At the butterfly reserve overlooking Mindo.

Author: Henry Holtkamp | Major: Biological Engineering | Semester: August Intersession 2023

I chose this program for the uniqueness of the opportunity. What other time in my life will it be this feasible for me to go to the Galapagos Islands? From conversations with our tour guide in the islands more regulation and less tourists is coming down the pike. In other words, our timing couldn’t have been better. This program was very important to me in terms of advancing my goals. One of my professors whom I have a lot of respect for told us a story about working with Japanese engineers and their perspective being totally different. Now from my travels I can say the same of those in Ecuador. In some ways, they are far behind the United States, but in other ways they are ahead of us. There was not a building on the islands that did not have a rain barrel on the roof. We scaled a dormant volcano and at the top was a fog net, utilized for collecting freshwater, something that I’d only seen in books, and would be shocked to see anywhere near to the U of A. This is a perfect example of natural resource management (which happens to be my minor), and innovation as a result of necessity. They will be the first to feel the effects of climate change and have a scarce water supply to begin with. Due to this, they are being proactive with sustainable development. I also had a unique perspective on resource utilization from my faculty whose backgrounds were in animal science. Dr. Coffey spoke extensively about animal production and other ways that their agricultural practices were unique. I can say with absolute certainty that I will never have an educational experience similar to this one again. It was so easy to forget that I was there to study, and yet I was learning new things constantly.
I learned so much about the Ecuadorian culture just by being immersed in it. There were a lot of things in particular that stood out. No meal is served without soup, and their potato soup is some of the best I’ve ever had. Sometimes we in Fayetteville have problems with drivers from the state of Texas; after watching all of the head-on near misses by passing cars on those mountain curves, I can say Texas drivers are tame by comparison. When you say thank you for something, they don’t answer with no problem, they answer with OK, which was a tough adjustment for some of my classmates. Crime is bad in Quito, but you are in no danger at all in the Galapagos. Ecuador is definitely a distinct place from the United States.
There is a lot of advice I would give myself before going on this trip. When they say drink lots of water before you go to Ecuador, drink two times what you planned to drink. I did not feel well that first night in Ecuador at all. Speaking of the first night, I would have liked to have known there would be no air conditioning at the hotel. Since Quito is so high in the air the weather is a lot more fair so it really is not necessary. Despite that, my first instinct when I get into a hotel room is to crank the AC as low as it will go. After arriving in my room at 3:00 AM with altitude sickness, the lack of a thermostat was nearly the straw that broke the camel’s back. Turns out, sometimes you just need a little sleep. I felt a lot better the next morning and didn’t look back.