On May 14, we started our day off by going into the markets at Otavalo to barter with the locals. The markets were vast and despite my limited Spanish, I was able to get a shirt for around $7. Granted, I could’ve gotten it for cheaper but compared to the US prices, it was fairly good. A group of us then visited a local coffee shop where we all got coffee and played a round of Uno. After this, we then journeyed off to see the Cascada de Peguche which was a sight to see. As we got closer to the waterfall, we got completely soaked, so it was definitely good that I brought a rain jacket with me. After the breathtaking view, we had to go to a rushed lunch because of the Condor Park we were planning on visiting.

The Condor Park was very interesting, because the show that we were supposed to watch was pretty boring as we arrived pretty late to the park. Despite the lackluster show, the actually park itself with all the birds was very fascinating. Skip gave us a ton of facts on all the birds in the park and we used his binoculars to see the birds up close. During the walk through the park, we saw the park employees feeding baby chicks to the condors. It was a bit of a disturbing site, but at least the chicks weren’t alive beforehand. We then went to an American dinner place where I had a cheeseburger that almost brought me back home. We ended the night off by dancing and drinking special drinks with the owners of the hotel as we then prepared for our long day.

For May 15, we woke up early to get ready to leave for the Irayina Lodge. We loaded our luggage onto the bus at 9 and had our first stop at a Sundial Place. It was exactly on the equator and the staff explained how the sun can be seen differently in different locations. There was also an agave garden which hosted different types of cacti and other plants. We soon departed and climbed 13000 feet in elevation to one of the highest points in Ecuador. The air was insanely thin which made it very hard to breathe. After that quick pit stop, we made our way back down the mountains to the Hot Springs which were extremely refreshing. The mixture of the hot springs along with the cold river water spring helped soothe my knee that I had injured previously. We then sadly had to get back on the bus and made a 4 hour drive to our new home, the Irayine Lodge. We finished the day off by exploring around our lodge to see what sort of critters were lurking. Quite the past two days it was, but now we call the Amazon our home.