On our final two days in country, we finished up our project presentations that we had been working on as well as putting the finishing touches on our traditional macagwa pots. I decided to make mine with a clay lizard and snake on the inside and paint them with simple traditional diagonal line patterns.

We also headed to the nearby town of Misahualli by motorized canoe(much nicer than the previous ones), where we got to see the monkeys they were famous for and have a little bit to eat. Before I knew it I woke up on our last day in Iyarina. We finished our presentation as well as a special 60-second ad for Ecuador which we presented in front of the lodge staff before setting in for our final dinner. After a hearty and delicious meal of beef stew and potatoes, we capped off the night by going dancing in the nearby town of Tena, before a sleep brought us onto the bus and on the way to Quito. We made several stops along the way in the beautiful cloud forest as well as a forest full of endangered polylepis trees, but my favorite part was stopping for a traditional Ecuadorian grilled chicken skewer for lunch. All of the day was bittersweet, as we still got to spend time in this amazing country but I knew it was coming to an end. All of that to say that I have had the time of my life in Ecuador, done dozens of things that I had never done before, and making friends for life through both Pitt and the program itself. I am incredibly thankful for this opportunity to go abroad as a first year student, and I can’t wait to go on my next journey that brings me from the classroom to the city to the world.