For our first day in the Iyarina lodge, we started with an early breakfast. Todd, the owner of the lodge then talked about the area of land and how the lodge came to be. The stories were fascinating. We then went to make clay pots out of the clay they find in a nearby river. The two women who were pro pot makers helped us to teach us and perfect our pots. I created a bowl shaped pot with a turtle on the outside. We will get to paint them when we get back from the Waorani Nation.

We explored the lodge a little bit, walking through some of the trails and exploring the insects and plants. After, Skip  gave a lecture teaching us more about chocolate. Ava and I learned to wash our own clothes that day in the sink as well. We then headed over to a cacao farm which Todd owns. When we got there, the two girls chopped down a path with their machetes and we were able to pick the cacao off the trees. They cut them open and we tasted the white fruit part around the bean. It was so sweet and delicious. It reminded me of sweeter mango a bit. We then helped to harvest some of the cacao before heading back for dinner. For dinner we had tomato and cheese sandwiches with soup. After, we hung out by the fire on the hammocks.