get my money to pay for my computer troubles, because directly after, I got knocked down and a man took off with a portion of that money. I was fine, and in reality I lost nothing of significant value, but it put a pretty nasty cast on Quito for me, at least temporarily.
It was Friday and I desperately needed to turn my mood around. The obvious solution? Going out! A couple friends and I ventured to La Ronda, a lively area in Old Quito. Sitting beneath the lookout of the "winged virgin" statue that towers over the historic part of Quito, this long cobblestone street is lined by a continuous wall of colonial buildings with curling iron balconies on the windows and doors open to the hidden plazas inside.. It's beautiful and very famous for the number of artisanal shops and cafes where one can eat traditional, freshly fried empanadas to your heart's content. It's even more famous for its night life. The streets are brightly and colorfully lit and well watched by policemen, so it's much safer than the rest of Old Quito at night. The shops and cafes stay open and are joined by bars and dance clubs and hoards of people out to have a good time. We started the night off by trying out a local drink: Canelazo.
If you like hot cider and/or rum, you would love Canelazo. It's essentially a rich juice (usually based with oranges I think) filled with brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and a generous serving of aguardiente ("firewater"), a very strong sugar cane alcohol. As if the fire water wouldn't warm you up, it's served piping hot. It's delicious. It's also apparently dangerously easy to overdo it, so we stuck to just one mug each before exploring more.
We REALLY wanted to dance, but it was harder to make happen than expected. All bars with dance floors wouldn't let us dance without buying drinks first, but given that we were a 45 minute taxi ride from home in a not particularly safe district, more drinks were not on our agenda. We joined another group en route to a very promising Salsa club, but got turned away at the door. The reason? Word for word (translated): "We can't let you in because you have too many white girls with you."
I remember being told that the culture here can come off as racist, but that experience totally baffled me. We were literally turned away for our skin color. We had no idea how to respond. We brushed it off, though, and instead focused the night on exploring the street itself, which was still plenty fun and a great turnaround to my previously not so great day.
Canelazo, La Ronda, and falling victim to some petty theft = pretty classic Quito experience, I believe.
Let's see, what else...oh yeah, I need to get around to sharing about our class trip to the coast!
First, let's talk about the last few days. This week consisted of just regular old classes at USFQ, finishing our papers for Marine Research. It was stressful, but mostly uneventful until my computer mysteriously acquired a very broken screen. It'll be fixed soon enough, thankfully, but until then I'm borrowing gadgets and won't be able to share pictures.
That day finished off with a rather negative reminder of which city I'm currently in. Someone must have watched me get my money to pay for my computer troubles, because directly after, I got knocked down and a man took off with a portion of that money. I was fine, and in reality I lost nothing of significant value, but it put a pretty nasty cast on Quito for me, at least temporarily.
It was Friday and I desperately needed to turn my mood around. The obvious solution? Going out! A couple friends and I ventured to La Ronda, a lively area in Old Quito. Sitting beneath the lookout of the "winged virgin" statue that towers over the historic part of Quito, this long cobblestone street is lined by a continuous wall of colonial buildings with curling iron balconies on the windows and doors open to the hidden plazas inside.. It's beautiful and very famous for the number of artisanal shops and cafes where one can eat traditional, freshly fried empanadas to your heart's content. It's even more famous for its night life. The streets are brightly and colorfully lit and well watched by policemen, so it's much safer than the rest of Old Quito at night. The shops and cafes stay open and are joined by bars and dance clubs and hoards of people out to have a good time. We started the night off by trying out a local drink: Canelazo.
If you like hot cider and/or rum, you would love Canelazo. It's essentially a rich juice (usually based with oranges I think) filled with brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and a generous serving of aguardiente ("firewater"), a very strong sugar cane alcohol. As if the fire water wouldn't warm you up, it's served piping hot. It's delicious. It's also apparently dangerously easy to overdo it, so we stuck to just one mug each before exploring more.
We REALLY wanted to dance, but it was harder to make happen than expected. All bars with dance floors wouldn't let us dance without buying drinks first, but given that we were a 45 minute taxi ride from home in a not particularly safe district, more drinks were not on our agenda. We joined another group en route to a very promising Salsa club, but got turned away at the door. The reason? Word for word (translated): "We can't let you in because you have too many white girls with you."
I remember being told that the culture here can come off as racist, but that experience totally baffled me. We were literally turned away for our skin color. We had no idea how to respond. We brushed it off, though, and instead focused the night on exploring the street itself, which was still plenty fun and a great turnaround to my previously not so great day.
Canelazo, La Ronda, and falling victim to some petty theft = pretty classic Quito experience, I believe.
Let's see, what else...oh yeah, I need to get around to sharing about our class trip to the coast!
It began with an 8 hour bus ride. Not a great start, but the destination was well worth it. We arrived in the northern coastal province of Las Esmeraldas. We passed through the city of the same name and ended up at a very quiet and secluded spot named La Escondida, "the hidden beach." It turned out to be our home for the next two nights. We slept in bungalows with leafed roofs, swam in the ocean, and got sunburned. Can you say paradise? Our next stop was in the city of La Manta (less beautiful - the whole city smelled like canned tuna), and our last few nights were spent in the small coastal fishing town of Puerto Lopez. We even spent an incredible day scuba diving at an island called Isla de la Plata ("island of gold"), which is nicknamed little Galapagos and is famous for the enormous Manta Rays that congregate there and the whales that migrate nearby. I tested out my gopro on the dive and collected some cool clips of what I saw down there. If you want, you can check it out here: http://vimeo.com/106459814
I assure you, this trip had an educational purpose. Every single day (other than the dive day) was spent conducting field work. We were split into groups working on research projects. Mine spent the days running transects through the intertidal zone and counting and measuring whelks (intertidal predatory snails). The purpose? To find out if the impact of human food - foraging (because whelks are among many beach critters eaten here) has greater strength in determining the populations of whelks along the Ecuadorian coast. Answer? People have enough impact to lower the average size of individuals in these populations, but abundances are so variable that we couldn't really conclude much else. Of course, our projects were pretty limited as far as actual research goes. This is just an introductory class on techniques, after all. 6 field days in a row was more exhausting than I expected - I have yet to adjust to spending so much time directly under the equatorial sun with serious heat and humidity (It's not very tropical or warm in Quito, so the coast was a big change). Still, the whole experience was absolutely one of my most fantastic adventures yet.
It's like this class was designed for me specifically. I've been wanting more practice in field work techniques, and I've been curious to find out what the intertidal zone here looks like. My ongoing thesis based out of the Novak Lab at OSU is actually on whelks. I'm checking out if color polymorphisms that determine thermal stress tolerance in individuals correlate with their predation behavior. Sounds riveting, I know. The point is that I can go 4,000 miles from home and still make these incredibly relevant connections. This research track is what I want to do with my life (I think...). I'm learning so much about a new culture, and I'm seeing so many things, but I'm also building really significant experience for my future life goals. I think that's pretty cool.
Other trip highlights (or lowlights, you decide):
- Buying a still-green coconut for a bus ride refresher: the man selling them lopped off the top with a machete and stuck a straw in it
- Trying cebiche (basically a cold seafood soup). The verdict? Probably better without conch. I'm not much of a mollusc-eater.
- Coming face to face with a sea turtle.
- Collecting hoards of beautiful shells and inspiration for what to make with them
- Coming down with a solid flue-like sickness for a day or two, probably caused by some suspicious water.
- So many variations of spicy sauces to put on all the foods! I have found a new love, and it's name is ahi.
- Discussing the local beers with our professors.
-Getting up close and personal with some blue-footed boobie birds.
I'll hopefully have my computer back by next weekend, and I'll be sure to share some photos from the coast. Chao!
I assure you, this trip had an educational purpose. Every single day (other than the dive day) was spent conducting field work. We were split into groups working on research projects. Mine spent the days running transects through the intertidal zone and counting and measuring whelks (intertidal predatory snails). The purpose? To find out if the impact of human food - foraging (because whelks are among many beach critters eaten here) has greater strength in determining the populations of whelks along the Ecuadorian coast. Answer? People have enough impact to lower the average size of individuals in these populations, but abundances are so variable that we couldn't really conclude much else. Of course, our projects were pretty limited as far as actual research goes. This is just an introductory class on techniques, after all. 6 field days in a row was more exhausting than I expected - I have yet to adjust to spending so much time directly under the equatorial sun with serious heat and humidity (It's not very tropical or warm in Quito, so the coast was a big change). Still, the whole experience was absolutely one of my most fantastic adventures yet.
It's like this class was designed for me specifically. I've been wanting more practice in field work techniques, and I've been curious to find out what the intertidal zone here looks like. My ongoing thesis based out of the Novak Lab at OSU is actually on whelks. I'm checking out if color polymorphisms that determine thermal stress tolerance in individuals correlate with their predation behavior. Sounds riveting, I know. The point is that I can go 4,000 miles from home and still make these incredibly relevant connections. This research track is what I want to do with my life (I think...). I'm learning so much about a new culture, and I'm seeing so many things, but I'm also building really significant experience for my future life goals. I think that's pretty cool.
Other trip highlights (or lowlights, you decide):
- Buying a still-green coconut for a bus ride refresher: the man selling them lopped off the top with a machete and stuck a straw in it
- Trying cebiche (basically a cold seafood soup). The verdict? Probably better without conch. I'm not much of a mollusc-eater.
- Coming face to face with a sea turtle.
- Collecting hoards of beautiful shells and inspiration for what to make with them
- Coming down with a solid flue-like sickness for a day or two, probably caused by some suspicious water.
- So many variations of spicy sauces to put on all the foods! I have found a new love, and it's name is ahi.
- Discussing the local beers with our professors.
-Getting up close and personal with some blue-footed boobie birds.
I'll hopefully have my computer back by next weekend, and I'll be sure to share some photos from the coast. Chao!