Hola! We made it to the Iyarina lodge in the Amazon!! Yesterday we had a long day of travel but we had a couple really fun stops as well. We packed up from the hotel and got on the road pretty early to head to our first stop at the equator line! We stopped there for a little while and learned about some of the solstice patterns and how the affect Ecuador. We also got to take some pretty fun pictures. After this we got back on the road and made another stop later at a cool trail off the road at the highest point were going to have been during the trip. It was about 13,000 ft and after taking just a couple steps it was obvious how little air there was. We walked around a little more before getting back on the bus to head to the nearby Hot Springs! It was a pretty quick bus ride and we quickly changed into our swimsuits to go swimming. The Hot Springs were incredible and the views from the pools were absolutely insane! We got lunch there and then got back on the road to head to the Iyarina Lodge. The bus ride was rather long but we stopped again to see the cloud forest that’s on the way. Sadly we didn’t get to walk around too much since by that point it was dark but the view was still really cool. We once again got back on the bus to head for the final stretch to the Lodge. It was dark when we got here but the bugs were so loud and we quickly grabbed our luggage to take to the lodge. We grabbed dinner afterwards and then made a small fire before calling it a night.

Today we woke up in the rainforest and it was so amazing finally being able to see the plants and wildlife around the lodge. I tried some of the coffee at the lodge and I am not typically a coffee drinker but it was so good! After breakfast we got a lecture from Todd, the owner and manager of the lodge, about the history of the Iyarina and its connection to the Waorani people. The lecture was incredibly interesting and I was really grateful to have gained this understanding of the history of the place we were staying. We learned about some of the original founders of the lodge and the history of their relationship with the Waorani which I also found very interesting. After the lecture we got lunch and had a little free time to explore the area around the lodge some more. We found some really cool butterflies before sitting down for another lecture about the chocolate industry in the area. We learned about the farming side of the chocolate industry opposed to the manufacturing side and afterwards we left the lodge to go harvest actual cocoa pods from the jungle. We made our way into the forest and got to try actual cocoa beans directly from the pod. I was hesitant at first but they were so good! They tasted more like a fruit which was surprising but it was definitely a happy surprise. Afterwards we made our way back to the lodge for dinner and just hung around the lodge for the night. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!!