Day 8

Day Eight of our trip—our last full day at Ecuador and the Amazon—was a rainy one.  After a nice healthy breakfast of fruits, eggs, and pancakes, we loaded onto the canoes and headed to AmaZOOnico, a wildlife rescue center. Their mission is to protect the rainforest. They receive animals, mostly from the Ministry of Pets, care for them, and release them back into the forest. We saw scarlet macaws, crocodiles, evasive ocelots, and an anaconda three meters long. The chatty parrots wouldn’t shut up the entire time we were there, and little monkeys swung from branch to branch right above our heads. There was a family of turtles feasting together on fruits, and also sleeping kinkajous hidden inside a tree log. Our tour guide—a volunteer from Germany—told us stories about each animal. There were two capuchin monkeys that, for some reason, had something against human women. According to our guide, they tried to pull her hair out and ripped the shirt of another volunteer. The two kinkajous got into a fight with other territorial kinkajous in the forest—they returned back to the cage after only a night in the wild. These fascinating stories showed that, just like us, each animal has their own unique personalities. To help in the protection of the animals and their home, the rainforest, us students collected and then donated approximately $70.00 to the rescue center. The amazed expression on our tour guide’s face was absolutely priceless.

We took another forty-minute boat ride back to the lodge, zipping through pouring rain and choppy water. Lunch was plantain soup, pasta, and pineapples for dessert. We said goodbye to the Amazon rainforest and our friends there, boarded onto the bus, where we spent the next six hours. Miraculously, the bus was completely devoid of the yelling and shouting of playing cards for over an hour. Almost everyone had fallen asleep— and we all blame it on the anti-motion sickness pills that we took against the windy mountain road we took back to Quito.  Ms Maggio and the other chaperones enjoyed the quiet and the fact that no one got ill after 2 hours on that road!!  

Over dinner, our last meal together, we went around the room and each shared a short reflection about the trip. Everyone had their own special moments—playing cards, interacting with the kids at the Amazon village, eating the delicious food, weaving ponchos, etc. The teachers, on the other hand, said that we were their favorite part of the trip. Jennifer shared with us a PowerPoint Presentation that included pictures spanning all eight days of the trip, complete with music in the background. It was an incredible (for some of us, even emotional) moment of bonding and remembering. We all agreed that Ecuador is a beautiful country. Thank you to everyone for giving us the chance to see and visit this wonderful country.

Afternoon Day 7

After we had lunch with the children from the village, we broke up into groups to perform community service tasks such as: fixing and painting the goal posts, building furniture, and rebuilding a swing set and a jungle gym.  To fix the goal posts, they first had to be sanded and then painted. Inside one of the buildings another group worked on rebuilding furniture, like cupboards. In order to accomplish this task the students had to saw planks of wood to the proper length and then nail then to the back of the old cupboard. 

To rebuild the swing set, the original posts had to be removed and new holes had to be made for where the posts were going to be placed. While the girls dug the holes, the boys worked with the local men to measure and cut new posts for the jungle gym and swing set.

 Once the holes were completed, and the posts were cut, the boys worked with the locals of the village to place the posts in the holes. After the structures for the jungle gym and swing set were completed, rope was added to the jungle gym, to create places for the children to climb on, and to the swing set, to make seats. Within minutes of the end of construction of the jungle gym and swing set, the children were on them playing and having fun. While this was happening, snacks from from the states like gum and trail mix bars were passed out to the children, who enjoyed them very much.

With work done, some of us spent time playing a game of soccer against the locals, while other ate oranges that were given to them by one of the village women.  As our time in the village came to a close, we took some group photos to remember all of the fun and memorable moments that we had during the day, before boarding the boats to go back to the lodge.

Before dinner members of the local indigenous tribe came to reach us about their culture. The men came dressed in their traditional clothes and played instruments such as the guitar and violin as the women danced for us, and even got some of us to dance with them. They also brought traditional foods for us to try such as fried larvae which was universally praised by the 12 students who ate them as well as fresh mushrooms and different types of fish.  Leo was going to eat the live larvae but Ms Maggio said no!  The tribesmen also brought cacao for us to try.  The kids sipped a version made today which had not yet fermented.  When the indigenous presentation was over we had some dinner and of course played some cards before we headed to bed.  

OH and we found a large spider by the lodge that a local guide caught and Michele let it walk up her arm!

Morning of Day 7

Today we had a 7am morning ‘call’ and had breakfast during which we "learned" from the chaperones that coffee helps to attract mosquitoes and that the day before one of us was bitten by a very rare insect called the African cave-dwelling Amazon tree spider *. Afterwards we refilled our bottles and boarded some canoes while the birthday boy, Henrik, stepped into something smelly. After having a lovely, but unfortunately short voyage through the Napo River, we arrived to our destination Pakay Chikta where we were to learn from the indigenous culture as well as help the community. We were greeted with songs and dance in which we had the pleasure of participating. Even though today is Easter Sunday, the students came to school and were excited to meet us. We had the pleasure of reading to them, but as it turns out all they wanted was to play games with us. After playing for some time we were shown around the village and learned about the medicinal plants of the area as well as how the people where able to survive with minimal contact with the outside world.

As told by our guide Livio, the indigenous are never hungry because of the Yucca plant which takes 2 to 3 weeks to grow. We were also given an actual cocoa plant to try which was very sweet. Then Livio made Aaron a hat from some leaves and plants. Before returning to the village we were shown the indigenous version of a belt, which is a plant with a lot of tiny little thorns that was also used to beat the children when they misbehaved.  Upon our return we ate lunch on tables laid with large leaves as tableclothes.  The meal was cooked rice with chicken wrapped in a leaf, and even in the unbearable heat of the Amazon the food was delicious.     

*obviously a joke.