It rains in the rainforest?!

Dear Chris Kwon,

As you already know, on Wednesday evening, I, along with 11 fellow classmates, ventured into the amazon. We left Quito at around 7:30 pm. The bus ride took about 4.5 hours. I'll s

pare you the boring details of that ride, but I must tell you that I thought I was going to get kicked off thebus, because my classmates made the bus stop at least twice so they could pee. There was a bathroom on the bus, but it was only for girls. It was weird.

We arrived in Puyo at around 12. We took some "taxis" (most taxis outside of Quito are actually trucks and you just sit in the bed of the truck) to Hosteria

Turangia, where we stayed for the first night. It was pleasant, but I got very little sleep. We woke up early, had some breakfast, and hopped in a van with our guides for the day. Probably my favorite quote from the whole trip was said when we first met our guides. Austin asked if the jungle was dangerous. The guides said yes. Austin then asked if they had a pistol to shoot dangerous things. The guide said, "no, but we have a guy who can wrestle crocodiles..." First on the agenda: River rafting.

I was picked to help demonstrate safety measures

while rafting. My new Ecuadorian boyfriend (our rafting guide) threw me around the boat. Haha. There were two boats. It was the 12 of us, our two guides, and a couple from Chile. I was in a boat with my Ecuadorian boyfriend, who tipped the boat and knocked us all out. He left us there for a while, then made us save each other. The other boat wasn't as lucky. At one point, we hit a rock and the Chilean guy fell out. It was scary, but we didn't panic. Rafting was AMAZING- probably my favorite part of the whole trip. It was a level 3, which is pretty mild.

For lunch, we ate at a restaurant in the town of Mera. I had really good beef. Shortly after lunch, we said goodbye to our rafting guides (I know, my Ecuadorian relationship was brief) and walked to what turned out to be some guy's house. We left all of our stuff there. Said guy took us to the middle of nowhere and we started a hike. The guide had a machete. Imagine, 14 confused people and a guy with a machete in the middle of nowhere. Our destination was a cave. The guide, Frank, cut a tree and the tree seemed to bleed. The "blood" is called Dragon's blood. It is used for zits and basically all blemishes- I guess. Without thinking, I put the

Dragon's blood all over my face. He encouraged people to try some berries, too. I didn't try it, but it's interesting how much faith we put into Frank.

On every hike we went on, there was a natural swing. I felt like tarzan. After climbing some trees, smearing stuff on our faces, and swinging from vines, we arrived at the cave. I walked in about 20 meters and was sort of unimpressed. There were bats and spiders in the cave and I failed to bring a flashlight. Some of us decided against going any further, so we hung out outside the cave. The others came out eventually and we trekked back to our starting point. We were all given boots before the hike. The boots turned out to be really helpful, because the trail wasn't done and it was really muddy. Our tallest groupmate, Matt, had too big of feet for any boots. His shoes were destroyed and he struggled on the trial. By the time I was done, I was covered in mud. Those who went through the whole cave were caked in mud too.

When we finished our hike, there was no one around to pick us up. Eventually, one van came to get us. There were about 18 of us packed into a small van. Fuuuuuun. We drove for about an hour and ended up at a remote area. We evacuated the van and walked for 10 minutes in the dark, bearing all of our things, to our campsite. The walk at night is way different than during the day. There were bridges and narrow paths. Outside the tree cover, the moon illuminated the campsite. It was pretty bright.

We eventually ended up at a place right next to the river. Our campsite was a compound filled with "cabins" which are actually lofted decks with some wood covering each room. There were 6 of us to a room. Each room had 3 sets of bunk beds, equipped with mosquito nets. Below the decks were hammocks. I LOVE hammocks. The compound had a kitchen, which was the only place with electricity. The kitchen is the most unsanitary place ever. There is a parrot who lives in the kitchen. At one point, we walked in and saw 3 cats on the counter where our food is prepared. It's impossible to be a snob in the amazon though.

We ate dinner and laid in the hammocks until it was time to sleep. Sleeping was really difficult. I was stuck with a top bunk and struggled to get up there. After I made it to bed, I spent a good hour with my flashlight making sure my mosquito net was tuck

ed in and there were no bugs in my bed. I found two dead bugs and a bunch of hair that didn't belong to me... Gross.

After a paranoid night's sleep, I woke up at 7:30, at breakfast (which was only fruit) and m

et up with Jaime (Hi-May), our new guide. Jaime is the COOLEST guy ever. He was taking us on a 3 hour hike to some waterfalls. We left the campsite and walked to the entrance of a park. Jaime kept stopping and showing us cool crafts with plants. We made headbands out of leaves, painted our faces with a seed, and Jaime painted my fingernails with

another plant. He is like the Martha Stewart of the Jungle. He gave me and some other girls Quechua names. My name is Sacha, meaning Jungle.

We followed the trail for about 5 minutes, before cutting across a river and walking literally through the jungle (thank GOD for my boots). There wasn't much of a trail. Again, I was relying on Jaime to guide me. It was pretty intense. After about 2 hours, it started to rain. I was soaking wet. After another half hour, we reached the river again. We de-robed, covered ourselves in clay (per Jaime's suggestion; very exfoliating) and swam upstream. We made it to a waterfall.

We played in the waterfall for a bit, then swam back down the river. The rain finally stopped. We put our clothes back on and continued our hike in a different direction. This portion of the hike was mostly uphill. I preferred uphill, because there was less sliding. We made it to another waterfall, where some people swam. I chose not to swim again, because I was tired of taking off my clothes. We took

some pictures and trekked back towards camp. This time, we followed the real path.

We made it back to camp (completely soaked) and ate some lunch. After lunch, we were driven to a viewpoint. We climbed some stairs and made it to the most incredible view ever. There was a deck withsome hammocks and a swing. You could swing over the banana trees. We ate a bunch of bananas (for free) and shot some darts with a blowgun. On the way down, Jaime took some leaves from a tree. The leaves are used for tea and they're called Hierba Luisa. We drank the tea later that night and it was DELICIOUS. I miss tea.

Some people wanted beer after the viewpoint, so Jaime took us to a "tienda." We walked to a place with a bar and a store with crafts. It was on a beautiful river. I found out my camera has a panoramic setting, so I took a ton of pictures of the river. When I walked back up towards the "tienda," there were a bunch of boys playing soccer in an empty pool. There was a soccer field on the grounds as well, but they preferred the dug-out pool, which made the game more like indoor. Another girl and I decided to be rebels and we jumped into the all-boys game. It was really fun. I miss soccer.

We walked back in the moon-illuminated night. I saw fireflies for the first time in a long time. I slept well that night, after all that activity. The next morning (Saturday), we left at around 10. We went to an indigenous Quechua community and hung out there for a while. They showed us

how to give ourselves non- permanent tattoos and I spent a good hour working on tattooing my name (Sacha) on my wrist.

We spoke with a Shaman. We watched an indigenous dance and we all started dancing. We ate tarapia (fish) for lunch with yuca and rice. We used huge palm leaves as plates. None of us died from eating this food. We canoed back to the campground. We hit a bunch of rocks in the river, but our paddler (someone employed by the camp) did a good job of saving us. We were told to wear our bathing suits in the canoes, which turned out to be a huge mistake. I had managed to avoid a ton of mosquito bites until the canoes. Now, I am looking at at least 30 bites- mostly on the back of my thighs and my back. It's really painful...

We had the afternoon free. We walked to a different tienda, which was really just the kitchen of someone's house. We bought ice cream- yum. It didn't rain that day, so there were a TON of mosquitos out. Ugh. Some people (not including myself) went back to the Shaman for a hallucinogenic drinking experience. None of them reported hallucinations and they all said the experience was sort of weird.

The next morning, I woke up at 6:30 because my legs and back itched so badly. I climbed out of my bed and read a book by the firepit. At around 7, the sky grew really dark and it began to pour. For breakfast, we had fried green bananas, which were really good. Jaime took us to

his usual place of work, which is a monkey park. There were a ton of monkeys there, all ready to climb all over you. There were a few other animals too. A monkey bit me. I didn't bleed, but I asked Jaime if they had diseases. He told me he was still alive... Oh Jaime. We got on a bus and were taken back to Puyo, where we took another bus to Quito. We made it home around 5. I showered for a long time, because I was really dirty.

The amazon was an experience. I really missed the city though. I'm a city girl at heart. Give me robbers, creepy men, gnarly bus exhaust, and high altitude over mosquitos and isolation any day. My mosquito bites will probably keep me suffering for a while. BUT the amazon, like most things in this country, must be experienced. I'm very fortunate to have crossed this off my list without dying or paying a lot.

In other, way more boring news, today was my first day of Spanish 301 and 322. I am really fortunate, because I have my favorite teacher as a teacher. Our service learning advisor is my 322 teacher. At first, I didn't like her at all, but she is actually pretty cool. She taught us a bunch of stuff today. I didn't feel that any of what she taught was super important in life, but it was interesting. The word "culture" for example comes from the same root word as agriculture and cultivate. Ever considered that? There's some food for thought.

Later days, chicos.