SOUTH AMERICA 1996 | FIRST TIME TO THE NEW WORLD

Costa Rica was a popular destination among surfers – And I had plenty of good reasons to study in Costa Rica.

I wanted travel, fun, romance, adventure, and most of all, to surf the legendary waves that I had heard about.

The study abroad program I picked was with the University of Nevada at Reno and University Study Abroad Consortium (USAC), an organization which represented a number of US universities and guaranteed accreditation.

Studying abroad in Costa Rica was just the beginning of what turned out to be the trip of a lifetime. South America – the New World – was too close to not see, and I found a cheap airline ticket with stops in Panama, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.

Click on photos to enlarge.

South America offered the romance of a new world, a vast continent where the most sensual languages in the world, Spanish and Portuguese, were spoken. I couldn’t wait to get started.

My flight landed in Quito, Ecuador, and I first went looking for the museum built on the equatorial line. A team from the French Academy of Sciences had surveyed the area in 1743 to find the exact line of the equator, giving the country a new name as a result...

Other Learning Adventures

Amazonia | Batanes Islands | Cambodia | Galapagos Islands | Great Wall | Jewel of Travel | Mekong Delta | Pakistan | Silk Road | South Africa | Spain | Surf Experience | Surfing Thailand | Taiwan Studies | Tibet | Water Safety