Me cai de un cabello

(Following this post is my account of the entire Galapagos trip, this post is just about me falling off a horse)

For those who can't translate that title either because you dont know spanish or because I still dont know it and wrote that completely wrong, it means "i fell from a horse."

Yup, i think i have said that phrase about a hundred times in the past 3 days since we returned from a 5 day trip to the galapagos islands (which are amazing by the way, but you can read my blog about that).


one day we went on an excursion up to the top of a volcanoe by horseback. it was about an hour trip to the top and the same back down. each of us was given a horse and for some reason i was given the smallest one. i never learned its name but i referred to it as 'donkey' the entire time as on numberous occasions my feet hit the ground and apparently i looked rediculous atop it.

never did it strike me as a problem that my horse was too small for me, nor the sensations of falling over during our gallops. how was a kid from philly, with only a boy scout merit badge in horseback riding supposed to predict my forthcoming plunge.

the trip to the top of the volcanoe was easy and we were in full gallop numberous times...no problem. The volcanoe was amazing and the sights were rediculous, yada yada yada.

so after lunch we began our trip back down. our guide was apparently impressed with our riding abilities earlier so he instructed us to eat quickly so we could ditch the other people wiht us and gallop the entire way back. 'a great idea, sounds like fun.', i thought

so, on the way down, we galloped, and a lot. in fact my puny little horse had me in the front most of the time. so we were about 3/4's the was down, on a rather wide path at this point and we were in full gallop and i was like, 'oh this is great we are fine, we are fine, we are fine...oh dear god i am falling, i am leaning to the right, now more the right, damn it my horse just made a sharp turn to the left and I am going to the right in mid-air.' BAMN! I hit the ground in some sort of pushup position and as i remember it I made a ninja-like roll and bounced right up to my feet. Lauren, who saw the whole thing said i actually hit the ground and tumbled and rolled all over the ground.

well, after my ninja roll i was on my feet and looked at my right hand which immediately was throbbing and was able to gaize (sp?) INTO my hand. yup, i ripped an inch long gash into the palm of my hand. this was followed by a bit of light-headedness and my guide telling me to get back on my horse. Oh, and i was completely covered in dirt and dust from the ride and ninja roll so i was concerned about any dirt getting into my gash.

So, i got back on that damn donkey of a horse and held on for dear life with my one good hand screaming of few obsenities along the way. I made it back to the trucks, nearly fainted twice, covered my pants in blood and drove back 45 minutes to the little town on the island.

My guide then dropped off my friends who were in the truck with me and we began our search for a doctor. Remember, this is not a city we are in. we are in the galapagos where nature is in charge and there is hardly more than 1500 people in the town. oh, and it was saturday when this happened, which means...the hospital isnt even open!!! so me and my guide drove all over the town searching for one of the 3 doctros there.

Eventually we found one who was this girl, about 30 years old, lying ont he beach in her swimsuit about to go snorkeling...she was on call that day (yes, in ecuador you can go snorkling while you are on call at the hospital). so after washing off she took me into the hospital which was really a clinic. there i found out that she actually was a med-student and not a full fledged doctor. this is not exactly what i was hoping to hear at the time. Well, to compound my fears, i was very aware of the fact that i had basically nothin left in my bank accound, did not have a credit card and wasnt even sure how well my insurance worked.

well, to wrap this up, the 'doctor' did a great job and she was really cool. i ended up with 3 stitches, found out that i barely missed severing a tendon which wouldve required an immediate flight back to the main land for surgery, and only had to pay $14 (the price of stitching, gauze, antibiotics, ibuprofen and cleaning stuff). the service was free, no co-pay, and to top it off, the hotel paid me back because they felt bad for me.

so, today, five days later, my hand is still swollen although it is getting better, the stitches look fine, and this email was a bit difficult to right so dont complain about the grammar mistakes. oh, and the first thing i get to do when i get to chile this monday is go to the hospital to get my stitches removed.

so, i highly recommend anyone to go to the galapagos and even do the horseback riding trip, but if you run into a tannish donkey-horse, please, please kick that thing as hard as you can.

Galapagos Islands and a freakin horse

(this is my account of the entire Galapagos trip)
So after carefully researching the best, and more importantly, cheapest way to do the Galapagos, we were off to what was one of the most amazing places I have ever been to for 5 days. We had chosen to do it through a travel agency that set us up in a hotel for 4 nights, with all the meals included and excursions on the island of Isabella every day. Did we care that we were going to miss 4 days of spanish classes that we already paid for? No! Notre Dame paid for those for us.

So we flew out on Thursday and landed on the island Santa Cruz, the only island fitted for normal sized planes. Turns out, the airport was actually constructed by the US military during WWII and used as a base to detect Japanese movements in the South Pacific and to protect the Panama Canal. The first of the 5 nights we were on our own and had to find a hostal and food ourselves on the island of Santa Cruz. Once we got into the city the girls in our group forced me and Brian to check various Hostals for the best price and best rooms like we were shopping for sweaters or something. As we were checking out one hostal that was $12 per person, a woman began flashing signals at me from around a corner indicating that her hostal was only $10. She literally kept peaking her head around a corner, sticking out both hands and all ten fingers until i finally figured out what she was doing. To make it even better, she was friends with the owner of the hostal she was trying to steal us away from. Anyways, we spent the rest of that day walking along an amazing beach, encountering large lizards, more blue footed boobies, and mantarays in the water.

Day 2 we got up rediculously early because the girls said so (they definitely are in charge of our little group). We went to the Darwin Institute thing where they hatch and grow hundreds of giant tortoises. We also met 'Lonely George.' He is the last giant tortoise of his particular species on the planet and he is 90 years old, which is only half the life span of a tortoise. They have him in little area with two female tortoises of a similar species in order to procreate, but the three of them have been together for 25 years and George has not put any moves on them yet. He just has to have one magical night with a willing female for the sake of his species and yet he wont do it...

That afternoon, after swimming in a beautiful estuary, we took a 3 hour water taxi ride to the Island of Isabella which is where we would spend the next five days. The boat was not much bigger than a taxi on the streets, they managed to cram 20 people into it and I got stuck in a corner for the first hour until they noticed that the 20 foot swells on the ocean had me on the verge of vomiting.

Day 3 was by far the most exciting for many different reasons. We took an excursion to the top of a volcanoe via horseback. The horseback ride on the way up was a lot of fun as we were able to gallop numberous times with our horses. My horse was rather small for me though, and i referred to it as Donkey the entire time. Apparently he didnt like that and he got his revenge later. The volcanoe was amazing - the crater is 6 miles across, the second largest in the world. We hiked through dried lava fields and climbed through lava tunnels. Afterwards we ate lunch and began the rather unfortunate horseback ride back down the volcanoe (I have included a detailed account of what happened on this ride back and my trip to the hospital in the post above this one). To make a long story short though, i was thrown from my horse, and had to get three stitches on the palm of my right hand.

Day 4 and 5 included more hikes around the island, two snorkling trips that were made difficult by the fact that i was not allowed to get my stitched hand wet...hence the picture with the brown plastic bag on my hand. And you can also imagine how difficult it is to snorkle while having to keep one hand out of the water and in the air like a shark.

All in all the islands were amazing with crystal clear water, wild life every where, beautiful beaches, and free medical services (insurance is overrated there).

The Coast

A typical day at the coast...get up at 7:00 and go for a run on the beach, get back in time for breakfast to be served to me, have 4 hours of spanish classes, go to a basically deserted beach with clear water and mountains in the background, get back in time for dinner, and then chill in our private rooms/mini houses where we built a fire everynight. And that is what we basically did for 5 days. I would easily go back to this lodge, it was amazing. Right on the beach, private mini houses, great food, ping pong and billiards, and sleeping with a fire.

On the last day our guide (we had a guide every day that took us to various places) took us to a park with sulfur pools. Me and Brian didn't hesistate at all to try them out despite the stench coming from them. The water was amazing, and we covered ourselves in its mud on the side. We were told we were 10 years younger after it, and our skin felt amazing. The girls stayed away from us afterwards and made us travel back in the back of the pickup as we stunk...then they forced us to shower before our 10 hour busride back to Quito.

I saw a huge beached and dead seal on the beach too, being eaten by about 100 vultures.

We also took a trip to an island nearby where we saw whales on the way and some seaturtles. We hiked the island and encountered Blue Footed Boobies (a type of bird) and snorkled off its coast.

The pictures include some scenic shots of the coast, a whale, a seaturtle, picture from the boatride, some hammerhead sharks, and swimming in the sulfur pool.

The Jungle

So as if things couldn't get more difficult for us, we were able to spend a week in the jungle here in Ecuador all expenses paid. We spent half the week at a lodge/campsite/i dont really know what to call it, that did not have electricity. The first thing we did when we got there was learn about all the medicinal plants which from the limited spanish I was able to understand seem to only make you high, or more sexually active. We also learned that if a certain snake bites you, you need to sleep with the first woman you can find to cure yourself.

Everyday we had class in the morning for about 4 hours and then in the afternoons we would go on excursions. The excursions included hiking to a pool of water beneath a waterfall for swimming, canyoning UP a mountain (canyoning is basically hiking through a running stream with waterfalls that you need to climb up using various climbing techniques and ropes), tubing down a river, visiting an indigenous community, and swinging on vines like Tarzan. I felt like Bear Grills from Man vs Wild on the Discovery Channel.

As I mentioned before, there was no electricity at the first site, so every night, when it got dark around 7:00 we had to use candlelight...we all forgot to bring flashlights.

One of the scariest moments occurred at the first site...We were leaving to drive to the second site, but the cars had to park about a quarter mile away, and we had to hike through the jungle to get to them in complete darkness with candles and the glow of our ipods. Well, i had forgotten my boots and realized this about halfway through our hike. So, stupidly, I decided to go back and get them alone and only by candlelight. I could hardly see anything, had a huge backpack on, and had a 10 minutes hike ahead of me through the jungle. If I tripped or a gust of wind blew by, I would have been completely blind. I have never prayed so many hail mary's at one time in my life and been covered in so much sweat. Somehow I managed to get back and I got those damn boots, and I forced the first person I found to hike to the cars with me with their flashlight.

The second site was much of the same except the lodge was amazing. It had electricity, a bar, a rediculous view of the jungle, great food and we didnt need a mosquito net. I would easily go back there even for something like a honey moon.

Oh, and up until the jungle I had had a cough for the previous 4 weeks. The guide on one of our hikes through the jungle noticed this, so how do you cure? You eat live larva. It tasted like butterscotch actually although it was a but crunchy. More importantly my cough was gone within two days. They need to teach that in med school.

The pictures above include some of the views from the second lodge, hikes through the jungle, eating larva, and pictures of our lodges.

First few weeks in Quito

In the future I won't breeze through everything as quickly as I am about to do, but I need to do some catching up.

Ok, We got to Quito and were picked up by our host mom, Rosa. We spent the first weekend in a rather nice hostal before we officially moved in with our host families. Lauren, Molly and myself all live with Rosa, while Brian and Katy live with another family.

I can sum up our first few weeks in Quito with hitting up a few sites in the Old Town area, riding up the Teleferico which takes you to the top of the mountain next to Quito (the bottom two pictures on the left are from there), seeing two soccer games the first being between Ecuador and Bolivia and the second between two club teams here, hanging out a lot in Mariscol which is the gringo area in Quito, and dancing a lot.

Quito itself is a rather large city, about 2 million people. Surprisingly, it is rather chilly here. It is always between 50 - 70 degrees. I am probably the tallest person here, which has made me consider obtaining a visa so I can join the olympic basketball team.

My spanish is coming along slowly. Me and Katy have class together as we are far behind the others in the group in terms of spanish speaking. We have class for 6 hours a day which is rather draining and has nearly led the two of us to want to kill the other at some points.

I have also spent more time in internet cafes than I can count, fortunately it is somewhat cheap. Oh, and I found a bar that shows NFL games and have already spent two sundays glued to the TV and my computer checking my fantasy football scores.

Chicago

So I left Notre Dame to go back to Chicago for a few days (our flight wasn't until the following Saturday). I arrived in Chicago to the open arms of Jon Halbach who nursed me back to health, kind of, with a chipotle burrito (clearly med school is paying off for him).

My love for Notre Dame grew as we were told by our director that we can purchase two seperate things as a group and just send them the receipt to get reimbursed. So we took full advantage of that and bought the best tickets we could at a 'Wicked' show and also purchased a room at a hotel the night before we flew out of Chicago where racked up pretty much the largest tab we could there as we ordered the most expensive meals at the hotel restaurant. In total, we sent Notre Dame two receipts that combined to be over $900. Oh and the priest that created this Chile program, Fr. Sculley, got us free tickets to a cubs game with box seats (the second picture was our view). In gratitude, every drink we have now we cheers to Fr. Sculley.

Otherwise, the rest of the week in Chicago was spent throwing a football with Jon, seeing other Chicago people like Madl, Anne and Molly, chillin at the beach, and having a reunion of sorts with a few faculty members from Seton for less than fortunate reasons. I really do miss everyone from Seton, and it has been great hearing from a bunch of my students and collegues (sp?).

The first picture is our group. From left to right we have Brian, Molly, Lauren, Katy and the stud of the group.

Notre Dame

So the first two weeks of this adventure were spent at Notre Dame taking classes to learn how to teach English to English language learners...ELL's. Not sure how much I actually learned as I basically spent the entire two weeks either recovering from a stomach flu, a bad reaction to medication, two ear infections, or just the worst hangover of my life.

I probably met nearly 100 different people during my time there, many of them over a few beers and loud music at the Backer (johnny k's of Notre Dame). In fact that is where I met two of my future chilean people for the first time.

I did learn a lot about my future roomates. All of them, outside of Lauren, are accomplished more athletically than a few D-3 intramural championships, they like to run, and they definitely like to dance.

Hands down, my favorite classroom moment was when me and Brian gave a presentation on one of the chapters using Malibu as our inspiration. Did we get an A for it....probably not but the expressions on all the old ladies' faces, especially the nun, made it all worth it. oh yeah, and we incorporated this video into our presentation. I dare anyone to do the same.

I left Notre Dame with some more knowledge of how to teach english considering I had none to begin with, a greater appreciation for ND and the Backer, more hours logged dancing in two weeks than the entire previous 2 years combined, and still some sort of stomach flu.

And so it begins...

"A man practices the art of adventure when he heroically faces up to life; When he has the daring to open doors to new experiences and to step boldly forth to explore strange horizons. When he is unafraid of newideas, new theories and new philosophies. When he has the curiosity to experiment--to test and try new ways of living and thinking. When he has the flexibility to adjust and adapt himself to the changing patterns of life. When he refuses to seek safe places and easy tasks and has, instead, the courage to wrestle with the toughest problems. When he has the moral stamina to be steadfast in the support of those men in whom he has faith and those causes in which he believes. When he breaks the chain of routine and renews his life through reading new books, traveling to new places, making new friends, taking up new hobbies and adopting new viewpoints. When he has the nerve to move out of life's shallows and venture forth into the deep. When he keeps his heart young, his expectations high and never allows his dreams to die. When he concludes that a rut is only another name for the grave and that the only way to stay out of the ruts is by living adventurously and staying vitally alive every day of his life." Wilfred Peterson