On May 16, we woke up and ate eggs once more. The fruit they also brought out was very fresh because we’re in the Amazon. After breakfast, we gathered at the rendezvous point to learn about the history and background of the land we are currently living on by the owner, Todd. We also learned about the Waoroni Nation and their past history with the WW2 missionaries that were attempting to convert them to Christianity. After that presentation, we made our own pottery using water and clay. I tried to make something cool, but it ended up looking like a sauce tray.
After the pottery, we searched for butterflies around the lodges. Mark was able to catch a couple of them, and Skip was able to identify each and everyone one of them that we saw. Once we returned from the butterfly catching, we made our way to Todd’s cocoa plantation which spanned for many acres. Our guide used a machete to clear a path for us, and we began to break into the cocoa pods to eat the seeds inside. But instead of just devouring the seeds, you had to eat the outer casing of the seed and spit out the seed because of its bitterness. The outer casing had a very fruity taste, almost like a mango flavor to it. Alex kept one of the cocoa pods and brought it back with him to our room to keep as a souvenir.
On May 17, we started our day off by going through the chocolate making process. First, we had to cook the cocoa beans to easily crack open the outer shell to get to the bean. The bean itself was very bitter, but we then used a grinder to then grind the beans down into a chocolate paste. That chocolate paste was then put into a pan of water that was filled with certain leaves that added taste to the water. Once these were mixed together, we poured out the chocolate onto a plate so we could try it. I tried dipping a banana into the chocolate which was very good, it had a very dark chocolate taste to it after adding a bit of sugar.
We then went on our river hike, which was a 2 mile trek through water, rocks and mud. We started off our hike strong when we saw an eel or snake slither through the water right as we entered the river. This hike took us through many beautiful sites, including some water falls and small cliff jumps. There was also a place where we had to swim, which was a bit scary as we were surrounded by bats and we kept hitting random rocks and tree trunks that were scattered in the water. But as we made it close to the end, there was a little cliff jumping place that we kept jumping off at to cool off. The hike itself was overall very relaxing and cool, and I would love to go river hiking again sometime in the future.
