Written by Global Bridge Fellow Logan Kesner
January 22nd, 2026
Hey everyone! A while ago I wrapped up my first placement and I figured I should tell you all a little about it. To preface, I thoroughly enjoyed my entire time in my first placement, despite what it might sound like in the following I promise! Also, I’m sorry I’m aware this post sounds super hyper and all over the place, but it’s just how all of it spilled out of my brain after the fact. Anyways, my first placement was about 5 hours by bus north of Quito in a remote village just outside the Intag Cloud Forest on a private reserve called Siempre Verde, which is focused on conservation of the local flora and fauna.
After a fun few days in Quito, I spent about three weeks working on the preserve. I was doing a mix of field work and analytical work on my computer. Essentially, I was doing plant conservation work by looking into epiphyte coverage as well as orchidacea water availability adaptations across an elevational gradient. This preserve was perfect for this project because the elevation had nearly a thousand meter difference from one part to another, and we had plots all up and down the mountain. What this work entailed, was hiking up the mountain to each of these plots and recording the relative epiphytic load by percentage on the trunk, mid-section, and crown of the tree, then I took note of the amount of plants per tree that were mosses, ferns, bromeliads, orchids, and lianas, as all of these were the most common epiphytes found. Each plot contained roughly 50 trees, sometimes more, sometimes less, and in the field each plot took roughly 3 hours if done correctly, meaning take pictures and fill out forms in the field. Each tree had to be visually scanned, sometimes using binoculars to get a better view, so it takes longer than you’d expect. I had an amazing time looking at all the native plants, and I greatly appreciate the father of the family, Nelson, who would tell me about the medicinal or edible plants of their section of the Andes. I also loved seeing many familiar South American species of orchids growing in their natural habitats. It was a true joy getting to live and work surrounded by all I have ever been obsessed with my entire life (Orchids and bromeliads and insane jungle plants I couldn’t even dream of).
Now, my research and time there also presented some issues as my living situation wasn’t necessarily conducive to doing anything too computer heavy, which was necessary for my project. I was being looked after by a local family who lived about 300 meters or so from my lodging, and in my building there was no wifi and very limited electricity, so if I needed anything I had to walk down to their house and use their wifi, which even in Ecuadorian standards was quite slow, but I am grateful for them nonetheless. Also, why I say my electricity was limited in my building was because the only outlet in my building was in the living room area and a bat lived there. I would be out in the forest until two or three in the afternoon, come back and eat lunch, and then the sun would set at six. My computer has a horrible battery, so if I wanted to do really any work I had to risk a bat flying around over my head. This bat made me extremely paranoid also because I am an American and any risk to my health drives me crazy because if anything were to happen to me I’d be homeless due to my medical bills. (This explanation for my irrational fears are the words of a really fun Irish man I told my story to who thinks our country is falling apart). Anyways, I was constantly checking myself over because also my ceiling had so many gaps in it and the bat could very easily sneak in in the night and bite me, which google said would likely not even wake me up if it was a small bat, which it was. Lo and behold, one morning I wake up with two bloody pin pricks right next to eachother on my ankle, and if you google bat bite, it is identical. Naturally I freaked out and the family told me like “oh no the bats here don’t bite,” which frankly made me feel worse because WHY DID THIS ONE BITE THEN!?! To me, that clearly meant okay it has rabies.
Shortly after, off I went to Quito to seek out my rabies shots with nothing more than my day pack with one other shirt, a sweatshirt, and a few toiletries in it. Little did I know, the country would fall into chaos and I would be living off of the very little I brought for over a month :). I was able to get my 4 rabies shots though through the public health department all for free, which was INCREDIBLE! The doctor took one look at my ankle and said oh yeah get this boy his shots. Anyways, back to the other thing I was saying, yeah so the Ecuadorian government for decades has kept an oil subsidy to keep gas at an affordable price for their citizens. While I was in Quito, the government made their announcement that they would no longer subsidize oil, and gas prices would double. President Noboa stated that the money going towards subsidies would be funneled into health care and public infrstructure, which sadly all the people knew wasn’t true, because the government had tried this in the past and instead within a few months all the politicians kids were flaunting their new money and in international schools half way across the world, meanwhile nothing changed for the average person.
Naturally, the people rioted, and the main demographic to riot was the indigenous people. The city which I had to pass through in order to get to my village, really the entire province in which I lived, was mostly indigenous. There were firework bombs being thrown around, the streets were on fire, and there were huge trenches dug across all the roads that I could pass through to get to where I was living. There was no viable way back to my village where all my stuff, my work, and my passport were. I was utterly stuck. So I enjoyed a month in Quito, and I anxiously watched the news and followed everything happening on Facebook. I stayed in a hostel, The Secret Garden, and I would take short trips out of the city on occasion, never straying too far in hopes that the roads would open. In the meantime, I saw so many cool places, like a village in the crater of an inactive volcano, Cotopaxi National Park, Quilotoa, which is a really blue lake also in a crater, and so many waterfalls. Nearing the end of my month away, I took a 12 hour bus down to Cuenca, the most magical safe feeling little city, for the Scientific Conference on Andean Orchids, where I met some giants in the orchid world and had the opportunity to hear about so much exciting research on this family of plants. My time there was actually so incredible and being surrounded by true orchid nerds like that was super comforting and nostalgic as I’ve been in that world since I was a kid, but haven’t been able to attend anything like it or any society meetings in a while due to just being busy with college. I made a few friends and professional contacts, and randomly enough after a few drinks, now some of the top orchid people of Columbia and Ecuador refer to me as Jesus.
After the conference, after some speculation online for weeks, the protests were officially over and I was able to return to my placement, where I would be able to work for about five more days in the field before my flight out of Ecuador. I could not have asked for better timing, you know other than none of it happening, but to be honest I am really glad I got to witness true defiance like that, and I am also grateful for the opportunities the protests presented me. In the end the people got what they wanted too, the government returned the subsidies. The people who protested were strong and they fought for the greater good of their country, and it was really cool to witness change like that. Also, on this note I thought I would bring up a Spanish word I learned: “manifestaciones” which in this case was pretty much used interchangeably with protestas, or protests, although most used the other word. Manifestaciones has the cognate “to manifest” in it, and I just thought the conscious choice of many to say “manifestaciones” instead of “protestas” was special, because at least from an English native speaker’s perspective, manifestaciones sounds more hopeful. People believed that the protests weren’t just riots, but they were full of people who wanted to make a change, who were manifesting something. Anyways, that was super random, but just a thought.
After Ecuador, I also hit Peru because of course. I did all the touristy things and saw some of the coolest things ever. I flew into Cusco, went to Machu Picchu, explored a little more around Cusco, went down to Lake Titicaca, then to Arequipa, and went to a salt flat. After that, I went up to Lima where I would fly out of. Getting back home, I was so exhausted but my heart was full and I had sooooo many photos. For me, I think my least favorite part of traveling is sorting through all my photos, but down the road I always like looking at them all just for those little memories I would forget otherwise.
Also, shoutout to all the amazing people I met who cycled through the hostel I was staying at in Quito who gave me so many new perspectives and genuinely opened my mind to so much. I sadly know we’ll probably never talk again, but I’m glad for the impact we could have on eachother in our short time.
Okay that’s all folks, I hope you’re all doing well!
P.S. The photo included is Cyrtochilum macranthum and this was up a tree on our preserve. When you see a sign talking about orchid diversity around Quito, I swear they always showed this species. I don’t think it’s the country’s flower or anything though, it’s just a very large impressive flower and it’s a nice generalist species in the Ecuadorian Andes, so just about everyone has seen one at some point or another.