I woke up this morning with a head full of imagination. I pulled the blinds on the window above my bed and exposed a brilliant sky of blue while immediately catching the winking eye of the moon. The ground has frosted again; the tips of grass blades and the tops of leafs glisten as light reaches the earth. Today is December 31st, 2015 and tomorrow we begin a new year. I will be spending the beginning 6 months (January 20th – July) of this New Year engaged in a new part of the world and I am overwhelmed with excitement for this experience. Like similar modern brains, my excitement dovetails with nervousness. Being abroad while in an unfamiliar place involves innate variables and I don’t have the foresight to predict and prepare for those things. I do feel confident that my 24 years of experiences will properly guide me through this experience while embracing spontaneity and taking risks. I hope to capture as much of the surrounding culture as I can while treading softly. The areas of Ecuador, Peru and beyond carry a rich history, much of which I will surely have overlooked, but hopefully the books I have read have given me a foundation that will aid me in further understanding and appreciation of these cultures.

 

Ultimately, the social and historic aspects of the humans are only one segue into these areas. The emphasis of this voyage is one with scientific pretenses. The study abroad portion of this trip will guide me through multiple locations in the Ecuadorian rain forest. We begin this trip at a field station called Maquipucuna. This location is a mid-elevation west slope Andean wet forest (cloud forest and montane forest) a few hours from Quito. This sounds to be a easy introduction to the Amazonian environment and South America in general. We will be taking daily walks through the forest, keeping a keen eye out for colorful birds, spectacled bears, among other things, and we will be eating locally sourced meals three times a day(!!!). Sounds like we will be treated like kings and queens. In this case, you get what you pay for.

 

We then head south to Cuenca, a mid-elevation Spanish colonial city, the historic center of which has been recognized by UNESCO. We will spend two weeks with Ecuadorian families in a home-stay situation, during which we will engage in five half-day spanish language courses, four excursions, ranging in length from half-days to overnights, to archaeological sites, a national park, and indigenous villages, lectures along the way, and general fun the whole time. Oh yeah, and CARNAVAL will be occuring while we are in Cuenca ~ Drink em if you got em, but watch our for the dreaded water-flour concoction that may be flying around.

 

Next, we are off to Jatun Sacha, a small rainforest reserve, comprising mostly secondary forest, on the lower eastern slopes of the Andes, near Tena, in the Amazon. We will explore the area, walking trails and forest every day. Lectures are likely, as well as one or two one-day field exercises. This stint lasts for 8 nights. We will then regroup, get our ducks in a line, and head to Blisa, another of Jatun Sacha’s Foundation’s biological stations. This one is in the lowland rainforest on the west slope of the Andes.

 

After all of this really hard work, it will be time to play for a few days. We take refuge in Otavalo, famous for its artisan market, and surrounded by volcanoes in the altiplano ecosystem of Ecuador. We will spend 6 nights here exploring the countryside, the town, while beginning to think earnest about our Spring research projects. We will spend one full day hiking around Lago Cuicocha, a tropical lake.

 

Next up is Shiripuno. This lodge and research station is deep in the remote, primary forest of the Amazon, adjacent to the world famous Yasuni National Park, probably the most biodiverse place on earth ~ that we have discovered. This will apparently be out most intense rainforest experience, which we will share with amazing guides and naturalists.

 

We end our trip with two weeks in the famous Galapagos – thanks Darwin. We will spend nearly half our time based on Santa Cruz island, two days of which will comprise boat trips to smaller islands (Floreana and North Seymour). For the remainder of our time in the Halapagos, we will be on Isabela island, taking three shared excurions—two snorkeling excurions, to Los Tintoreras and to Los Tuneles—and one all-day hike to Volcan Sierra Negra. During this time we will also be carving out our Spring quarter research proposals. The Galapagos will be our final stop. What a way to finish the trip. We head back to Quito the next day, have a culminating dinner together as a class and then the next day (April 4th) everyone scatters.

 

This will surely be a life changing experience and I have found myself surrounded by like-minded individuals to share it with. I will be keeping all of you in my thoughts and you will be carried through this experience with me.

While attending Evergreen and preparing for this trip, similar questions in regards to the ultimate takeaway have been asked. For me, it is difficult to pinpoint the material takeaway for this experience. I will be engaged in questioning the rhythm of the forest, while using the intellectual toolkit I’ve been crafting. The economy of the natural world is a complex system, but starting with the understanding that there are energetic returns of some form for energetic outputs allows me to ask good questions. While walking on the boardwalk at the Nisqually Refuge yesterday, my dad and I caught sight of a harbor seal furiously chasing what appeared to be a large fish. The fish’s evacuation route was in the direction of land, which caught us by surprise. This all happened in the span of 10 seconds or so and we wouldn’t have seen the event if our timing wasn’t perfect. It is hard to say what I will see while I am in South America, but I know that I will learn to be a better observer, hopefully a little less biased with less of an emphasis on anthropomorphizing the actions of the world around me.