Day ten was a very chill day because we were still recovering from the travel day prior. We got up for 8 am breakfast which was scrambled eggs and fried yuca. I think no matter how yuca is cooked I don’t really like it. I’ve also noticed on this trip I’m becoming more accustomed to coffee. I’ve started enjoying it more and have been having it just about every morning for the past few days.
After breakfast we had to smooth our bowls, we made before going to the Waorani. We used river rocks and rubbed them on the outside until they were shiny and smooth. That actually took a while so by the time I was done, we had a presentation on how to make chocolate. They had cacao beans that were already dried, so we got to see the process of roasting them in a pan over the fire and then opening them to get the nib. After we opened them, we put them into a machine you had to hand crank to grind them up. We all got a turn doing that and after that they went back in the pan with water on the fire which then created chocolate. We tried it like that with bananas and strawberries and then put it back into the pan to add sugar and milk. It was a really cool process and seemed really easy for the most part.
Through this trip I’ve also noticed how my taste for chocolate has matured. I used to hate dark chocolate with a passion and only liked milk chocolate. However, I’ve started actually liking certain dark chocolates with high percentages. I really liked a lot of Yumbos’s flavors especially the mocha, coffee, and ginger dark chocolate. At Bios I really liked their mango dark chocolate too. Unfortunately, the owner is still in the process of perfecting it, so it wasn’t for sale.
After chocolate making, we had some time, so I sat in the hammocks and blogged. For lunch we had stuffed peppers with cheese, salad, and watermelon. One thing I have been loving here is the amount of fruit and juices they eat. There is juice at every meal and salad at lunch and dinner always. I’ve also discovered putting honey mustard on salad which I really enjoy now. After lunch it was time to paint our pots, and I spent hours doing mine. To make the paintbrushes we had to use real hair. Mine was too curly so they cut a small piece of Malini and Nora’s hair. I did dragonflies and swirls on the inside with lots of dots and squiggly lines. On the outside I did waves with more lines of dots. I also made another little cup and painted the rim black with white dots and geometrical ferns.
After I was done painting, we had to work on our promotional videos. The assignment was to create a video ad to convince people to travel to Ecuador. I was partners with Malini, and we decided to do a montage of videos we took throughout the trip and added commentary and music. It took a criminally long time for some reason, so we didn’t get too much done before it was time for dinner. Dinner was these tacos/burritos with salad and juice. After dinner we decided to take taxis into the town to explore. It was a lot of fun and we even got froyo. It honestly was not good though and they only had vanilla which was really unfortunate. After we rode back, I got a shower and crashed in bed.
