Brandon Pollard

 For the final portion of our trip, we returned back to Quito and decided to visit the botanical garden next to our first hotel, the Wyndham. It was bonsai galore, I found it amazing how they could basically have a huge plant emerge from such a small piece of pottery. To wrap things us, for […]

  Over the next few days, we spent our days in the beautiful Galapagos islands. We caught a flight from Quito, to Guayaquil, and then landed in the Galapagos where we were greeted by our tour guide. When then walked on to a bus and where later picked up by Pongas (boats) to land aboard […]

(Market pic left to right: Gabrielle Muntean, Emily McCue) By morning, we were back on the road and also back on the grid, for we were heading to Otavalo, or the market capital of Ecuador I guess you could say. If there was any time to collect souvenirs, it was at this moment right here. When […]

At this point, we had woken up before the sun has even risen and it was for a good reason too. We were going on a canoe ride to try and see what interesting animals we could see this time. Since we started our journey, everyone was anxious to see some charismatic mammals. On this […]

(Hammock pic from left to right: Eric Ostrander, Brandon Pollard, Collin McManus) After being surrounded by the city atmosphere for sometime, it was time for us to go off the grid, or on the side of a volcano for that matter. Having left our luxurious Wyndham hotel, our next destination was Yanayacu, a research station […]

(Horse pic left to right: Brandon Pollard, Emily McCue) Upon arrival, me and a fellow recipient, Emily McCue, arrived prior to everyone else in the program, so we had a some down time to explore Ecuador a bit. After arriving to the hotel, we looked across the street and realised something fascinating taking place at […]