After some needed rest, we had breakfast and then a presentation was given from the locals for our Pitt group and a group from University of Arizona. There they told us what is important to them in their life and how our cultures and priorities are different. For example, one of them said that their definition of a successful life would be cleaning the river next to our lodge so she can drink from it again like when she was a kid. Her cousin agreed with her but also had his our definition of success and said that his would just be doing what you wanted to do that day. A successful life was going to bed every night and saying you did everything you wanted to. Different mindsets from what I am used to.
For the rest of the day e still needed to recover so we spent most of the day light resting and working on our presentations. Conventional, that was also the day that it rained a lot. At night we did go from a forest walk and observed insects that you can only see at night. I saw a huge spider eating and even bigger cockroach.
After resting all the day before I was ready to continue my exploration of Ecuador. After breakfast, everyone threw on their boots as we headed for a river walk. I however, thought it would be ok to go in crocs which I later learned was probably not the best. Similar to the rainforest with the Waorani, there was a man in front with a machete who chopped a path for us to walk through. After about 10 minutes of thick brush, we made it to the river and felt the refreshing water. The hike was about a hour and half. It was very ecstatic to we wading through the river with a canopy of trees over top of you. There was a couple waterfalls we got to go under and climb up into. The water was so refreshing it was hard not to drink it. My favorite part of the hike was there was this small canyon that we had to swim through that was probably 20 feet deep. As we were swimming, we disturbed the bat coves that were part of the canyon and the bats flew right above us as we swam. In the second canyon we had to swim through, someone on the group lost a boot while swimming. We created a search party to find her boot but the area was so large and deep that after about 10 minutes we had to call it quits. That person then travelled without a boot for about 15 minutes till miraculously we found a boot on the muddy water that she could wear. Leaving the trail to get to our pick up location, I had to walk through such wet and gross mud in crocs and many times the mud took my shoe right off. To end the hike, we had another case of “Ecuadorian time”. We got to the spot where we were supposed to be picked up just for our ride to never show and we had to walk wet dirty and in boots back to the lodge. The crocs did help this time.
Again, another needed shower to clean off the dirty cemented to my skin. Then we went on to a larger canoe and traveled down the river next to our lodge to head into a small town. There we viewed some local businesses and restaurants. I couldn’t keep my American suppressed anymore and I got a cheeseburger. The burger was very average and their “bacon” was just ham and their ketchup was not normal and too watery and sweet and their fries were too thick. None the less I ate all of it. The point is Ecuador does not seem to do American food well. At this small town they had a town square and in the center was large statues of monkeys. As soon as I realized what the statue was, I saw a monkey run and climb to the top of the statue. The monkey were cute but also kinda scary. On the ride back we stopped to see a boa constrictor.
The next morning we had our presentations. After, we finally got to do laundry and got some clean clothes. It was very very much needed. Then it was packing our suitcases and getting ready to head to Puerto Lopez. I was about to leave my cabin when one of the group members asked if I could carry their suitcase because it was too heavy for them. Of course, I helped them but because of it I got stung but this huge bug. This bug stung me through my sock on my ankle and had to be at least 2 inches big and a inch and half wide. It looked like an ant but I couldn’t tell because I felt the pain and looked down and freaked out. It wacked my foot at least 6 times until the bug was gone. In pain I tried to walk it off by carrying both suitcases to the bus. Then I asked my professor and the locals what I should do and what the bug was. After discussing and looking online to see if I recognized the bug we decided it was a Para Ponera or better known the Bullet Ant. I went back to the crime scene but could not find the body for confirmation. None the less, the locals told me to pee on my foot and without hesitation I did what needed to be done. For the next eight and a half hours my foot was in pain. I tried my best to suppress the pain by taking many Advil and Tylenol. They also gave me this yellow anti venom cream which I applied about every hour which resulted in a yellow sock soaked in pee and cream. Definitely a unique first for me.
Despite always having pain in my foot and sometimes hindering my walking, I made the most of my day. Conversations on the bus kept my mind occupied and off the pain. We stopped at a rest stop where I had a real empanadas and it was so good. Back on the bus to head to the airport but we had another pit stop about a 2 hours later. This stop was about 13,000 feet above sea level and we got to see some cool things at are only local to that altitude. My favorite part was walking through this trail where we saw the (name of tree and facts). While walking through the forest I felt like I was almost in another world because of the weird tree shapes and low hanging branches.
Back on the bus to the airport. There I had Johnny Rockets because my need for American food was still not filled. Sadly, it only reinforced what I already and that is that Ecuador can not do American food. Then a short flight to Manta where we got on a bus for two hours and reached our hotel in Puerto Lopez.