Hello everybody!
My name is Shelby Lankford and I traveled to Montevideo, Uruguay in the fall of 2018 with ACU Study Abroad in Latin America! This experience was one of the best decisions I have ever made. During this trip, we got to travel all around South America, including Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, and Peru! All while learning Spanish which is one of the top 5 most spoken languages in the world. The experience of learning a language in the context of its culture was amazing and eye-opening. My top two favorite things that we did were traveling, and learning about the culture.
My favorite trip we went on during study abroad was to Peru. In Peru, we got to spend a few days in Lima and then we went to Cusco. On our first full day in Peru, we got to go surfing in the Pacific Ocean! This experience was very interesting because learning how to do anything in a language that you aren’t fluent in can prove to be quite difficult. But we made it through with minimal scrapes and bruises. The next couple of days we drove around Lima and saw the sights and then caught a flight to Cusco. Cusco was different than Lima. Lima is more of a big city type place and Cusco is also a big city but not in a traditional skyscraper, big building way. Cusco was a more red roof and white buildings vibe with the history of the Incan Empire all around. The few days we were there we drove around and looked at all of the national sites and monuments. On one of our last days in Peru, we took a train to a small town called Aguas Caliente, where the next day we hiked Macchu Picchu!! This was one of the greatest things I think we did on my whole study abroad experience. Although it rained for most of the morning we waited for the clouds to clear after our tour for some great pictures. Once the clouds cleared it made everything worth it. It was so beautiful and amazing how people hundreds of years ago made such a great village that high up in the mountains.
Learning about the culture in South America was one of my favorite takeaways from this experience. It was very beautiful learning about a culture, I knew little about beforehand, in its native language. There is just something about listening to a native speaker talk to you about their own culture in their language that gets you thinking and excited to learn more. Whenever talking to people it was intriguing learning about the things people are passionate about there and how much they would light up whenever they could tell you understood them even though they know you don’t speak Spanish as your first language. The people in all of the places that we went to were very nice and welcoming to a big group of 12 foreign students. Learning culture in its native language, in my opinion, is one of the best ways to do it.
In conclusion, my time in South America is something that I will treasure and value for the rest of my life, and I highly encourage anyone and everyone to go on a study abroad and experience it.
