June 8, 2012-- Second Week :D

Soooo its Friday and I don’t really want to be working… haha who does? I think all Fridays should be half days. People who really want to continue to work on a Friday can, but I think we should have the option of half days on Fridays… I’m just saying!

So it’s been another lovely week in Puerto Ayora, with plenty of fun things going on! Monday was just any other Monday: worked worked and played Bananagrams (my new addiction… ask everyone here). Mondays are never too exciting, except that this Monday Maria and David got back from their weekend at work! Yayyy!!! But we still didn’t do much haha just relaxed mostly.

Tuesdays I think have been dubbed kioskos and bongo bar night because I seem to have gone to both of those on Tuesdays since I’ve been here. Kioskos happens at night. There’s a street that is blocked off and its lined with restaurants and they all put tables out in the middle of the street. You pick a spot to sit and then whatever table your at, the server comes and takes your order (the food and beer are super cheap! It’s pretty nice! :) and you also get a tonnnn of food… even nicer!!) After finishing out meals we walk over to the Bongo bar, pretty much the only actual bar in the city, that doesn’t also involve a restaurant. Its super chill up on the 2^nd level of the building, and on the 1^st level it’s a dance bar (with cheaper drinks and lots of super young people haha of course, the first night we were there, there was this crazy older lady trying to dance with groups of younger people… and her dances moves consisted of flailing her arms around and swinging her hips… her friends just sat back and laughed at her… so did everyone else haha)

Wednesday we heard big news!! David Attenborough had been spotted!! For those of you who don’t know who he is (I don’t remember if I mentioned this before or not) He’s the British man who narrates BBC movies/series like Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, Life, and Blue Planet. We’ve watched a lot of clips from these in my biology classes over the years, and we all LOVE him!! So we all started freaking out. We were determined to get pictures! We would be hunting him down. While at work during the day, I had a professional photographer from England help me and give me tips of my photography and he gave me information on another program (that I might get to work with now! It’s suuuuper nice!)  His advice has helped a lot!! Also on Wednesday, I had to pack up all of my stuff and switch rooms. Deb was leaving Thursday morning to head back to the states to teach her Bio 320 class (which she will be bringing down a week from Monday). It doesn’t pay for me to stay in a room by myself (it costs too much), so I moved into Joe and Jon’s room down the road.

The move happened Thursday morning before work at 8. Then, while at work, around 9:15, Josh came to get me. We were having a meet and greet for Sir David Attenborough!! We were finally going to meet him!! Yayyy!!! We went over to the conference room and got to chat with him for 15 to 20 minutes (The whole time we were all being filmed because this footage is going to be in the Behind the Scenes section of the new 3D IMAX movie that the BBC is filming down here right now!! I’m going to be almost famous! :P okay not really… but still…) We also got a group picture with Sir David, in which, I am literally standing RIGHT next to him!! (Cool beans…). That was a pretty big part of my day :)  Then we had to go back to work (sadly… the event had made going to work seem super boring). After work, Rob, Josh, and I made a run to the supermarket to grab some supplies for the night/weekend. This whole ordeal was pretty eventful, riding back with our supplies on our bikes. Bags ripped, things fell, people almost died… yea… it was nuts (we didn’t almost die, it just sounded good). I came back to the room after our run into town and Joe and Jon had made a fantastic dinner of the fresh fish that was just caught like an hour before we cooked it. So delicious. Then started our night.

We started by playing a few rounds of drinking bananagrams. I never thought that it could actually be so brutal. But it is. Everything happens so quickly. And (for me anyway) things go downhill very quickly when trying to come up with words. Then we played a couple more games (Ride the Bus, in which most people used the whole deck, and Thumper) and said a few more ridiculous things and came up with a few plans to hang out with the tortoises (I’m not touching the animals, the animals are touching me) .  Thursday was our pregame to the pregame…

So today! I work.. until 5.. because its not a half day like I wish it to be. I think its 100 times worse right now too because of the events planned for the weekend. Tonight is the ACTUAL pregame party which is going to follow the soccer game in town tonight (the guys are going to go play, Maria and I will be the cheerleaders! Ha) Then we’re going out to the Bongo bar to have some fun!

Tomorrow is the actual party! Wake up and possibly go to Tortuga Bay (probably not though) Then go to the Volunteer cookout, where is will be drinks all day, including lots of food as well as games and such! Then going out again at night for another round of fun.

And Sunday is the after party, where we will lounge (possibly by a beach) all day until the Colombia vs. Ecuador soccer match will be airing on TV. It’s kind of a big deal… (Go Colombia!! ;) )

Bring on the weekend!! ;)

June 1, 2012- The past week.. :D

Soooo I’m sorry about the delay on blogging!! I’ve been getting settled in at work and in my new city, and meeting some new people!! I’m not going to give you a play by play of my days, because frankly, I don’t think you want to hear about my work days, since they are pretty anticlimactic! But I’ll let you know the basics of what I’ve done this past week!

We’ve been snorkeling a bunch (I’m still trying to get the hang of my mask… pretty sure I’ve drank like 5 gallons of saltwater since being here… yummmm)! I’ve seen a bunch of cool fish and sea urchins, but I haven’t ventured out to far yet, so I haven’t seen the sea lions swimming or the sea turtles! But that’s my task for this weekend! :D We walked to Las Grietas, which is like a huge crack in the earth’s surface that has filled with water! It’s super deep and the water is really blue! Its super pretty and there are some big fish in there! Let me tell you… I was super excited to be walking on lava rock before I got here, because I mean come on… its lava rock… but its not so great. In fact it really hurts. Especially when you aren’t watching where you are swimming or walking in the water and you kick a huge rock. I’m a little scraped up. Oh well… at least its lava rock and not concrete, because lets face it, its less cool to say “I kicked concrete” compared to “I kicked lava rock.”

Besides snorkeling, I’ve been working! We started working on Monday. Kind of. That was suppose to be our first day. But a few things happened at the station the previous week, so they weren’t 100% prepared for us. So all we did on Monday was fill out some paper work, tell them what shirt sizes we needed, and had a small meeting with Frank about our individual tasks.  Tuesday, I met Henri Herrera (probably one of the nicest guys ever!). He’ll pretty much be my boss while I’m here. I was given a bunch of things to do over the summer, so I’ll stay pretty busy! The first task I was given was to type up a table of all of the Universities, Institutions, Museums and what not around the world and their addresses and contacts that we have to contact about their Arachnid collections. Then Joe and I were put in charge of helping Henri organize the papers he is using for his thesis paper so its easier for him to set up his bibliography. He gave us a file (a huge file) of hundreds of papers. We had to find all of the ones that deal with ants (because that’s what his thesis is on!) and throw out all of the other ones. After that, we had to organize them all into files by the primary authors last name… Joe and I split the task, so I took ‘A’ through ‘K’. I seriously worked on that for the past 3 days. And I finally finished today! SO MANY PAPERS! The thing that will be my primary task for the summer, is taking pictures of all of the specimens of invertebrates in the lab. I’ll be taking dorsal, frontal, and profile view pictures of all of them. I’ve got the camera all set up so I get to play around with it and make the insects look all pretty :) The program that I’m using is also really cool! I can actually control the entire camera from my computer! All of the functions show up on my computer, just like they do on the camera. I control the flash and everything! It’s pretty nifty! (yes… nifty!) After taking some pictures, we have to upload them to a library computer, where it will go into the database. Then we have to label and tag every species so its prepared to go online and into Datazone. It’s a pretty complicated program, but I think I’ll be able to get the hang of it pretty quick, since I’m going to be using it all the time.

So that’s my work for the summer! With a few other little tidbits in there! Like… Henri asked me to go out in the field with him to take pictures of specimens out in the wild! Woot!  I’ve also made friends with some other people working on the islands (I’ll talk more about them in a bit!) and I might be able to go out in the field and help them observe, catch, and band Blue Footed Boobies! (they’re birds, for those of you who, I know, thought of other things).

So back to life on the islands! Basically… its awesome. Food here is amazing (and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t enjoy seafood, which we eat a lot of here!) and fresh fruits, veggies, and fruit are super cheap! You can get a pound of yellow fin tuna or a pound of wahoo fresh from the water like 5 minutes prior cut up right in front of you, for two dollars! Its awesome! All the while, there are frigate birds and pelicans and sealions sitting around to get the scraps! Its pretty entertaining!

The shops and such here are pretty cute! (a lot of tourist-y shops haha). On the weekends they pretty much shut down though, same with at lunch time. Everyone shuts down for lunch, except restaurants haha. I love just walking around the town. The people here are so friendly!

Every once in awhile, during the day I stop by the internet café to check email (when I decide to go into town on my hour and a half lunch break). I think we’ve all kind of been going to the same place. Either way, I was in there a couple days ago, and I had a little girl (about 3 years old) come up to me and ask me my name (in Spanish of course) and she asked me a bunch of other questions that I could not understand… and I didn’t really know how to explain to a 3 year old that I don’t speak Spanish… it was quite an entertaining ordeal for the both of us. After that, I was just sitting there minding my own business and I turned to look out of the shop, and there was this 30-something guy walking passed and he saw me and stopped in and talked to the shop owner. I thought, “meh whatever, friends, not a big deal” then I comes over and asks my name, and if I speak Spanish. I said it was Jordan, and that I knew very little Spanish. He laughed and then continued to talk to the owner. A little while later he came back over and asked if I had a phone number (umm…) I said no I don’t. he’s like “well can I see you again?” I was just kind of like.. well.. uh… ha.. I’ll be around I guess? But I don’t know? And then said I had to leave. Its crazy how forward the guys are here. They aren’t trying to be creepy or anything its just their culture. Its just okay for them to go up to someone and talk to them and stuff. I was definitely caught off guard but it was kinda funny. I haven’t seen him since haha.

Two people I have met and hang out with all of the time, though, are David and Maria! They live right next to me! They are the ones who are working with the Blue Footed Boobies! They leave me every few days to go and do some work, but whenever they are here and I’m not working, we all hang out! We make dinner, and lunch together, and sit around and play games (like skip-bo, which I got second in but I beat David, so now he owes me a beer! Ha) and we go swim together. They’re planning a few fun things for us to do in the next couple weeks which is super exciting! We have plans to go into town and go dancing and have dinner and a few drinks. On Tuesday we did just that and had a blast! Maria is 22 and from Colombia. She’s just here for a month working with David on the Boobie project. She’s super awesome! And I know we’ll be keeping in touch! :) David is 27 and is working on his Master’s here. He’s lived here for 4 years, but is originally from Guayaquil, Ecuador. He goes to school at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Both of them are working on my Spanish with me, and I’m helping them with their English. It’s a pretty decent trade haha.

Its nice at nice and on the weekends when no one is working at the station, we can go sit on this patio area overlooking the ocean and sit on the internet and update things. Its so nice and peaceful! Last night while I was sitting there I had a night heron (pretty birds!) jump up on the bench and freak out at me and the light from my computer haha. Always entertaining with the animals here! I love it! I could totally live here! I just wish I could have all of you here with me, so I wouldn’t have to miss you so much!! :D

Besides that, not much is going on here! I’ll add more pictures soon! I’m ganna take some more this evening when I go into town so you guys can see what a pretty town it is! I think we’re going to walk around the town tonight, since it’s the weekend, it’ll be a bit more lively, and it wont take as long because I finally have a fixed bike! haha

When we went into town for lunch today (super cheap! Juice, soup, and full entrée for 4 dollars!), they were setting up for some sort of festival! So I think we’re going to check it out! :) I have to go into town for some supplies this evening anyway! So much going on! I don’t think I’ve remembered everything! I’ll think of it sometime! Haha! Ciao! 

May 26, 2012- Galapagos... Day 1 :)

Another early morning! This was a big day for us! We were finally heading to the Galapagos!! :) We arrived at the airport at around 7:30 am and went through all of the things we needed to… you know.. the fun stuff everyone likes to do when they’re anxious for a trip (yea…right…).

Our flight left Quito around 9:45 and we made a stop in Guad???? To let people off and pick people up. After about a 40 minute wait to take off (while listening to some little Ecuadorian kid listen to his ipod and sing the same song over… and over… and over… and kicking my seat to the rhythm… yay… :/) We took off for the Galapagos! I read a whole bunch in my book (The Snowman… great book…!) and had a light meal of a salad with seasoned chicken, a sweet roll, fruit and a coke. Finally the Islands came into view! :) We flew into Baltra’s airport, which was literally like a large park pavilion (not a building, but a shelter)  where we went through “customs” and grabbed our luggage. Then we quickly hurried to the bus, and packed ourselves in with a whole mess of people. We drove to the other side of the island (BEAUTIFUL view of the bright blue ocean!) where we hopped on a ferry that took us across the channel. We met a local kid, named Tanto (he’s ganna teach us to surf! And show us places around town! Woot!). When we got to the other side, we quickly grabbed our luggage, and then tracked down 2 taxis to take us to Puerto Ayora! Our driver drove super fast! We drove through a couple little towns, until we finally reached the city we’re going to be living in for the next 3 months!

Just driving through, I seriously think I fell in love with the city. Its not very big, but still seems like it has a ton to do! There are a lot of shops, cute restaurants, and such. And its all on the coast! We got up to the station to find our places to live; Deb and I are in a one room part of a duplex that has a kitchen in a separate building right around the corner. And the guys are split into 2 rooms. Their place is sweet! It has a beautiful few of the ocean! But it was HOT when we got here, so we didn’t stay to look around too much. We quick grabbed our snorkel stuff and headed to the beach right on the stations property! The water was perfect! Cool and refreshing; a perfect temperature to cool me down after sweating soooo much coming in! My goggles kept fogging up (a problem we hopefully fixed tonight using a lighter and toothpaste!) so I didn’t get to see much (definitely tore up my feet on the rocks though! I’ll get the snorkeling thing down by the end of the summer! After we had all cooled down, we walked back to our rooms to change and then walked around the station to find where we would each be working. The Entomology lab has a sweet roof that we’ve decided we’re having barbeques and dance parties on haha. We walked around and looked at all of the enclosed animals (tortoises, iguanas, BABY tortoises!) When we came up to Lonesome George (a huge male tortoise enclosed with a bunch of females), we saw an American man with his daughter. He was doing research and the BBC was documenting it for a series called “Galapagos in Detail”. Turns out he knows Dr. Dave Lonzarich (for all of you UWEC Biology students!) and he told us (brace yourselves… this is SUPER EXCITING!!) in a couple of weeks… SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH will be on the islands!!! All of us (except for Jon, who wasn’t sure who he was… geography major…) freaked out!! We got sooo excited! We hope we get to see him!! :D For those of you who don’t know who he is, he does the documentaries like Planet Earth, Blue Planet, Frozen Planet, etc… EPIC!! After freaking the heck out for awhile… we decided to walk into town to look around and grab some diiner! We went to this restaurant (Ashley should know which one… it has her bananas haha) and it turns out that our friend Tanto’s mom owns it!! Had a lovely dinner of pollo apansado (breaded chicken), papas fritas (french fries), una salada (a salad), y baditos de mora (raspberry shake)!

We then had to go and get groceries! So we went to the supermarket and grabbed a few things to tie us over for awhile! Then with our bags in hand, walked all the way back to our rooms (most of the walk was in the dark… note to self… bring a flashlight next time…). We put our stuff away, unpacked our luggage, went to the guys room to check it out again and have Joe (hopefully) defog our goggles for tomorrow! Since it’s a Sunday, we don’t have to work! So we’re going to head out to do some more snorkeling and then looking around the city! :) Finally in my home for the next 3 months… and I love it! :) xx

May 25, 2012-- My First Swim!

yea... not as fun as it sounds... it wasn't an intentional swim either... so for all of my friends who always talk about how they wish they had my falls documented... you should be happy... because this one is... quite a few times I might add... haha

So today started off just like all of our other mornings on the mainland! woke up bright an early to do some adventuring! We were heading off to Antisana (Ecuador's fourth largest volcano! :) ) it was about a 2 hour drive, but we stopped plenty for pictures! It was extremelyyyy windy up there... I was really super cold pretty much all day... I didn't realize how cold it was going to be exactly. I thought jeans and a tshirt with 2 tank tops underneath and my fleece over it would be enough... yea.. not so much!

Anyway! On our way up, we saw 3 Andean Condors flying above us! (Ugly birds... but HUGE! It can have a wingspan of up to 10 feet! holy cats!) It was super cool! We watched them for a little while and then decided to drive up a little more! As we got farther up (of course) it got colder and colder! So I was getting out of the van less and less (I don't enjoy being cold) But after awhile we finally saw the volcano! It was covered in clouds, so it was kind of hard to see at first...

We didn't think we would end up seeing it at all, so we continued up the a lagoon (where Joe, Jon, and I decided to stay in the van since it had started raining and none of us had a jacket, or warm clothes). So after everyone else returned, we started driving back. To our surprise, when we were heading towards the volcano again, we realized it had cleared up! We were starting to see more and more of it!

So we continued to drive, hoping those pesky clouds would move so we could see the peak! (After all, it was the reason we had driven up this way in the first place!) We gave it a little more time, and some people decided to walk even closer (crazy people...) and we FINALLY got most of the clouds to break!!

So pretty and so happy! :)

After taking a bunch more, we started to head back down, still continuing to take a few pictures! After a little way, we stopped on the road to make ourselves our lunch (a delicious avocado and cheese sandwich :) ) and we decided to walk down to this little field by a stream (we would be a little more out of the wind..) so we walk to the path and find the stream. Well, adventurous Jon and Rob jump over the stream (didn't seem too far). So of course I'm contemplating doing the same... (I seem to forget I have shorter legs). Everyone thought I could do it, and Rob reminded me of the pact we had made earlier... Just to be safe I took my camera out of my pocket and handed it to Joel (Thank goodness!!). Jon stood on the other side to grab me when I jumped... I gave myself a little bit of a running start... jumped... made it to the other side ( I'm thinking in my head... "yay! I did it!!") then... uh oh... tipped back... Jon grabbed my hand, but it didn't work... Fell back into the stream... sooooaked with water... freezing cold water... instinct was to get out... so I got out on the side I was jumping to... The wind was blowing so I was extra cold... I stripped off my fleece, and quick walked back across the stream... got out and took off the tshirt I was wearing (so I was left with my wet jeans and tank tops) and thankfully Joe and Rob both gave me their long sleeves... Still... I was extremely cold, so we walked the long walk back to the van...

Unfortunately I was miserably cold the rest of the drive, but we stopped at this really cool restaurant that only uses local food! they had a cute little playground (with a zip line) just for kids (right at the edge of the mountain side haha safe? yea I didn't think so either!) it was in a beautiful location, and the area is apparently known for attracting hummingbirds! Super cool, especially when you're at such a high altitude!

After the visit, we continued on back to Quito, where I am now sitting in my hotel room, still trying to warm up, but thinking about dinner! There will be pictures of my fall soon! haha.. We finally head to the Galapagos tomorrow! Should be there by the afternoon!! :) Can't wait!! xx

May 24, 2012-- A Day of Some Ziplining and Chocolate :)

Our last day at Bellavista! :( 

Nelson decided to take us ziplining (that’s right… ziplining in the Andes) We drove to Mindo (some more gorgeous views of the mountains; these views never get old…), which is a cute little town of about 4,000 people. There are a lot of tourist-y things to do in Mindo, but we chose Mindo Canopy Tours! It has 10 different cables, all varying in length and steepness and I was super pumped! 

They got us all harnessed up, and then we headed off! This place was awesome! Deb, Jon, and Joe all got videos of a few of the cables, which I’m super excited to see and I’ll be sure to get them up here at some point so you can see the views and stunts we did! Haha! 

First I tried the Superman! I was paired up with our guide, Nelson, and I lifted my legs and wrapped them around his waist (yes… I know what  some of you goofballs are thinking… ) and I went down the cable head first! Looking down into the jungle! It was crazyyyy!!! I went down this way a few times because it was so incredible! (including the last one which was suuuuper high and suuuuper long!!) The other position I had gone down in, (one that I wasn’t really expecting at the time!) was going down the cable upside-down! This was also super crazy! But I decided not to do it again because I kept getting the feeling like I was going to slip out of my harness and dive down into the jungle. But at least I can say that I did it! :D

Then we decided to reward ourselves and all of our bravery with a nice tour of an Ecuadorian chocolate factory! :D We went through all of the steps of how chocolate is made (the good kind of chocolate, not the Hershey kind ;) ) and then got a tasting at the end! Abby (the British woman we met, who came along on this trip) dove right in and ate a bit of the chocolate set out, not realizing it was still unsweetened! Man, was she surprised! For those of you who don’t know, pure chocolate is extremely bitter! So you can imagine when you expect something sweet like the chocolate we all know and love, and you shove a glob of bitter cacao in your mouth, it’s quite the shock! We took small samples of melted chocolate (pure chocolate) and added sugar, took another and added sugar and chile peppters, and then sampled a few of the syrups made from the cacao bean during fermentation! And of course at the end we got some nice warm brownies! :) 

Then we had to head back to Bellavista for a quick lunch (soup, porkchops, salad, and cake!), packing up, and our goodbyes! Then it was back to Quito for us! So now we’re sitting back in our hotel in Quito, catching up on whatever we need to do before going to bed because we have another early day ahead! Guess who’s climbing a volcano tomorrow! ;)

May 23, 2012-- The Beastiary!

I decided to sleep in (the beds in our tree house we oober comfortable) so I didn’t go bird watching in the morning. I woke up around 7:30 to be ready for breakfast! This time we had papaya and pineapple with yogurt and granola, and then bread and scrambled eggs (they fed us so well here… it was awesome!!). 

Then, after sitting around and talking for awhile, Rob and I decided we wanted to take a nice, easy walk and take more pictures, while Josh, Joel, Jon, and Joe went off with Nelson on one of the hardest hikes at the Reserve. We were too tired and just wanted to have a relaxing walk. So we grabbed our walking sticks (didn’t bother with boots today because it was going to be a simple hike), started up one of the easy trails, took a few pictures and came out on the road! Instead of heading back after only like 20 minutes of walking, we decided to walk down to the research station to see if we could get in! Sadly we couldn’t, so we continued to walk a little way down the road and then we saw another path that wasn’t marked. We decided to check it out.. We could always turn around. So we walked a little way and saw the research station! We continued all of the way day and wandered around a little bit! Then Rob saw the trail (B-- given the name "The Beastiary") that he had gone on the last time he came to the Reserve 2 years ago! He said it was a pretty intense hike, that really wasn’t worked on or walked ever, you could barely see the trail! We decided, meh what the heck, (we eventually made a pact to make the other person do everything imaginable on the trip so we would miss out, “whatever I do, you have to do..”) 

Let’s have an adventure! 

This walk eventually leads to some pretty awesome waterfalls! It was only a 650 meter trail, but you basically went straight down the mountain! (thank goodness for walking sticks! They definitely kept me standing or I would have slid down the entire mountainside!) You could barely see the trail, the trail was super steep! And Rob also fell a few times! We definitely took it slow, but this trail was crazy!! We felt pretty awesome after we reached the bottom of the trail (fully knowing we had to climb ALL the way back up! Ugh…) and then we followed the river on another trail (Q) that was basically all mud. We climbed up one more small part (we could hear the waterfall!) and then we ditched the sticks and grabbed the rope that was tied to the side of the mountain and scaled the side of it! (that was a first for me! Even if it was only a short little drop, still scared me! Haha) but at last! We finally reached the waterfall!! It was soooo pretty!! The water was nice and cool, so the spray felt nice after the stressful walk down! 

So we took a few pictures, and then decided we should probably head back up! Let me tell you… it was a looooong hike back up! Haha.. but we finally made it! (less slips and falls this time… yayyy!) We felt super accomplished (and suuuuper exhausted!) so we walked back to the dome, ate a lunch of more soup (so good), a ham-stuffed chicken with a salad, and flan (not my favorite.. haha) and then I took a super long nap… it felt incredible! it  didn’t bother me that I had missed out on another hike, because I’m pretty sure if I would have gone on it I would have tipped of the mountain for sure! 

After waking up (with only little time left until dinner haha) we played a game of Skip-bo and then headed down. We had some soup, spaghetti, and peaches and cream! :) They guys decided that, after diiner they wanted to try the special alcohol that was sitting on the desk, so they each bought 2, and I had one and a coke (there was tamrind, blackberry, ginger, and vanilla rum; I chose the vanilla and then put it in some coke because, come on now… we all know Jordan can’t do shots!) Then we all sat and either had a coffee or tea (I chose an apple-cinnamon tea—delicious!) and we watched a slide show Deb had put together of the Galapagos and an awesome video Jon edited and then we all got ready for bed! (I got to sleep on the fourth floor that night! So we were surrounded by all glass! Freaked me out when I woke up in the middle of the night and I was looking down at the jungle, but it was still amazing nonetheless!!)

May 22, 2012- Treehouses, Rainforest Hikes, and Waterfalls.. Oh My!

6 o clock in the morning… 

Definitely not enough sleep. But I woke up with extreme excitement at what was going to happen today! So I couldn’t really be too tired! We packed up the van and started another very interesting trek through Quito. Even at 6:30 in the morning people were everywhere! The streets were busy, but the city and the view of the mountains were gorgeous! We saw the monument that marks the equator (which is apparently not in the correct spot but that’s beside the point :P) 

Driving through crazy winding streets, we drove out of Quito (which is mostly dry because of its location in a valley, not getting as much rain as the other areas) and you could immediately see the difference in vegetation (which is cool to us biology, geography, and geology majors!) We started driving up into the mountains… not just any mountains… the Andes… heck yes… I’m totally hanging out in the Andes for the next 3 days. I’m going to say this again, driving in this area is NUTS! The drivers pass when there are turns coming up, or hilly areas (you know, areas where, in the US, are solid double yellow lines, to prevent us from killing each other at high speeds) Pretty sure I clenched my seat every time that happened… because not only could you smash into a car, truck, or what not, but if that happens, you were probably going to go flying of the mountainside. It was freaky… haha.. We got incredible views from these roads though! 

While we were driving, we got to stop and get out and take pictures of a view, because of the landslide up ahead. Apparently it happened a month ago, and the crew was still working to clean it up. So it allowed traffic through every 15 minutes. So we got out and wandered down the road a little. The view… was amazing! (Don’t worry! Pictures will definitely be coming soon!) 

Then, after getting back in the van, when I thought the roads couldn’t get any worse, we turned sharply up onto a steep gravel road (which we would be on for the next 12 km.. ugh..) it’s a pretty narrow road, so lets just say you got lovely views over the edge of a mountain side! (still gorgeous though!!) 

Then… we arrived in probably the coolest place EVER!! BellaVista Cloud Forest Reserve! (I posted the link on my first post, but it seriously doesn’t do the place justice… this place is incredible!) We’ll be staying here for the next 3 days, trekking through rainforest (epic!) We walk up and are introduced to our guide, Nelson, and then shown our rooms… which I can’t even describe to you, they are the coolest! We’re in the dome on top of a mountain. This place can only be described as a four story Swiss Family Robinson style treehouse in the Andes Mountains. (ITS FREAKING AWESOME!!) The dome is circular, with a wrap around deck (all overlooking the mountain range and cloud forest).  The first floor is the dining area, where they feed us breakfast (8 am), lunch, (1 pm), and dinner (7 pm) and it also has an open bar (guess what we’re doing tonight while bug watching after dinner! ;) ); the second floor (which you take a spiral staircase up to) has single rooms all the way around.. (6 or 7 rooms total) THEN! Our part of the dome ;) extending from the spiral staircase and going straight up the middle of the dome, is a ladder. The ladder leads to the third floor, where there is a bathroom and probably 10 beds, just on the floor with windows looking out to the forest and then a deck out the back with a couple chairs on it. THEN!! You climb the ladder up AGAIN!! To the fourth floor (the top of the dome) which has three beds and is all windows! It’s seriously unreal… 

After we all freaked out about the place we’d be living in for the next couple days, we went down for breakfast (because yes, it was still only 8 in the morning… ) We had a bowl of fruit (melons and pineapple) with yogurt and granola, bread with butter and jam, and scrambled eggs. After breakfast we went to meet up for our first hike! While waiting for everyone to meet up we were standing by the hummingbird feeders. I’ve never seen soooo many hummingbirds in one area ever! And there were so many species! (My favorite would have to be the rackettail hummingbirds! :) ) and they didn’t even mind if we were standing right next to them. We even got them to land on our fingers! A couple of them thought that my “birthday bracelet of power” (haha cara ;) ) was the feeder so they were sticking their beaks into the holes! 

Then Nelson took Josh, Jon, Joel and I on our first hike! (there are a ton a trails! I’ll get a map up soon!) The trails range from Easy to Slippery/Suicidal… haha… We went on a few difficult ones, but it was so amazing! The views we had! Overlooking the Andes… the jungles! I seriously can’t even begin to describe how incredible this place is. I wish I could show you… the pictures don’t even begin to show how amazing it is! We saw a ton of different birds and plants and insects that I honestly can’t remember the names of, but we took a ton of pictures! We ate some flowers that had a bit of a sour taste to them, which Jon seemed to love! We also saw some rubber trees (which aren’t the ones we use for tires) and dragon’s blood trees! (The sap is blood red when it comes out of the tree! It has over 100 different uses, a bunch being medicinal) 

After trekking for a couple hours (and me taking a digger after trying to see some baby hummingbirds) we headed back to the dome for lunch! We had a squash soup (phenomenal) and then fresh rainbow trout with rice, as well as salad. I’m not a fan of seafood at all, but this was a seriously incredible meal! Then we had some sort of mousse for dessert (unfortunately I was super full from the first 2 courses I was only able to have a little of this amazingly rich dessert! Josh made sure they didn’t go to waste though ;) ) 

Then Josh, Joe, Jon, Joel, and I decided we wanted to hike to a waterfall (Discovery Falls). The trail (D) was pretty steep and slippery (I was pretty entertained following Joe, who slid down the trail more than he walked it haha) but we finally made it and it was pretty sweet! :) first waterfall in the Andes! Then (because the first part of D was all down hill, we had to head back up! Which I found to be a lot easier than climbing down, it was just more tiring! 

We finally got back to the dome (after walking 1.7 km up the road we originally took to get to Bella Vista).  We got to lounge around for a little while, and relax before another wonderful dinner! We each decided to have an Ecuadorian beer, Pilsner, which was actually really delicious! And then we had another type of soup, I’m not sure which kind, but it was really good! Then we had a spinach and cheese burrito with a cheese sauce, and some mashed potatoes! We had plans after dinner to go watch for insects but we were all so exhausted we decided to go to bed at like 10 pm (can you say laaaame ;) ) We did a lottttt the first day.. so sleep was definitely well deserved.. I don’t care how lame a 10 o clock bed time is haha