As I wrap up my time here in Ecuador, I have been reflecting on how the month has gone. My travels have surprised me at times and I am thankful for the people I have met along the way, from the medical students from Reno who first showed me around Quito and gave me tips about the city, to the friends from all over the world I’ve spent my weekends or evenings with – people from Sweden, Canada, the US and Holland, among other places. It has been a lot of fun and wouldn’t have been half as fun if I had not met these new friends that I hope to keep in touch with when I return home.

I spent my weekend in Baños, a city about a three and a half hour bus ride from Quito. I was supposed to leave with the students I went with to Otavalo, but there was a mix up and while I was getting money at the ATM they headed for the Trolebus to go to the bus station. My host mother was very helpful and put me on the right bus to go the station and take a bus to Baños, but the ride was somewhat lonely.

I checked into a hostel when I got to Baños and walked around a little Saturday afternoon, and as luck would have it I found my friends right before they went on a tour through the cascades! It was such a relief to find them and not spend my time in Baños by myself. The tour itself was fun because the road on the tour is right on the edge of these cliffs, so sometimes the road would be only inches from a plunge down hundreds of feet into the trees and river!

We went in a small green pulley car across the river, and it was fun but scary. The rocks, trees and river were very far below us, so you can imagine our excitement and fear when we went across and back! We also got to see people jump off this bridge with bungee cords attached to them. It was like bungee jumping, but the cord wasn’t elastic. It looked fun but I wasn’t brave enough to try it. At the end of the tour, we walked about a mile downhill to a waterfall, and when we headed up it was pretty dark. After the tour, it was getting late, so the other students went to their hostel to change into swimsuits while I canceled my room at my hostel, called Plantas y Blanco, and moved into theirs, as they had extra beds in one of the rooms.

We went to the hot springs pools for a little bit, which was fun even with the crowd that gathered at the pools, and then returned to the hostel, called La Chiminea, to change and find somewhere to eat. The eight of us met up with a group of three, led by our friend Myriam from Holland, who had been at Otavalo the previous weekend, and found a restaurant willing to serve us just as it was about to close. We had a good night enjoying the food and each other’s company. One of the people in the smaller group, Stan, was interesting to talk to at dinner, as he had traveled all over the world and was going to travel the rest of South America for the next few months. After dinner, our larger group parted ways with the smaller one and went to bed.

The next day, we had breakfast at our hostel, which was really, really good! Then we decided what we wanted to do for the day and to leave Baños for Quito between 5 and 6 p.m. I went with two other girls, Sara and Sarah, to do horseback riding and later find a spa to get massages. The horseback riding was not very expensive and our guide was very nice. Not only did we get to travel on horseback into the mountains, but at one point we got off our horses, tied them to a tree, and went across a river in this small swing! It was fun but definitely a surprise! After that, we went up in a really high tree house, which was scary to me because I am afraid of heights, and then went on a smaller wooden swing, which was fun.

After we came back into town on the horses, we went to find a spa and relax our sore muscles. We stopped at one spa, but they didn’t have time to do all three of us for massages, but they recommended a spa called Huellas Massage just up the street. The owner was American and had moved with his wife, a native Ecuadorian from Cuenca, from the U.S. to Baños about a year before. They had met in Ecuador when he was visiting family and decided later to open their own spa in Baños. Sarah, who was from Canada, wanted to get a full body massage and a facial, and Sara, who was from Sweden, and I wanted to get just full body massages. The owner had no trouble having the women who work at the spa see us, and the massage was very relaxing (and affordable)! I had never had a full body massage, but was really satisfied. As Sara and I waited for Sarah to finish up her facial, the owner gave us freshly cut roses. I was really happy with the spa and definitely think that if you have the time, you should go to Baños and hit up that spa!

My time in Baños was a lot of fun, even after the mix up with the rest of my group. Given this past weekend was my last full one in Ecuador, I had a lot of fun but wish it wouldn’t have gone by so fast!

My remaining days in Ecuador will be spent in Quito seeing the parts of the city I have not yet seen. I have enjoyed my internship and learning about human rights in this country, but being one of the first people doing a human rights internship through AIDE, I definitely have some suggestions to improve the program in the future. The students I met at PUCE, the Catholic university where I had my internship, were very nice and understanding and share a passion for human rights that, I hope, will take them far. The Center for Human Rights at PUCE has taken on a lot of different cases, from violations of international law to disputes in an individual’s judicial process, and continues to tackle the issue of human rights in this country. It was very interesting to see the impact on the local and national community such an organization, and related organizations throughout Quito and Ecuador, has had on laws and daily life. I hope I can use the knowledge I have gained here in the remainder of my time at my university and beyond.