Hello! It’s been a chill last couple of days at the lodge. It’s been more focused toward working on school projects. On Wednesday, May 21st we painted our ceramics that we made earlier in the trip. We painted with one of our fellow students’ hairs. It was really hard to paint and get good lines. I eventually gave up and used finger painting to make my lines and shapes. After painting I met up with a group that I am in for a presentation that we would be presenting later that evening. It was on Chocolate for a company called BIOS and how we can help them expand. What made this project so cool was that we toured and went into BIOS chocolate factory, so we were familiar with the company. We laid down a basic outline and figured out future plans for it. I then headed back to the lodge where me and my friend worked on an advertisement presentation video for Ecuador. The goal was to help convince Pitt students to come to Ecuador. It was fun to make and get to look through all the memories of the trip. Later that evening, we took a boat ride into town. I got the Snapchat glasses, so I was having fun using those on the boat and in town. When we got to town it was crazy how many monkeys we saw. It was kind of scary because I didn’t want them to attack me, but on the other hand it was really cool to just watch them. After exploring town, we eventually made our way back to the boat and to the lodge. The sky was so beautiful on the ride back and I took many pictures of it. When we got back, we finished our advertisement video. It was a pretty chill day with some work. It was so weird because I am so used to constantly doing stuff.

On the next day, Thursday, May 22nd, it was a more relaxed day. I woke up and after breakfast we worked on the group project some more and decided to do a run through of our presentation after lunch. I then chilled for a while till lunch. We ran through our presentation and then later that night we presented. It was good, it was kind of scary to present because we didn’t have much time to prepare, but I felt like we did well. Then, we played our advertising videos and voted on the best. My friend and I got second place with 9 votes. It was fun to see everyone’s videos and see how different they were from each other. Later that night we had dinner and then took some taxis into a different town. We hung out a bit and walked around. We found this one shop that sold milkshakes and other goods. I decided to get an Oreo milkshake, but it was actually just a chocolate milkshake with an Oreo on top. At first, I was a little disappointed, but it was the best chocolate milkshake I have ever had. I was really glad that I got it. For the rest of the night, we just explored town and headed back to the lodge. When we got back, we looked up and the stars were amazing. You could see so many stars it was crazy. Finally, I headed back to my room, and I crashed.

On Friday, May 23 we had an eventful day. Woke up and had breakfast, which was French toast!! It was very good and an exciting treat. We packed up and hit the road. Our first stop was the cloud forest. It was an amazing look out on some clouds over trees. Then we took a trail and a hike by the cloud forest. We saw some pretty incredible views. It was a really cool experience that I was not expecting. Then we took a stop at a hummingbird sanctuary. They let us hold the feeder and the hummingbirds would come up and eat out of it. It was crazy how loud and fast they were. Their feet felt so weird too. We then eventually took a walk to a waterfall area, which was really tall. We hung out at the waterfall and eventually headed back to the bus. After the waterfall we stopped for some lunch as a gas station and headed to an endangered tree forest. We got to see Polylepis trees; they are becoming more and more extinct. It was a nice little area with a pond and a little hiking trail. It was a fun experience. Then the time came, and we headed for the airport. We are finally leaving Ecuador.