After returning to Iyarina on Saturday night, we needed some time to recover from our long days of travel up and down the river. We spent our Sunday working on our final presentations in our groups! John, Riya, George, Olivia, and I chose to focus on cacao for our presentation. We created Wao Ice Cream,…

We began our morning bright and early so that we could get to the Waorani nation before dark! It was a long day of travel, starting with an 8am bus ride into the Amazon rainforest. Then, we got onto gas powered canoes that would take us on the river into Waorani territory. Maddie, George, Riya,…

Normally, a travel day is not THIS exciting! We were sad to say goodbye to Quito around 8am, but excited for what would come next. We got back on our little bus to travel to the Iyarina Eco Lodge, where we will be staying for the next 2 days. Our first stop on the road…

Our 3rd day, Monday May 8th, began with another early morning! We had a full day of site visits so I made sure to fuel up on our regular Hotel de San Fransisco breakfast of coffee, bread pastries, and watermelon. We hopped on our tour bus to drive an hour and a half away for…

Day 1 (Saturday, May 6th) We left Pitt around 9:30am and boarded our first flight to take off at 1pm.  Even with a few minor setbacks, our flight still arrived on time to make the next flight to Quito from Atlanta! I was in the middle seat for both flights (all 7 hours, woohoo!) but…