La mejor semana de mi vida

I just returned from a week-long excursion in the Amazon rainforest, and it was probably the best week of my life. But since I haven't updated this in a month, I'll give a quick update of what I was up to before the trip to the Amazon first...

The weekend after our return from the Intag Cloud Forest was Carnaval, a four day-long Latin American holiday similar to Mardis Gras. My host family took me to Riobamba for the weekend to stay with their grandparents. As is typical of Carnaval, everyone was spraying foam and throwing water at each other, from the youngest of little kids to the oldest of adults. It was adorable, until my white scarf was stained with blue foam.

On Sunday, my host sisters took me to Ambato for its famous Carnaval celebrations. In the morning there was a huge parade, with countless Ecuadorian towns’ beauty queens riding on elaborately decorated floats and throwing flowers into the crowd. Between floats were performances by local and foreign dancers and musicians. After the parade, my host sisters and I went to meet up with their friends at a big outdoor street party. It was a day full of wonderful music, cheap beer, and lots of dancing in the streets!

The next weekend, I went to the city of Baños, about four hours south of Quito, with some friends from my study abroad program. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. We stayed in a hostel that had a rooftop kitchen and cafe, with a beautiful view of the mountains and the waterfalls surrounding the city.

On Saturday we took a chiva ride to see the incredible landscapes outside of the city. We had several stops, all of which ended in exciting adventures. We rode a cable car across a huge canyon, we hiked down a cliff to swim in an enormous waterfall, and I went bunjee jumping off a bridge! The next day, we went white water rafting along an unbelievably beautiful river surrounded by lush dense forests. Baños was absolutely incredible, and our short weekend there was certainly not long enough. Hopefully I’ll get to go back again at some point this semester.

Okay, now onto our incredible week in the Amazon. We stayed at the Tiputini Biological Research Station in eastern Ecuador. To get there, we took a plane to Coca, then a bus, then a motorized canoe down the Napo River, then an open truck/bus contraption, then another canoe down the Tiputini River. Before the first canoe arrived for us, we waited at a port on the Napo River where the owner had rescued illegally traded Amazon wildlife. So we basically played with squirrel monkeys and toucans for a couple hours. They were absolutely adorable! But it was also sad, since we knew they had been taken out of their habitat as babies (the hunters shoot the mother and take the infant to sell on the black market).

We spent the entire week at Tiputini basically exploring the rainforest and learning about everything we saw. The majority of our days there were spent taking classes, hiking in the forest and learning about plants and animals, and swimming in the Tiputini River. Every morning, we woke up at 5am to have a pre-breakfast forest activity in small groups. We went on long hikes, watched wildlife from canopy towers, floated down the river, and went on a canopy walk. The small group I was in apparently had some kind of magical powers, because every morning we saw something incredibly rare. Most of them have great stories behind them, but for the sake of time and space I'll just make a list of the best sightings of each day at the reserve...

1. Monday: Harpy Eagle
2. Tuesday: Black Caiman (3 meters long)
3. Wednesday: Pink River Dolphin
4. Thursday: Scarlet Macaws
5. Friday: Tapir
6. Saturday: Giant Earthworm (1.5 meters long)

Other awesome things I saw: Lots of monkeys (Woolly, Spider, Squirrel, Saki, Tamarin, Pygmy Marmoset), Blue Morpho Butterfly, Tons of Awesome Birds, Tons of Crazy Insects... and an endless list of others I can't remember.

In five days, I leave for the Galapagos! Then not long after that trip, I begin my month-long Independent Study Project. I still haven't quite figured out what I'll do, but I'm hoping I can find a project related to mining law and policy. No matter what I end up with, I'm sure it will be an incredible experience.

Until next time...