Hola! These last three days have been an absolute blast! Let me get you up to speed. Our trip to the Waorani Nation started bright and early on Sunday morning. We ate breakfast at the lodge and got on our bus for a two hour ride to the riverside. We met up with some of the Waorani members who were about to drive us in canoes. The trip was very long, but being with friends and the amazing scenery made it fun. We arrived to our lodge which was about a 5 minute canoe ride to the village. We were super tired from the travel day and all went to bed early, excited for Monday’s plans.

On Monday, we woke up to an awesome breakfast and met Elizabeth, Tod’s daughter, who grew up in the United States and also Ecuador. She introduced us to the men of the tribe who we were going to spend the day with. Most of them were our age and some were older. Our first event was getting on a canoe and riding a couple of minutes down the river to a part of the jungle where you could climb a vine. One of the guys climbed up the whole tree and did monkey calls. It was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen, and he was so high up, that we couldn’t even see him. After his demonstration, we each climbed the vine a little bit, and swung from it. I felt like Tarzan! After this, we went to another part of the jungle where there was a giant, sacred tree. Elizabeth told us some stories about the tree, like how if you knock it, it’s noise travels miles through the jungle. David, the president of their village, told us a story about how he had an encounter with a jaguar when he was 14 years old and had to run away from it for so long, that he almost fainted. There was another vine here that we swung from too.

It started raining really hard as we canoed back to our lodge for lunch, but I think it made it even more fun. After our lunch, some of us went out with 3 of the guys from the tribe and went fishing on the river. I didn’t catch anything, but David and Mark caught some catfish, that they ended up preparing for us later. After fishing, we traveled to the Waorani village and met some family members and their pet monkeys. We played soccer in the mud and they even taught us how to throw a spear! it was getting dark, so we had to leave. However, before we left, we met their Tapir, which was one of the most interesting animals I’ve ever seen. You have to look it up! After this, we swam in the river and had chicken fights. It was so much fun. At this point, it was around 7 o’clock, so we went back to our lodge and ate dinner.

After dinner we went back to the village and all gathered in their big hut. One of the elders went around to each of us and put red paint on our faces and gave us all Waorani names. We were all named after significant people of the tribe’s history and they all had interesting characteristics, which he explained to us. I was named after Winyari, who was known for loving everybody in the tribe unconditionally. After this, they performed a welcoming ritual for us which was very cool and new to me. They then had Maggie marry one of the men in the tribe, and have Carter and Lama marry eachother. It was super fun and they had a great time with us. We then performed the cup song, Macarana, and cotton eye joe. The whole night was amazing and an experience I will never forget for the rest of my life.

Yesterday, was another travel day on canoes. It was really sad leaving the Waorani because they were so nice to us, and we all loved them so much. We arrived back to the original lodge after the long journey. We ate dinner at the lodge and then spent the rest of the night on hammocks before going to bed. In my opinion, these last three days were my favorite of the whole trip. I will never forget get the experiences we had with the Waorani, and I definitely hope to visit them again.