5/22 This trip has been one wild ride and I can’t believe it is coming to a close. A part of me is ready for the comforts of my everyday life and to continue with my next great adventures this summer, but a bigger part of me knows this was the trip of a lifetime,…
Tag: Alexa Sefing
I Fear I’m Crispier than the Pizza
I’m going to merge Days 11 and 12 for this one because, quite honestly, I’ve been trying to play catch up with these blogs for a few hours now and Day 11 was full of our 8 hour canoe ride! We all piled into our canoes for our full-day ride right after breakfast. My canoe…
You Can Call Me “Weba”
This morning began with an intro from Ellie who is a wonderful person. Todd, the creator of the two lodges was introduced to Ecuador as a missionary kid who eventually married a Quichua woman and had Ellie. She spoke about how her and her three other siblings grew up back and forth between Arizona and…
All Aboard!!!
We awoke to a thunderstorm today. Usually, I would soak in the thunder and lay in this lovely lodge with screen walls, but…we had an early morning and a 6 hour canoe ride ahead of us today. Yikes. Everyone was frantically finding trash bags to wrap around our singular backpacks of luggage and changing into…
Finally a Mako Mermaid
Today, after breakfast, we were given a close-up demonstration of a man from the lodge making chocolate from the cocoa bean. He had to have burnt all of the feeling off of his hands because he would just pick up those burning seeds and crack them! We would all gasp as he basically stuck his…
Spit, Spit, Spit, You Are Not It!
Waking up in this beautiful lodge was a wonderful start to my day. The walls in my room are all screen, so I could hear all of the wildlife awakening to the sun. I was still freaked out by the concept of a jaguar jumping out at me or a bullet ant crawling up my…
HOT SPRINGS…Need I say more?
Our day started off early with a daunting seven-hour bus ride to the Iyarina lodge, and a very stressful hour trying to get pre-sale tickets to the Lorde concert on spotty Ecuadorian wifi…spoiler alert…we got kicked off and couldn’t buy them. Shout out to Joshua Ezer for snagging my tickets on the New Jersey wifi!!!…
Scary Being a Chick in Condor Park
Today we awoke to the most beautiful view in a magical place. I am constantly in awe of how much effort Ecuador puts into the beauty of their buildings – whether it be hotels or businesses. I keep thinking that maybe we are just surrounded by wealthier areas, but each new place continues to impress…
My Rose, Bud, and Thorn of the Day
Back at Pitt, one of my friends was known for asking “What’s your rose, bud, thorn of the day?” (Shoutout Aiden Chinwalla in Spain Plus3 right now). To keep consistent with the rose theme today, I’m going to experiment with it – rose being the best part, thorn being the worst, and bud being something…
Feeding my Inner Secret Spy
Once again, the idea that we have only truly spent 3 days in Ecuador is insane to me. Life is full of so many experiences each day it’s getting difficult for my brain to process everything. Today, I received the Instagram Spec glasses – picture secret spy glasses that subtly record video or pictures. We…
Cathy’s Got Competition
The idea that we’ve only been in Quito for 24 hours blows my mind. It feels like it’s been 13 days already, like, if we left tomorrow, I would still feel as though we lived through a whole vacation. My day started with breakfast beside Meg, Shirley, Skip, and Rick. We were all out by…
And So it Begins…
Hello, my name is Alexa Sefing. I just finished my first year as a student at the University of Pittsburgh College of Business Administration and the Frederick Honors College studying Marketing and Global Management with a minor in Spanish and a certificate in Sustainability. Over the past three years, I have pursued creative and entrepreneurial…