While everyone else at Bethel is preparing for the upcoming school year, I have been experiencing the Ecuadorian life for a month now. On July 23, I flew to Quito, Ecuador, where I will be studying and learning for the semester – until my plane takes me back to the U.S. on December 20.
This past weekend I went to the Amazon jungle, which was AMAZING. We went rafting in the Napo River and stayed in a lodge deep in the jungle, where you have to boat or fly to get there. The group I’m with, BCA (Brethren Colleges Abroad), is a great program with interesting students from all over the U.S. and Canada. On Saturday we hiked in the primary jungle most of the morning looking for exotic animals and plants, like the walking tree. It was extremely humid and everyone was drenched in sweat by the end of the hike. Then we had to wait for our bus to come and pick us up and take us back to our boat to get back to the lodge. Anyway, our bus was late so we started walking towards the river, and all of a sudden an ICE CREAM truck came driving down the road. I almost fell over backwards… because we don’t even have ice cream trucks in Larned, the little town in Kansas that I am from. Luckily someone brought a couple dollars with them in the jungle, and we all shared a nice cold helado. And then, when we thought nothing could get better, our bus showed up to take us to the boat. We had a great day in the jungle.