The Finale

After a month in Lima, I returned to Quito for the finale. This last week was planned to wrap up any loose ends and to enjoy my time in Quito without the frantic movement from place to place. Thankfully, there wasn’t much to accomplish, allowing me to pass time with friends and work on some other projects. In addition to enjoying the last week with Santiago and his family, one of my friends, who I met in La Paz last year, arrived to Quito to complete some of her own field research. She, too, is a graduate student working on her dissertation. Added to that mix is another student who is in the process of starting his dissertation. We all have a feeling that we’ll be seeing each other a lot in the future, given the topics and region that we study. If anything, we are an attractive bunch.

Santiago and I have both been raving about our last cookout and we threw another one together for my last weekend in Quito. Like the last, this devolved into a drinking and eating marathon. As promised, I showed up with bacon-wrapped stuffed jalapenos. Oh yeah. We only had a few casualties with the jalapenos. The first was during production, when jalapeno juice shot into my right eye, causing temporary blindness – unfortunately my right eye is my primary eye because my vision in my left eye is 20/300. The other casualty resulted primary from Santiago’s ill preparation for the spiciness of his first jalapeno, there was a lot of movement in his dance.

While at the park, we had some close encounters with some llamas. While the local adults (Santiago and Heidy) weren’t too amused, the foreigners (Amanda, John, and me) and the two year-old (Matius) were extremely entertained. You just can’t get enough llamas! During our encounter, I was forced to break-it-down for one of the llamas.

Spending time with some great people and new friends was the best way to finalize a productive research trip and start my return to Houston. The past few months have been really good.