CAITLIN BOURASSA, a 20 year-old from Maine, USA, decided to come to Otavalo, Ecuador to work with the local children. She encountered a lot more than she bargained for. Here she describes the final days of her rollercoaster ride in the northern town of a sometimes bizarre country.

“Today was my last day at Urcusiqui, the local indigenous school I have been working in over the past two months. The band-aid has been ripped off, although I think I’m about to feel the sting for a while.

I spent the whole day just breathing deep; breathing it all in – the wood-smoke smell of the kids´ hair, the nip in the cold air when it’s cloudy, the constant action and drama that unites everyone at that school, the song they all sing for the late arrivals, my last time serving rice and lentils to my babies, the affection they all give so unconditionally. It’s all been amazing, tiring, joyous, frustrating... beyond anything I could have hoped for. Those kids are incredible and they’ll stay with me forever.

My body is screaming for some tender love´n´care from the topsy-turvy emotional ride that I have endured, but I know I’ll be back and what a day that’ll be. I’ll look forward to arriving back to this little home I’ve carved out for myself, with the people who have made this experience what it is. On the agenda still to do is an early trip to the animal market, breakfast with friends at Casa de Frutas where they do great coffee and breakfast for a couple of bucks, one last tour through the madness that is the Saturday Market, a trip to Ibarra to find water-proof ponchos for the kiddies, probably a nap, and then one last night out in Otavalo.

It’s been a great trip. Far more ups than downs. I’ll miss 95% percent of all of it. The 5% I won’t miss? White bread, cold showers when the gas is out and breathing in the deadly emissions of those damn buses. What I’ll miss the most? The kids, without a doubt, getting a rodillo de queso (cheese roll) after school with a cup of good coffee for $.75, the natural exercise - which included walking up the volcano, Imbabura, which sits above Otavalo. The base of the mountain was mostly tall grassy fields, which we made our way through, huffing and puffing. We began hiking at 2000meters (about 6,000ft.), and as the hours passed, it was clear that nothing about this hike was about to get any easier. Five hours later, we all stopped for lunch and had a group pow-wow about what we were going to do.

Three friends decided they had had enough, and headed back down. They had good reason to: we couldn’t even see the summit, didn’t know how much further it was and the air was only getting colder and thinner. Four of us agreed to continue for another hour and a half and if we didn’t reach the summit by then, we’d turn around. An hour later, we were exhausted, but had reached the top of the ridge, which on a clear day, would have meant a view of the other side of Imbabura. We got occasional breaks in the clouds, letting us know we were pretty high up, but no expansive views. At the ridge, we were at 3,850 meters, which meant we had 700 meters to go (2,100ft!) We just couldn’t fathom going on that much more. That last hour and reaching the summit was the most surreal hiking

I’ve ever done. I felt like I was on drugs, and as deep as I was breathing, the oxygen just wasn’t in the abundance my lungs desired!" I kept giggling with at how "high on life" we all were. The fog was just pure pea-soup, but we all were so happy to have reached the top, we didn’t really care. We were just so proud to have done it!
Imbabura is now conquered!"