Day 30: Last day in Quito

Friday, September 19, 2008

I woke up early today to prepare for my final exam in Tropical Ecology. It felt nice to not be rushed, but I was still worrying about my test. Even though standards down here are completely different from back home, I still feel the need to perfect all of my work and sometimes worry too much about the grades rather than how much knowledge I actually acquired. The thing about this class was I already knew a lot of ecology coming in, and I learned much more about the ecology of Ecuador with Andrea, my teacher.

Andrea taught us about current situations in the Ecuadorian ecosystem, specifically in regards to the Amazon and Paramos. All the field trips we got to go on taught me so much about 1) tropical ecology, and 2) the culture and people and history of Ecuador. In the past month I feel like I have learned so much about Ecuador and myself – I would not trade the last month I spent on the mainland for anything in the world.

The exam consisted of a lot of small essay questions. I felt the need to write Andrea and novel so I was the second to last one finished with my test. I felt it was a very fair exam and that there was only one semi-difficult question for me to answer. Luckily it was an essay question and my remarkable BS-ing talent was put to perfect use. When I finally finished a little after 10 am, I treated myself to a Coca-Cola Light (Diet Coke) and a chocolate chip cookie. Then Lindsey and I went to chill on the lawn since it was our last day on campus. While I hung out there for a while, just relaxing and having nothing to worry about, Lianne and Lindsey ran to SuperMaxi to grab a few things.

Then Lindsey and I met at El Coyote for lunch. Annie recommended it as a really good Mexican restaurant. I got tostadas and they were absolutely delicious. We stuffed ourselves silly and then moseyed back over to campus to relax until the bus arrived to take us back to the hotel. I spent the last hour relaxing on the lawn by the lagoon, talking with Emily, Andres, David, and Haruna. Apparently that hour was enough to burn my chest even though there was immense cloud cover…

The bus ride back was memorable because it was our last one ever – that, and it started to rain and since the vent was open I was getting rained on in the bus. As soon as we got back to the hotel I grabbed my purse and rain jacket and headed over to El Jardin to get last minute supplies for the islands (cotton swabs, saline solution, etc). It rained a decent amount – enough that I had to wade through standing water in some of the more poorly drained areas. I also found a really cute shirt that I treated myself to since I had a final exam earlier.

Down in the pharmacy, Fybeca, I ran into Louis, Lisa B, and Lisa D. It took me about half an hour to find the saline solution I was looking for to clean my ear with. I also bought my first Kinder-egg ever and went back to the hotel. I was finally able to shower my stinky self off, and then I started the packing process. I had to figure out what to leave behind in Quito for three months, and what I wanted to take with me. Mid-way through packing I went out for dinner with Sam, Shawna S, and Rachel. We went to our favorite restaurant: Tomato. It was soooooo good. We all got personal cheese pizzas and stuffed ourselves silly. Then for dessert, Shawna, Rachel, and I split a chocolate pizza with fruit and crepes. Sam decided to get another personal pizza for dessert. It put the chocolate fondue at Mango Tree Café to shame.

Once we returned to the hotel we all finished out packing, got ready for going out, and had a glass of wine. My room literally looked like a bomb went off during the packing process, but luckily I was able to fit everything I wanted into my suitcase. We went to Seseribo to dance salsa. It was pretty empty when we first arrived, but a short while later there was a line to get in. We danced, had a couple drinks, and enjoyed ourselves. David bought us all shots because he told us the day before that for every 5 minutes the bus was late he would buy each of us a shot. Since the bus came about 7 minutes after he said this (which he said to get us to stop complaining), he bought a bottle of some Sugar Cane alcohol. I am not really a hard liquor drinker, and I certainly don’t do shots, but I did this for David. (Sorry Mom and Dad…) It tasted a lot like black liquorice, but it didn’t burn like vodka or rum.

After a while of dancing at sese, Annie knew of a Rave that was going on with a female DJ who is supposedly the best female DJ in the world. David helped us get taxis, and several of us headed off to find this rave. It was a very neat experience – I was weary at first because I know raves tend to have a lot of drugs and I am not into that stuff (not to mention it is beyond illegal in Ecuador), but it turned out to be really cool. Sure there were people there that were high as kites, but no one was doing drugs there that I was aware of. Also, it was not too overly packed and everyone was just happy to be dancing. Sam and I stuck together the whole time and had a blast jumping up and down. This was my first rave ever so it was a pretty good experience.

Around 3 am we decided to leave because we had to be up for our flight the next morning. Unfortunately we ran into a major problem at the door. When we came in the door guys told us it was 10 dollars each, and when we tried to leave they wanted us to pay 20 because we were VIP. Sam and I pooled all our money just to get the two of us out, but that left Danielle, Forrest, and Tom trying to talk their way out. I spent a while talking to the door guys trying to explain our situation and tell them we needed to leave, while Annie and Vale talked to the people we had to pay to try to work something out. Finally around 3:50 am we were able to leave and none of us had a dime left. We got 5 people in a taxi and went back to the hotel. When we got there I had to run in and grab some money to pay the taxi driver. It wasn’t until about 4:45 that I was actually able to get to bed, at which point I absolutely crashed. Tomorrow = Galapagos!