¡Bienvenidos a mi blog! (Welcome to my blog!)
My name is Ashley Kobold, and I studied abroad in Ecuador at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito during my Fall 2019 semester. During my 5 months there, I decided to create a blog posting some of my favorite trips and experiences! ¡Espero que disfruten! (I hope you enjoy!) :) (To see my experiences from start to finish, go to "Archives" below this box and start by clicking "August 2019". You can also choose to view what most interests you by clicking what you want in the "Categories" tab.)
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Today I had to say goodbye to Quito, a city that has been my home for the past 4 and 1/2 months. I thought about all the memories I have made here, both the good and the bad. I thought about all the friends I made this past semester, about my host family that took me in as a member of their family, and all the amazing sites I visited. I thought about all the things I would miss, such as the amazing food (especially las humitas and el tigrillo), the jogs I went on in el parque bicentario, hanging out with my friends and going to Sabai, and the excitement and anticipation that came along with setting off on a trip to a new destination. I also thought about everything I wouldn't miss, such as the public transportation that sometimes caused me to travel for 2 hours on the buses to get home from school, the machismo that is pretty prevalent here, and all the petty crime. But overall, through the good times and the bad, I loved my time here and I wouldn't change it for the world. Quito siempre tendrá un lugar especial en mi corazón. <3 Thank you to my host family for giving me a place to live and making great memories with me. <3 Thank you to USFQ and the Global Dragons, for showing how much you care about international students and having amazing Spanish classes with even more amazing professors. <3
After packing up all my belongings, I went out for one last drink with my friends Pablo and Martín. At 9 pm we headed out, and they drove me to the airport for my flight back to Phoenix, AZ at 2 am. It was such a bittersweet feeling. I can't believe the night has finally come to go back home. Chau, Quito. I'll be back soon, and I love you. <3
Just like my birthday, this is the first time I have ever celebrated Christmas away from home, and in another country! My family is super into Christmas and decorating, so we actually decorated the tree at the beginning of November (no joke). They put up lights, a blow-up Santa Claus, and streamers all over the outside and inside of the house. I remember whenever I had friends over in November they would ask why the decorations were already up haha. But for actual Christmas day, all the girls in my family (me, my host sisters, my host mom, and my host aunt) went to a place to get our make-up done professionally. Like I said, they go all out for Christmas. We then took pictures in front of the Christmas tree. They even dressed up Renzo, one of their cats, to look like an elf. During the day my host aunt and I made gingerbread cookies and a house from scratch. My host aunt loved the cat-shaped cookie cutter so we made a lot of cats. :) They turned out delicious! Finally, after cooking and baking in the kitchen all day, we had our cena de Nochebuena (Christmas Eve Dinner). After our dinner we went to the Misa de Medianoche (Midnight Mass) at their local church. It was not actually at midnight, but 10pm. They used to hold it that late in the past but have changed it since. It was cool to see how they celebrate Christmas and how the catholic services are here because I do not usually go to church, and the only times I have been to a Catholic Church have been with my grandma. They have a tradition in Ecuador where they bring a baby Jesus (some of them are actually life-sized babies), and they place them in the Nacimiento (or Nativity Scene) at the front of the church before the service starts. Then, when the service ends, everyone grabs their baby Jesus to get it blessed by the Priest. My host sister brought a little basket of baby Jesuses to get blessed. It was an interesting tradition to see!
Today I turned 22!! This is the first year I've spent my birthday in another country, or even away from my family since it always falls on Winter Break. It was cool to experience this day here in Ecuador! My host family was really sweet and bought me a birthday cake and sang happy birthday. I also spent the day face-timing friends and family back home. At night I went out with my friends that were still in Ecuador to the movies to see the new Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and then for pizza and drinks. My friends bought me a birthday crown, red wine and Sprite, and we all had pizza and tinto de verano together at Papa Johns. We ended up getting in trouble for popping the wine open in the restaurant... oops haha! My friend Sarah and I also made patacones the next day. I finally learned how to make them after over 4 months in Ecuador! They were delicious!
Today, December 19th, has been both bittersweet and exciting. It was bittersweet because I had to say goodbye to most of the friends I met who also studied abroad this semester. It felt weird having our very last day of final exams on campus, and it was hard to say goodbye to all the friends that I made from all different parts of the world, especially since I probably won't get to see a lot of them ever again. But at the same time, today I have been a mixture of excited and nervous as I have been anticipating my camping trip (and first trip) with el club andinismo, which is the hiking club here on campus. After saying all of my goodbyes, I went shopping to buy all my food and water supplies, borrowed a sleeping bag and other camping necessities from some of my Ecuadorian friends, and met the other members of the club on campus to head out for El Altar, an extinct volcano in the Sangay National Park in the Chimborazo province of Ecuador. After about a 4-hour drive, we arrived at La Hacienda Releche, which is a small farm that most people stay at the night before completing the long trek to El Altar. Bright and early the next morning, we packed up again and got ready for the long hike ahead of us. The second we walked outside, it started pouring rain so we had to cover our backpacks and sleeping bags with rain ponchos and garbage bags. I was so glad that I remembered to throw in an extra bag! The hike started off with a pretty steep uphill ascent, then eventually leveled out. Unfortunately, this did not last the whole hike, nor was any part of it easy because the constant rain that comes down in this mountain region makes it insanely muddy. Pretty much all of us fell in the mud several times, but it was fine because it just made the adventure more exciting haha! On top of that, all the gear we had to carry really weighed us down because we had to have all the food and water, clothes, sleeping supplies, etc. that we would need. My shoulders eventually became numb from all the weight. Over 5 hours, an elevation gain of over 2,000 ft, and 10 miles later, we finally arrived at the Refuge Collanes! Most people stay the night in the rooms and rest up before hiking the crater lake of El Altar (called la Laguna Amarilla) the next morning. However, our group decided to just set down all of our equipment, eat lunch, and rest up a bit before heading straight to the lagoon. A little bit later we were on our way! The hike to the crater started off with an extremely swampy marshland that was hard to navigate. As we began the steep ascent to the lagoon, we could start to see the incredible waterfalls coming down off the side of the mountains. At last, after trekking up the steep volcano for about 2 hours and increasing our elevation from a little over 12,000 feet to over 14,000 feet, we made it to the lagoon! We were all so exhausted from doing both of the hikes in one day. I remember just pushing through it all as I hiked up, telling myself that it is all mental and that you just have to keep telling yourself that you can keep going. I ended up making it all the way up to see the lagoon first. This was a spiritual moment for me as I got to sit and view that breathtaking lagoon in complete peace and silence. All that hard work to climb up the volcano had seriously paid off. I was in awe. Words cannot even describe how amazing and spectacular the sight was, and photos can't do it justice either. About 30 minutes later the rest of the group caught up and made it to the top. We rested a bit and enjoyed the view before the trip back to the refuge. Unfortunately, the hike back did not go according to plan. After being warned by another tourist from Spain to get back quickly before the sun set, a few of us were determined to walk back as fast as possible. Unfortunately not everyone could keep up which caused our group to fall behind. The sun ended up setting as we were walking through the marshlands again. And let me tell ya, if the marshlands were difficult to navigate in the daylight, I can't even explain how insanely difficult it was to return back to the refuge in the dark. Only two people in the group had headlamps to guide us through the swampy marshes, and every single one of us got our feet soaked because we could not see properly and slipped into the water-soaked areas as a result. I got the worst of it when at one point I sunk knee-deep in the muck. It was like I fell in quicksand, and I had to pull myself out using a patch of grass near me because otherwise I would have just kept sinking- it was insane. After that, everyone else in the group was extra careful with where they placed their feet. After about another hour of walking back in the dark, we finally made it back to the refuge. It was one of the greatest reliefs of my life. We all cleaned ourselves up as best as we could with the hose outside, changed into our warm pajamas, and gathered around the campfire for a while to stay warm. The freezing and rainy weather continued throughout the night, and unfortunately the sleeping bag that I borrowed from my friend was not warm at all. I didn't sleep a wink, which is saying a lot considering that I was incredibly exhausted from the day's hikes. The next morning we packed up our belongings one last time to make our way back to our first stop on this journey, la hacienda releche. I might have had a bad luck curse on me during this trip because on the hike back, my entire boot fell apart due to the mud. The whole bottom rubber material separated from the top part of my boot, and my friends had to tie string around my boot to keep it together. This made the hike back even more challenging, which at this point I didn't think was possible haha! This picture is me after being almost completely finished with the hike. No matter how many things went wrong and made it difficult, I would not change a single part of it all. It made for some hilarious memories and pretty cool stories, and the experience of seeing El Altar was unforgettable. El Altar holds a very special place in my heart, and gave me an experience that I never imagined I would have, but am so glad I did.
This morning I took a bus straight from Cuenca to Montañita to meet another group of friends that have been staying at an Air BnB there for a few days. Montañita means "little mountain," and it is a huge tourist attraction on the south Pacific Coast of Ecuador in the province of Santa Elena. The beach is gorgeous, and my first night I got to watch the sunset. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was one of the most beautiful sunsets I have seen. It looked like it was just floating over the shoreline, slowly dropping down, and then all of the sudden it disappeared. I've never seen a sunset like it before. This place is super busy with souvenir stands and shops, choclo stands (which I may or may not have visited at least 5 times while here), and all kinds of food vendors. My friend Sarah met up with me later tonight, and we got to get dinner together and go out partying (which is a huge part of life in this beach town). As soon as it gets dark out, the streets light up, music starts blaring from the clubs, and people start to party. It's fun to be in this environment and experience life here for a little bit, but after a couple of nights Sarah and I were ready to explore the other beaches that Ecuador has to offer. The next morning we hopped on a bus to La Playa Los Frailes, which is an enclosed National Park and one of the cleanest, most beautiful beaches I have seen. It closes before sunset, so we were glad we left early enough to see the beach. We got to lie down and relax, and the beach was almost empty (definitely a big change from Montañita). We stayed here until closing time, and then paid for a ride to get to Puerto Lopez for our final beach destination. It was actually kind of scary coming out of the beach because there was a group of young adults catcalling us and saying inappropriate things while we were on the moto-taxi that took us back to the park entrance. They kept purposely driving right alongside us and yelling things to us. The driver of our moto-taxi slowed down to make them pass us, but then a little bit later we saw that they were pulled off to the side of the road just waiting for us. We tried our best to ignore them and pretend like we didn't notice them, and when we got to the park entrance we barely entered the car to take us to Puerto Lopez in time before they were also leaving the park. Luckily they couldn't do anything because we were already in the car, so they just yelled a few more things and drove off. After that scary and annoying encounter, we were able to relax again. We made it to Puerto Lopez and enjoyed a coconut on the beach. We also met this adorable pup named "Arepa" while eating a delicious dinner of shrimp, patacones, and a piña colada. It ended up being a really great end to our night, and then we headed back to the bus station to catch our bus leaving for Quito at 8.
Although the colonial architecture in Cuenca truly is a beautiful site, as a huge nature-lover my favorite place in Cuenca was El Cajas National Park. This 70,000 acre park is filled with amazing mountains, beautiful wildlife, and over 760 lakes! The word "Cajas" comes from the Quichua word "cassa" which means "gateway to the snowy mountains". It is also related to the Spanish word for "boxes". A few other of our friends arrived in Cuenca last night, so they joined us for this trip in the morning. We took a bus from the Terminal Terrestre in Cuenca, which left at 8:30 am. The ride took about an hour, and upon arriving at the Park we had to check in with our passport information and have someone explain to us the available hikes. Unfortunately, since it was rainy and all of us are directionally-challenged, we got off course and could not figure out the correct path to take around the lake. Despite the rain and getting lost, we had a really fun time exploring and eating our snacks on the trails. :) After getting off track on the trail and not being sure how to get back to the main office of the park, we started to get concerned as the rain came down harder. Instead of risking getting lost, we hopped over the highway border and hitchhiked back into town. We made sure the guy who gave us a ride was not sketchy, and felt safe because he had also picked up some other tourists trying to get back into town. It made for a really funny memory, and we made it back into town safely and had a fun last night in this beautiful city! Cuenca at night!
Today I traveled to Cuenca with my friend Emma. It was such a last minute plan that we almost weren't even able to get bus tickets at all because they were almost completely sold out! Luckily, there were exactly 2 left leaving from the Quitumbe bus station in the south. We rushed to try to buy them, and then of course BOTH of our cards were denied on the website to buy the tickets. This happened a few times while in Ecuador. I think it has something to do with not being a citizen here. After all the struggling, we finally got the tickets by using Emma's host mom's card and paying her back. After all these complications, we had just 2 hours to pack and get ready to leave from the bus station by 10pm. It was a stressful night, but we made it to Cuenca and now get to explore this beautiful city!! Cuenca is the capital and largest city of the Azuay Province. Filled with cobblestone streets, colorful buildings and old cathedrals, and colonial plazas and churches, it is such a beautiful place. Emma and I went on a tour of the city and it was great to get to walk all around and see the sites without worrying about getting lost! After our tour of the city, Emma and I walked to the Pumapungo Museum and Archaeological Park that has the ancient ruins of the Incan administrative, military, and religious center. With llamas roaming about, all kinds of native Andean plants and trees, and an incredible view over the city, we found this park to be super peaceful. It is a must-see when visiting Cuenca! After a great first day in Cuenca, Emma and I walked back to our hostal and got ready for dinner. We went to a great burger place and of course got some delicious dessert afterwards. Every street corner here has all kinds of delicious pastries, candies, and chocolates. One of my favorites were the roscas, which are donut-shaped cookies with frosting and sprinkles on top- so yummy!
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Ashley KoboldMy amazing experience studying abroad in Ecuador. ¡Qué chévere! Archives
December 2019
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