I was in Quito, which is the capital city of Ecuador. I especially lived in one of its parts - Cumbaya. The uni where I worked was also there. It took me about 10 minutes to get there by Uber and 1 hour by walk.

South America, in general, is not safe as Europe. Regarding Quito, there are some parts that are very safe and some parts that are dangerous. There are some parts that you can go by walking alone (like Cumbaya, where I worked and lived), some parts that are recommended to visit only in a group of people, and some of them you should avoid completely (like the south of Quito). In general, you should avoid walking at night. For safety, you can find in Quito lots of urban districts surrounded by a fence, with only one access with security. I lived in one of them in Cumbaya. These districts are considered to be very safe. The best and safest way how of transportation is an Uber. There is a public transport system, but you can get robbed or pickpocketed there easily, so I was scared to use it. On the other hand, it is very cheap (much cheaper than Uber).

Ecuador is an amazing and very beautiful county. I was amazed by its fairness all the time I went on a trip. There is a lot to do. I recommend visiting: La mitad del mundo, Rucchu Pichincha, Ilian, Cayambe, Mindo, Tena, Baños (must-have), and Cotopaxi. There is much other of stuff to do, but two months' weekends are not enough to travel the whole country. For more tips, you can ask local IAESTE people or your host family.

I worked at the University, and that was for sure the most beautiful university campus I have ever seen. One can find everything there - Cafeterias, Canteens, Icecream, Pancakes... Close to uni were a lot of restaurants with lunch menus and a shopping mall with fast food restaurants.

I worked in the office that I shared with one very nice lady. I didn't have any coworkers, I worked on my own.

My job was to do a Semantic Segmentation of 3D MRI scans of Prostata using Transformers. I got a labeled dataset, and my job was to code and train models with Pytorch. Then I wrote a paper about it.

I got paid 400 USD per Month, and from that, I paid 210 USD per Month for my accommodation. So that's 190 USD for other activities. I think if you want to survive with this amount of money. In Quito, you can't find food in every category You can find food in restaurants in every price category (1-50 USD.per plate), so you can manage to have food for less than 190 USD per Month. In my case, I spend there most of my savings because I have traveled a lot and I was trying more expensive restaurants, but I don't regret any cent I spent there.

English was enough for communication with my employees and IAESTE Ecuador. However, most of the people in Ecuador speak only Spanish. So I recommend every other intern who is coming to Ecuador to learn basic Spanish. I started to learn Spanish when I came to Ecuador, and I don't recommend that. Luckily the people in Ecuador are very lovely, friendly, and patient, so when you don't understand each other, they are trying to get your point across using pantomime.

I lived with a host family where I had my own room. It was a nice and clean flat in a big family house with a big garden. My host family was amazing. They were very nice to me and very helpful during my stay there. On my first day, they took me on a little tour through the city to show me where the basic facilities are located (shops, pharmacy, cheap restaurant..). I enjoyed my time there with them very much. We communicated in basic English, or we used a Google translator. They had two dogs that were also living in the house, and they were very well-trained, so it was nice to have them here. I paid 210 USD per month.

One of the IAESTE guys picked me up at the airport. He helped me to buy a sim card then he took me to my host family. he was a very nice guy, I texted him a few times after our first meeting, and He always helped me when I needed it. Regarding trips, IAESTE organizes for us approximately one trip every second weekend. Also, we want to go to the pub with IAESTE a few times. For the rest of our the free-time, we (interns) organized our own trips/pubs/common dinners. I have spent most of the time with five other interns (four germans and one polish), that were simply awesome. We have already arranged a date for our next meeting in Europe.

I met only IAESTE guys and other interns. I wasn't very in touch with local students.

Since there are 14 volcanos around Quito, I did a lot of hiking there. It was very tough because of the very high attitude, but it was fun.

Ecuador's cuisine is very simple. The typical Ecuadorian food consists of slices of meat with rice, fried banana, beans, and avocado. Yes, they usually have more side dishes. Avocado and banana it is basically in everything you can imagine, especially banana... before my travels to Ecuador, the banana was for me just a banana. I could not imagine home many types of bananas you can have and In how many ways you can cook them...; The other important ingredient in Ecuadorian cuisine is coriander; they put it into everything. It took me a while to get used to it. The weirdest thing I have tried there was a fried guinea pig, and it was not very tasty

Every-day online tools - Whatsapp, Telegram, Messenger, email...

I recommend asking for a yellow vaccine there. In Ecuador, you can have it with an international vaccination certificate for free (not like in my home country).

If you have a connection flight in the USA (like me), don't forget that you need to have a visa or ESTA even if you have just an airside transit (airside transit = you are not entering the country).

In Ecuador, there is a limitation on electronics that you can bring into the country. If you exceed the limit and the customs will check you, you have to pay a very high duty.

Check current covid restrictions. In my case, it was necessary to fill out an online form before entering the country.

As for every international travel, I recommend making a Revolut account, it makes your life easier.

For transportation, use an Uber; it is safe and not that expensive.

Make sure that you have very good health insurance.

Take a first aid kit with basic stuff.

You will need to have an Ecuadorian SIM card, so take a dual SIM phone or an extra phone.

The sun is very strong there, so take sunglasses and some sun protection.

Take something to protect from mosquitoes if you planning to go to the jungle (I recommend that, it is awesome).

Bring a raincoat jacket and also a raincoat for your backpack. It rains there a lot

Bring enough cash, you can not pay by card everywhere, also ask in advance if you are going to pay your first rent in cash or by bank transfer.

Take a few copies of your passport and have them with you every time.

The benefits could be divided into 3 categories:

Learning - I was working on a very interesting topic, and I learned a lot of useful, practical skills
Friendship - I bring new friends from the internship
Travelling - This was the first time I was in South America (and definitely the last). I saw and experienced so many things that could not be possible in my country (even in Europe)

The cooperation was excellent. We had a WhatsApp chat, where we were getting information about trips and other stuff. Every time I needed some help or advice I directly texted one of the IAESTE members and I got a useful response.