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.