Wednesday: Monkeys and certain fish...

Wednesday was the coolest simply because I knew what the heck I was doing, and yet it wasn’t the last day. We had water in the morning, which was fantastic. I dared to wear a long-sleeve (with my Otavalo pants, which are pretty much the coolest pants on the planet) and NO bug spray so I could touch the animalitos. Valiente, no? We had an egg and ham sandwich for breakfast, and I also had a huge bowl of cereal because I had been HUNGRY before lunch yesterday, plus I hadn’t eaten cereal in FOREVER. This morning (same group, same Jose) we went on a different trail named Harpia, after the eagle. Well, kind of. It was a longer trail, and sometimes I swear that if Jose had been going any faster, he would have been running. Falls were almost common; I did so twice without injury to my still-finicky knee. We saw a balsa tree, which had a weird sound when you banged on it, plus it had a little sentimental value because I remember making a model bridge out of balsa when I was a sophomore in Science Olympiad. I’m not sure how Jose spotted this, but there’s this ant (there’s a lot of ants, in case you haven’t noticed)that uses a leaf as a roof, then make their house underneath, attached to the leaf. We also walked over this stream that was just so perfect and beautiful, it looked like Disney had constructed it, complete with soundtrack. We also passed these weird things that were popping out of the ground; I thought they were termites. They weren’t! Cicada larvae go build this clay tube, then pop out of the top once they’ve grown up. It was super cool because the inside was super smooth, like a potter had designed it. We also saw a woodpecker with a super red head, although I didn’t get to see it at work. Next Jose took us to this clearing. Whenever there’s a clearing in the rainforest, you know something’s up because competition is so fierce between the trees that they fill up empty space ridiculously fast. This time there was a clearing because the ants had destroyed the trees. About these ants: they’re lemon flavored. We each got a stick and ate some (Brenden has a really great video, on Margoh’s camera) and they were legitimately sour-tasting. Fun stuff. We also passed through about two of the camera traps; they have a special method to go through so you don’t end up taking a picture of yourself, which sounds cute but it’s really bad because it takes up time and money. We kept going, and there were these sweet little purple flowers on the ground; I took a picture for Beth. Next we came across this tubular plant with a yellow spider hiding inside. It was dangerous, and could probably kill a 12-year-old. Sorry, Will. I took a picture of a couple of cool looking stink bugs, then we crossed another bridge and Jose spotted an electric eel. It was thicker than my palm, but it was only medium-size. It looked slimy, like a worm. Brenden or Dan asked Jose how he knew that the eels were really electric, and apparently Jose had been standing in the water once, felt a shock, looked around, felt it again, saw the eel, and apparently the current was so strong that he was shaking for a couple of hours afterward. So yeah, myth confirmed. We kept on for a little bit, then Jose saw some monkeys so we followed them. We fell off the trail and we close to another saltlick, so we when down into it. It was pretty gross, smelled bad, and I was in serious danger of losing my boots to the mud (it would swallow my foot whole). We kept on, and climbing out wasn’t exactly easy; I needed Brenden’s help once and fell once, getting a little nervous about my disjointed knee. We finally made it out to another picturesque stream, where we had an at least 10-minute conversation on the carnero, or penis fish. What happens is it gets attracted to urine, then it goes all up in there and kind of explodes, and the only way to fix it is to get it surgically removed. Daniel said he’s gone swimming in the river 100 times and has peed 50 times, and he’s still intact; same with Jose except times 10. The only instance Jose could recall happened to his (female) cousin; she had it removed the indigenous way. It was mostly Brenden who argued about whether or not you should wear a speedo, etc, and we carried on for quite some time. We finally continued on, and Jose saw some more monkeys. By this time I was super hot (long sleeve, remember?) and a little crabby, but I am SO glad we stopped for these monkeys. They were capuchin, super cute, and came super close. I even managed pictures. By the time we realized what time it was, it was almost lunch and Jose led us on an almost-run through what I’m pretty sure wasn’t a real path. I had NEVER been happier to get out of my clothes and into a tank top, and my sandals (the boots are amazingly waterproof, but at the price of comfort). We had stir-fry for lunch, and on the way back we saw that a bunch of ants had infested the trail and were attacking a tarantula-looking thing. I stayed to watch a little, and saw them attack a millipede AND I saw a scorpion cross the path. Pretty exciting. I went over to the hammocks to read until 3, then got into my bathing suit as it started to rain. We were going for a river run. The boat took us out, out, out, they gave us life jackets, and we jumped. We spent most of the time messing around, kicking the skittish girls in the legs to make them think there was something in the water (other than piranhas, anacondas, caimans, and penis fish). So mature. I marveled at the speed of the current and the pink-flowered trees that had fallen into the river; they were called Juan Sanchez. We were allowed to slip off our life jackets and push them down like a diaper, to leave our arms free. I liked to float and look at the sky. The current was interesting; depending on how close you were to the middle, you could go different speeds. We got a little cold during the end, but before we knew it we were coming up on Tiputini. The current was really strong, and you really had to fight it AND use your brain in order to get to the dock. I made it, but some of the kids didn’t and kept floating on down toward Peru; the motorboat picked them up. I had a nice, still-shampooless shower and ate chili for dinner. We played cards for a little bit, then we all headed over to the library for a primate talk. These two girls (one from Madrid, on from the US) talked about their respective projects, with the ultimate goal (Andrew asked) of conserving the species. It was pretty cool to hear about the monkeys; some are monogamous and some hold tails like people hold hands. It was also interesting to hear about these researchers’ schedules: The get up at 5:30, in the field at 6, watch monkeys and record data sets (every 5 minutes all day or every 2 minutes for 20 minutes) generally off trail until the monkeys fall asleep at 6, go back for dinner, spend about four hours in the lab, then go to sleep to do it all over again; I don’t think they even have weekends. I can sit and study Arabic for 6 hours if I REALLY need to, but I don’t think I have any desire to be a monkey researcher. After the talk we went to bed. By now, the forest was really starting to grow on me. At first I had almost hated it; it was so enclosed and quiet and noisy and uncomfortable, but its simplicity and complexity really got to me. Maybe things would be different if I had actual work (although I know at least of one the researchers had time to read a novel) because I’d have less time to think about being bored and lonely, but I liked having natural noise, the trees, and the small surprises, like the huge hummingbird I saw while reading during break.

On Tuesday we founds lots of animalitos

I woke up to the same beeping after a fairly good night’s sleep. A couple of the kids complained about the noise of the rain or the animals, but I was totally out. And don’t think that the jungle it’s quiet. It’s probably almost as noisy as Quito. Anyway, I was faced with a minor crisis that morning because there was no water. I did everything (even put in my contacts) using water from a bottle I had and trekked on over to breakfast (cheese sandwich, bread with PB&J, juice because tang or lemonade was at every meal). The water came back on before we had to be at the library for our first hike, so I brushed my teeth and a volunteer handed out our boots, super rubber. I was in a group with Margoh, Dan, Brenden, and Daniel; we were the smallest. Our guide was named José, and he took us on the Churongo path, which is a type of monkey. The forest was a little scary. It’s that the path was pretty much always muddy and uneven, so I spent the vast majority of my time looking at my feet and praying that my knee wouldn’t give out. The trees and brush are really thick and really green. Daniel said that we were lucky because it was actually fairly cool, usually it’s like 100 degrees. I wore scrubs (recommended because they “dry” quicker) and a short sleeve t-shirt and bug repellent; I wore a hat not so much as protection from the sun but rather to keep anything mysterious from falling into my hair. José spoke quietly and asked us to stay quiet so we don’t scare the animalitos. The first thing we saw was this tiny little frog. It so really amazing, but we couldn’t touch it because we all wore bug repellent, which is poison. Thanks to that tiny little frog (well, it actually might have been a toad) I got a pretty good idea for my final project. José also showed us a kind of pink mushroom that the indigenous people (himself more or less included) use to disinfect the umbilical cord after birth. I finally got used to the terrain a little bit, and I saw this huge hole in the ground; José said it was from an armadillo, digging. Except this armadillo isn’t like the one in Texas; it’s more like the size of a dog or a miniature horse. We (meaning Jose) also found a pretty cool stick bug. At a couple of spots in the path, we had to cross a couple of streams over a few pieces of wood, which was pretty cool. And when I mentioned that the path is uneven, a lot of it has to do with roots. Sometimes they’re lifesavers because they hold in the mud, but sometimes they just try to trip you. The coolest thing is, though, that there’s very little nutrition in the soil in the rainforest, so the tree roots span out like crazy. The root you trip over could be a root belonging to a tree 30 feet (or was it meters?) away. Plus there were these super bright red roots, which are obviously super poisonous, so please don’t eat them. Jose also showed us military ants, which they use as staples if someone has a bad cut. He showed us, bringing the ant’s pincers to his skin. The ant latched on, and supposedly you could just pinch the body off and the pincers would stay and hold your skin together for a week or so. Jose didn’t want to kill the ant, so I used my longer finger nails to get it off him. The poor ant was really confused once I set it back on the log and went around in circles. I also saw some baby coconuts, smaller than my palm. He also gave us fruit to eat. It was more like a seed; you had to peel off the outside, eat the membrane, and spit out the pit. It was sour, kind of like lemon. Once Jose walked up to a tree, scraped off some bark with his knife, and gave us all a tiny bit to eat. It was so bitter! “This plant…” he began to explain, then drew his hand across his neck. He had fed us poison! Such a small amount had no chance of hurting us, and he explained that this was what they used to make the poison blow darts. Pretty cool. He also pointed out some monkeys to us, high up in the trees. We passed around the binoculars (we went off the path to see them closer) and they were Churongos. This was pretty cool, although I swear I’m kind of blind when it comes to finding monkeys. I took a lot of pictures; so many that there are a few that I can’t remember the significance of because the animals/bugs are so small. We found another frog/toad as well as a centi/mili pede; Daniel told us the difference but I can’t remember it now. One of them has legs in sets of 2 and the other in sets of 4. He showed us an ant nest in a tree, and we went to a saltlick overlook. It took me a while to figure out that these are specific places in the forest where minerals (and therefore nutrients) are in the ground, therefore all the animals go there to eat them. I didn’t see anything terribly exciting, but there was a pretty cool spider. He also showed us this white, crystallized bug. A virus gets in it, kills it from the inside, then leaves after the bug dies to find a new host. Lovely. We passed this really nice-looking tree that was reddish and smooth, and it’s called a bald Indian. It sheds its bark every year, so that way other plants don’t go and grow on top of it. We saw some more ants, but these were a little more dangerous. They’re called congas, or bullet ants, and they’re pretty much as has the lower knuckle of your pinky, up. They’re called bullet ants because that’s what they feel like if they bite you. Daniel got bitten on the back of the leg once, and he couldn’t walk. The pain makes you want to go unconscious and lasts for 10 or 12 hours. Supposedly the worst place to get them is your finger, and some people throw up after getting bitten because it hurts that bad. I stayed away. On a brighter side, I saw these super cool-looking purple leaves and asked Jose about them; supposedly they’re a good indicator that the forest is virgin/undisturbed. Plus I found a snail in one of them. We headed back, and it felt so good to change into teva sandals, a tank top, and my bandana. My bandana was pretty much my best friend during the entire trip. It kept my hair out of the way, I didn’t have to worry what it looked like, kept my scalp from burning and it kept anything weird from crawling into my hair. Needless to say, I wore a bun pretty much all week, except when I used a braid to go swimming… I was also more or less the go-to person when anyone wanted their hair braided, which made me feel pretty important. We ate lunch at noon (chicken and rice, I believe, plus we always had the obligatory potato soup) and afterwards a bunch of us went to the hammocks to talk and play bullshit; cards (or nipes, as they are called here) turned out to be a type of lifesaver. At 3 we had to be back at the dining hall to go out on the boat. We meant to go piranha fishing, but we got distracted along the way and saw about three anacondas, if I remember correctly, which was pretty cool. The guides are absolutely amazing at that type of thing; I kind of think they have some sort of animal detector in their brain because if you don’t know they’re there, they’re pretty much impossible to see. I guess seeing anacondas like that is kind of rare, because the guides all got super excited and even took out their cameras (When the guides, who see things like this every day, take out their cameras… you know it’s a big deal!) There was also a sloth waaay up in one of the trees, and it was still there when we went back to the station a few hours later. The thing is, River Tiputini is called “white waters” which is totally a joke because it definitely looks more like café con leche or something. There are, however, little streams and stuff that are called “black waters”… I think it has something to do with the sediment. It was really bizarre because there was practically a line where the waters changed colors. We went fairly deep into the stream, then the guides started to pull out some hooks, line, and raw meat. PIRANHA FISHING. I didn’t catch anything, but the guards caught a ton and so did some of the kids, including Germán. The BEST part, however, was Felicia. She is easily the smallest (and most energetic, and funniest, and most gullible AND most loveable) person on the trip, and she caught a TURTLE. No joke. I have no idea how she did it (except maybe with some help from the guide) or why a turtle would want to eat meat (unless it was hungry…) But that was pretty darn awesome. I could’ve easily continued my fruitless attempts at piranha fishing, but we had to head back. Piranhas are edible, by the way, although we didn’t keep any for that specific purpose. On our way back we saw a caiman, which are pretty much mini alligator/crocodile things. I sat next to Felicia during dinner and she told me that we were going to go look for Germans in the river afterwards. “Germans/alemanes” and caimanes do sound similar in Spanish, but not THAT similar. I love Felicia. We are lasagna for dinner (I was so happy. I miss pasta.) and fruit for dessert, then we all got back out on the boat again to find caimans (although Mr. Reese found a toad on the way out. It looked kind of orange). We used this huge strobe light that eventually went out, so they used someone’s headlamp. No, none of us were cool enough to actually wear them on our head; we used them more or less as flashlights. We found one on the bank, which was cool. I’m not sure how the guides found the next one, but it was by the bank in the water. One of the guides then got IN the water and grabbed the caiman; Brenden got to pet it. Muy chévere. We only saw the two, and then we went to bed. This night it rained, and it did keep me up for a little bit, but I wasn’t going to complain. Eight and a half hours in a bed is nothing to complain about.

Tiputini: Monday

In the morning I freaked Z out a little because I asked for ice for my knee, and I asked for a snack because they recommended that we take one. She called a cab for me and I went on down to the airport, national departures. Z always insists that I arrive super early to places, but luckily Teagan was there before me so I didn’t freak out. Everyone slowly trickled in (14 of us; the other 12 belong to that Race, Gender and Ethnicity program and went to Riobamba)and Germán and Daniel showed up to take care of everything. Once we got our baggage checked we went into the security line. I got through without even a copy of my passport, a water bottle in my bag, and maybe some lighters too, although I don’t remember if those were in my checked or carry on. It was a little laughable compared to the intense US security for flights. Some of the kids expressed concern, but really, what terrorist in their right mind would waste time on Ecuador, especialmente with national departures? Everything was pretty chill, although one girl was really upset because she got really sick last night, PLUS she was switching families because her old one didn’t really feed her. We caught up with what-all the non-beachgoers did over the weekend, and got on the plane. I slept like a baby; I was still really tired. After about 30 minutes we landed in Coca, which is best described in this manner: you know those mining towns that popped up in the old west simply because there was a natural resource there that people could take advantage of? That is Coca, except for oil instead of coal. I mentioned that oil is Ecuador’s biggest export, and it’s true. The only problem is, they’ve depleted the resource on the coast, and now the companies was the oil that’s under the Amazon (the jungle in Ecuador is only 2% of the entire Amazon jungle, but it makes up 50% of the country). There is this big lawsuit with Texaco from some years back, but public companies are still game for the Amazon oil. Anyway, Coca looked like a real industrial town, low buildings and sprawl, but Daniel said that there is/was plenty of what men need (alcohol and prostitutes). Daniel is basically the boss of GAIAS, the Galápagos/jungle program in the university. He’s super intense. Plus, the part of the jungle I went to is named Tiputini biodiversity Station, because it’s located on the River Tiputini. Anyway, in Coca we took a bus to the River Napo, which was cool but Daniel pointed out that it’s kind of settled; people chopped down a lot of the forest in order to build houses and cornfields and such. One thing that was kind of cool was these things that looked like pillars of fire; when you tap oil, radioactive water and gas come up, and they just burn the gas. Bugs are attracted to the light at night and mountains of them die; they need a shovel and wheelbarrow to clean them up every morning. We went on motorboat for two hours in the Napo (getting on scared me a little; you just stepped on the prow and got on the boat. Pretty elementary); a lot of people fell asleep but I couldn’t. They gave us bagged lunches with cheese sandwiches, juice, water, mini bananas, an apple, cookies, and gum. Next we got off at Pompeya. I’m not exactly sure what it was but it reminded me of a military base; we had to show our passport copies before entering. We were NOT allowed to take ANY pictures or video because of something to do with the Colombian drug kidnappings or something. I really didn’t understand it, so I just kept my camera in my bag. We got on this cool truck like thing that was completely open and drove along this road; mostly forest on either side but every now and then you could see a school or house. A couple of school kids hitched a ride with the truck and whistled really loud when we approached their house. I spent the whole ride looking again, there were a lot of really gorgeous butterflies. After a while it began to rain, then it poured. Welcome to the rainforest. It had settled to a sprinkle by the time we got to the Tiputini River two hours later, and we had a rather precipitous climb down to the boat; my knee still making me extra cautious. We got on this boat and started down Tiputini. This river was markedly different because the forest on either side was obviously virgin, untouched. It rained some more, but it was just kind of cool. I made really good use of my rain jacket, because we got wet even though we were under a roof. We finally arrived and climbed some stairs to a landing, then to the dining hall which had a roof but not walls. We ate snacks; apples, clementines, granadinas (the alien fruit), cookies, and coffee/tea/hot chocolate were always out. In order to get around, you had to follow a path of wooden blocks. It was really slow going at first, but once you got used to them you could hop around like a mountain goat or something. The path from the dining hall went to the library, which had two floors (walls and roof) and was air conditioned AND I’m pretty sure it had electricity all the time, in order to keep the books from getting moldy in the humidity. There were dryboxes in there where we kept our cameras and electronics during the night so they wouldn’t short circuit. From the library, you could take a path to our cabins. Four beds each, windows that were only screens, and biodegradable soap provided because they had to clean and return their own water themselves, from the river. Cold water only (which was actually fantastic because of the humidity/heat) and sometimes the water dried up. Electricity from 10 am to 1 pm and from 6 – 9:30 pm, and that’s why I needed a headlamp and lighters (candles in the rooms). Also from the library you could get to this little hammock area (I spent a lot of time there. I think I’ve developed a thing for hammocks) and the researchers’ cabins. Yeah, there are people there who stay for anywhere from a few months to a year or more following monkeys and listing beetles; a lot less romantic than it sounds. After giving us an orientation we ate dinner: tacos! (although the tortillas were kind of eggy-like) The chefs tended to prepare meals that were a little more American, because a lot of the researchers and students are American. After dinner we had a presentation on the motion-detector cameras they use to take pictures of the animals, which was pretty cool. The lights went out at 9:30 and I went to bed at 9:30, because breakfast is at 6:30…

Beach time

I’m back. Here goes over a week of what I’m been doing. I’ll try to break it up accordingly and add as much interesting stuff as possible, but I’ll probably forget some really cool stuff. Like I’m finally remembering to tell you that guinea pigs originate from here. They call them cuy(es). People used to keep them in their house, and if they freaked out when a person entered the house, that meant that said person had bad spirits with them or something. Also, people still believe today that if you’re sick or depressed or something, you should go and get some sort of “cuy cleaning”… I’m pretty sure they rub cuy over you like a live sponge or something. And finally, they eat them. Yes. Guinea pigs are very popular for special occasions. I don’t know about city people, but country/suburb people are definitely into eating cuy. Also, I’ve been forgetting to mention that I’m pretty sure Ecuadorians don’t use washcloths. Z doesn’t have any, there haven’t been any in ANY of our hotels OR in the jungle. I just think it’s a little weird.
Finally, THE BEACH. Not really. After my last frantic blog we drove over to the market, which is kind of like West Side Market but almost better simply because this is Ecuador and they sell fruits that don’t exist anywhere else. On the outside, they sold packaged things that weren’t as interesting, but on the inside there was meat and fruit. I looked at all of this amazing fruit, sad that I couldn’t buy any because you HAVE to wash things well before eating them, and I was going straight to the beach. The fruit I remember best comes from Otavalo; it’s big, green, soft, and supposedly tastes like vanilla. It’s called Chirimoya, I think. Next time I remember I’ll ask Z about it. I talked a little with Ana María. There was an altar thing in the middle of the market, and AM told me that the vendors maintained it. They even have Mass there and stuff. But she said that the relationships in the market are really special; it’s like a cooperative. All of the vendors are in it together, and they’ll watch each other’s stands and kids and stuff. (Quick note: I’m writing this at 10pm on a Friday and I’m pretty sure there’s some sort of street race taking off below my window. Just a guess). Sadist that I am, I went straight to the meat. There was an eating area as well, where they sell food ready-to-eat, but I stayed clear because even though Andrew Zimmern says that the best way to get to know a people/culture is through the street food, other sources tell me the best way to get to know the inner workings of your digestive system in more detail than you would ever care to care is also through the street food. I contented myself with looking at beef tongue (when are you going to make ours, Dad?) and heart, huge fish, live crabs (I had to keep Felicia from yelling EW! too loudly so as not to offend the vendors), anchovies, octopi, and other delightfully squishy stuff. And chicken feet. There was a yarn stand and a wood goods stand, and a lot of fruit. I spoke to a couple of vendors briefly. I also found another altar-looking thing which was extremely puzzling because there was an angel and TWO babies that looked like they were supposed to be the baby Jesus. I have no idea why there were two, and when I asked AM about it she didn’t understand me. Next we took a look at flowers. After oil, flowers are Ecuador’s biggest export. It sounds weird, but I’m serious; I’m pretty sure only Colombia has a bigger trade. Therefore, flowers here are ridiculously cheap compared to Giant Eagle or any real florist. A huge, beautiful bouquet was $3, and the vendor almost died when we told her that a dozen roses could sell for $25 in the US. No one really bought anything because most people were going to the beach, but some kids bought some coca tea and AM got the hottest chili peppers she could find in order to give them to a friend. Charlie ate one and had sinus problems for the next half hour or so. It was actually kind of funny. The bus dropped the other kids off at the station Shirys, and the rest of us waited for them to leave. I couple of buddies for the university came with us: Nick, Chris, and Fran. They proved to be lifesavers because they obviously speak better Spanish than us, and therefore could explain things that we had trouble with.
The bus ride was fun. It started out kind of quiet; nearly everyone took a nap. Later we got out from the city and into the mountains. Amazing. I’ve developed this weird fetish for looking out the window, and that’s all I did until it got dark. There was a lot of forest and a lot of mountains and clouds and cows, if I remember correctly. As the night wore on fourish hours turned to six turned to seven or eight because we stopped so much for snacks and bathrooms that usually didn’t have toilet paper or soap. That said, this entire week was pretty darn disgusting. I don’t think I was properly clean but once. Anyway, the hours went fast because we played some music and danced around a little bit1; I was so glad we rented a bus from the university instead of taking a sketchy public one. I have a bad history with buses, you know. We got to Hotel Cielos Azules kind of late and divided into rooms (me with Margoh, Maddy, Abby, and Alana) and settled in. It wasn’t five stars or anything, but it was cute and bungalow-y, and right on the beach, plus there were hammocks! We relaxed a lot and some of the kids talked about going out, but the general consensus was more hunger, so a few of them went out and brought back pizza. Meanwhile we check out the beach (in the dark) and sit by the pool talking; Nick brought a guitar and I’m pretty sure some singing happened alter on in the night. I enjoyed my pizza and the powwow; it reminded me of Ridgeville parties because it was so chill (all we were missing was a fire). I went to bed at 2, but most other people stayed up a few hours later.2 In the morning I laid in my hammock. We got a breakfast (eggs, bread, hot chocolate and juice) with the room and I began taking malarial medicine, Malarone. I went out to walk around in the waves a little and then sat by the pool. A little later a couple of kids found out that there was this banana boat thing for $5, if you wanted to ride. I was a little low on cash, but I ended up going anyway because it was actually only $2.50. I got my first unofficial run in running to and from the hotel in order to drop off some belongings so they wouldn’t fall in the ocean. We got life jackets and got on this huge floaty thingie. When I got on it, I felt something snap in my knee and it hasn’t been the same. Not sure what happened, but it’s a little depressing. Anyway, a speedboat dragged us through the water and toppled us over about three times. It was pretty darn fun, especially when I finally figured out that there was no trick to staying on… the boy who worked on it jumped off before it tipped over. The experience warmed me up to the water a little bit (and got me used to the saltiness) and I spent some time swimming in the waves. Sorry, but ocean is so much more fun than lake. I love the waves. I didn’t get to enjoy it too long because Chris knew a place in Casablanca with a better beach and good, cheap food, and we packed up a few things and got on the bus for about 15 minutes. By then it had gotten really hot, and we had to walk for a good 15 minutes because otherwise the bus wouldn’t be able to turn around. Casablanca is basically a resort, and it was pretty cool to see. We stopped in at this little store where I should have bought water, then kept walking. We hit the beach, and kept walking; by this time my knee was making me feel whiny. We finally made it to this literal beachside almost-restaurant. I ordered ceviche de shrimp, a classic soup dish in Ecuador. We waited forever for our food; luckily they brought out salty fried plantains as an appetizer.3 While waiting, we say a dog that was spray-painted purple and were serenaded by this creepy man with a unibrow. The ceviche was okay, but it was cold and had some sort of mystery fish (Fran called it concha) in addition to the shrimp. I drank Coke because Chris know the owner and he gave us two 3-liter bottles for free; I was too cheap for water and was dying of thirst. Once everyone finished almost everyone went to swim. Like I said, so much fun. There were less people at this beach, too. A crowd of Ecuadorians began a game of soccer on the beach, and a couple of our guys played, too. I just watched, and swam some more.4 Eventually nearly everyone migrated to the sand to watch the game and wait for the sun to set.5 One of the kids, Ben, was in running club and decided to just go and run along the beach. Charlie runs to, so he went with him, and despite my knee I decided to go too because it was too good an opportunity to pass up. We ran along the waves without shoes of course, talking about the book Born to Run and old track and cross country workouts. Pretty iconic, if I do say so myself. The sun was starting to set, so we took one more jump in the ocean and rejoined everyone else. After saying that the sky looked pretty, we tried to get everyone together. We began to walk back, and I loved seeing the little (and not-so-little) crabs that had begun to infest the beach. I talked with Abby, and she loves to run too! I know I’m a little obsessive, but I’m just super glad to meet all of these potential running club people. Like I said, it took nearly forever to get everyone together. We went to swim at the pool but it turned out to be private, so we had to leave. We stopped at this little tiki bar and nearly everyone ordered these really gorgeous-looking coconut milkshakes. Yum. On our walk back Chris found a hermit crab. I still don’t like them. After our long trek back we made it to the bus, and got back to the hotel. Everyone dressed and we went out, looking for food. We got pizza again (surprise!). Everyone else stayed out to take a peek at the nightlife, but a couple girls and I were tired (my knee was killing me) and so one of the Ecuadorians walked us back to the hotel. Like I said, those guys are my heroes.6 I woke up in the morning and hung out in the hammock again, and ate the same breakfast. Some kids wanted to go to another beach but everyone was tired and quite frankly a little crabby, so we eventually packed up and got on the bus. Although I liked the beach, I was happy to leave. It was beautiful, but I felt REALLY disgusting because sand was everywhere (somehow some got into my water bottle, as I discovered later in the jungle) and there had been no shampoo so my hair was disgusting despite m valiant efforts with the soap, plus I hadn’t yet packed for the jungle. My knee still bothered me and my throat did too, probably from lack of sleep and water. We stopped at a restaurant for lunch; luckily there was a small plate for $2 which was all I had if I was going to take a taxi back home; beans, rice, fried plantain. The ride back was pretty chill; I opened a window all the way and took naps while doing my favorite thing: looking out the window and chatting it up with everyone, lamenting that we were going to be split up in the coming week. I took a taxi back with Maddy and Brenden, and Z and Enrique were at home. I took a shower which was the best feeling in the world: to have clean hair and to clean the sand out from under my fingernails. As always, Z had dinner waiting for me. So good. I skyped Mom and Dad (back from Canada) while packing things like a headlamp, scrubs, bug repellent… I didn’t get sunburned at the beach, which was super nice (Charlie looked like a legitimate lobster. Then I slept. For a few hours.