This Monday I finished my junior year of college. With two finals in my two most difficult classes, I ended things with great joy, of course, but it was also a bit difficult to celebrate because I was bleary-eyed and unable to see straight I was so tired. I have no one to blame but myself, though, because this past weekend instead of locking myself in the Gasson library and studying until all hours of the night like I would have at BC, I chose to do the study abroad thing and spend a few days at the beach. After serious debates and many passive aggressive moments, 6 of us decided to go to Atacames for the weekend. It’s a small beach on (what I found out was) the Pacific just six hours from Quito and Nghiem's Ecuadorian aunt runs a hotel out of her former home there, so we were all set with a place to stay.
We caught a bus from Quito at 11 on Friday with all of the necessary supplies: bathing suits, PB&J ingredients, not quite the “6 bottles” that Nghiem had requested but something along those lines, and plenty of sunscreen. The bus ride there was rough times, they played ‘Taken’ in Spanish (quite possibly the worst movie of all time to watch in the middle of the night on a dark bus where anyone could steal something/you at any moment), and as Ryann pointed out I am “too long” to sleep on vehicles like that one.
Anyways, we arrived around 7 in the morning to a drizzly morning which cleared up as soon as our heads did and we started to enjoy the gorgeous house we were staying in. We each had a double room with air conditioning (Ryann and mine would later break, though, and our toilet would clog, it wouldn’t be an Ecua trip without things like this happening only to us, claro), a kitchen as well as a living room, a pool and our own little slice of the heavenly beach.
Greatest casa of all time
Leila, Ryann, Brianna and me
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Beachin' it.We really enjoyed the miraculous weather that came after a solid week of rain there in Atacames as well as a delicious dinner made for us by the hotel workers. At night Ryann started feeling a tad ill (also wouldn’t be an Ecua trip without this component) but rallied in order to go out for the night. I won’t expand on this, really, suffice to say that night life on the coast is something out of this world and is completely different to what we are used to here in Quito. I will reduce it to the following words: sweat, domination, dirty dancing air lifts.
....and after. Please note Brianna and Ngheim's shirts and realize that it is not water.
Anyways, we spent hours on the beach the following day working on the tans we all promised ourselves we would return with. Nghiem and I finally had to turn to our studies after a brief dinner, a horrible thing to try to attempt when your greatest friends and a phenomenal sunset are all there to distract you. We left that Sunday at midnight and got back to Quito at 6:30ish, after an hour of studying, a brief nap and almost crying because I didn’t have the right change for the bus in the morning, I had my finals at 11 and 2. I can’t quite say how they went, nor remember them clearly due to the lack of sleep. What I can say for certain, though, is that I’m done!
Nghiem and I hit the books
Now we have a bunch of ‘last week in Ecuador’ activities planned and it is shaping up to be a hilarious and fitting string of days here. Ryann and I set up a Jeopardy game for everyone last night with questions related to all of the group members and tomorrow we have our final dinner with Amanda. It is going to be incredibly hard to say goodbye to everyone and to this country so I’m trying to keep that at a distance despite the fact that the end is in the very visible future. In any case, I’ll try to update again once I’ve left and am exploring the continent with Jacqueline N. Draper. All I have to say is South America better watch out.
Amor!