There is something about your ears popping, chest feeling super compressed, and moisture building up around the bus that makes you think you are 13,300 feet in altitude. On Day 3 I realized quickly that even hiking a few yards made you tired and out of breath. Now something to note is that I consider myself a healthy and strong individual so all these feelings occurring after a few steps off the bus was very new and alarming. We began hiking and it definitely got a little easier but I won’t sugar coat how difficult it was. After some great pictures were taken at this altitude, we travelled to one of my favorite spots so far, the hot springs. These hot springs are pools of water that are heated straight from the nearby volcanoes. Let me tell you, some of the pools were hot! If I would guess, the hottest one was around 110 degrees fahrenheit. The weather was chilly with a cold mist of rain making the hot springs feel amazing! I also got to chat up with my fantastic professor, Skip, and an Ecuadorian. These conversations are truly exciting but difficult as I’m able to enhance my Spanish vocabulary and speaking skills but overall, speaking and understanding another language is very challenging.
If you are reading this and you have never seen a hummingbird, I’m with you. Our third stop was a hummingbird reserve where I was able to capture some great pictures and slow mo’s of hummingbirds. These birds were incredibly fast. They were all also super competitive when it came to eating. There was always a pack of these creatures fighting for food. Have you ever seen an Andean Guan before or have even heard of it? Again, me either. Skip pointed this bird out and explained how it belongs in the same family as turkeys. After chowing down on some delicious food and watching the Real Madrid and Man City game at lunch, the group travelled to our final destination for the day, the cloud forest. We had to climb back up in altitude to get to cloud level. When arriving, the view was what you would expect, all white from the clouds. The hike was short due to all the rain causing the trail to be extremely slippery and the group getting drenched. Before the trip, our Pitt faculty members Skip and Rick were explaining how last year their group got stuck in a landslide. However, for some reason I never thought this would happen to us. I was wrong. After the cloud forest, on our way to the lodge that we were staying at, we got stuck in one. We were at a stand still for about fifteen to thirty minutes until people were able to clear the road. As we drove by, there was only one lane cleared from all the mud and police were stopped directing traffic and making sure the road was cleared fully. Once we finally made it through, a few minutes later we made it to the lodge for dinner and were able to get a needed good nights rest.
Now writing this at the end of Day 4, today was more of a chill day. We first went through the process of chocolate making again by walking to a nearby cacao farm, picking cacao by twisting them off the branch, and tasting the sweet fruit that lies in the cacao. I saw one that looked super ripe high up in the tree so I climbed the tree and as I was upside down on the branch, I twisted it off. After, we returned to the lodge where we saw the process of heating fermented cacao seeds, grinding them, and turning it into liquid chocolate accompanied with slices of banana. DELICIOUS! After, another chocolate company joined us at the lodge to share their story and offer a tasting. I bought 2 bars of chocolate now adding to the total of twelve bars of chocolate. Yikes, its only been 4 days!
Got to go, time for dinner. I’ll check back in soon, chao!
Cale
