Showering in the waterfall post-cave

Well, after our caving adventure, we were all extremely dirty. Fortunately, there was another waterfall along the rest of our hike. Murph had brought Head & Shoulders so we all hopped into the waterfall and took a nice shower. The water was a bit chilly, but the water pressure was wonderful! Plus it was a great way to get some of our clothes clean at the same time.

When we finally got back to the village, we changed into clean, warm clothes, and I got a chance to interview some of the village kids for an Medical Anthropology paper I had to write for Monday.

DINNER

Then the village cooked a delicious traditional meal for us, that we ate on leaf plates. They've been using disposable dishes way before Europeans thought of it! Also, we got to try a delicacy...grubs. Actually, they were pretty good. There was a bit of an initial crunch as you bit through the shell, and then the inside was tender and juicy. Haha, I feel like I'm describing a steak (except for the whole shell part). But seriously, they were pretty good.

Chowin' down, check out the leaves for a tablecloth and dishes

DANCE PARTY

After dinner, the shaman performed a ceremony for us, and then some of the village kids showed us a traditional dance. Then all of us students got up and danced with all of the kids. The poor kids didn't want to dance too long, though they were impressed with the worm dance move.

SWEET DREAMS TAKE 2

After dinner, Megan and I went to check out our tent to find that we had left the window open... Thanks to the rain (well, we were in the rain forest) the floor of our tent was nice and wet, so we decided to push two benches together in the school house and crash there with most of the other students. Haha, it made my miss my cot in Tijuana!

Megan and me on our bed for the night... Towels make good blankets!

SURFING USA...ECUADOR STYLE

The next morning we woke up, slightly sore and chilly, but excited. The village cooked us a traditional breakfast which was very filling, and then we hopped on the bus and headed to Misahuali. There we got onto two boats filled with intertubes and headed down the Rio Napo. After about 20 minutes of motoring, we all got out and hopped onto intertubes...two people to a tube lying on our stomachs. Megan and I shared a tube and we had a good time checking out the jungle from the river. There were even some small rapids that added some excitement to the trip!

Of course, most of us thought that we would be lying on our backs in the tubes so we put sunscreen on the front of our bodies. (Well, okay, I just put sunscreen on my face and shoulders because I'm lazy). However, as I said, we were lying on our stomachs floating down the river for 1 1/2 hours. On the equinox. On the equator. At noon. Haha, the backs of our legs were extremely red by the end of our trip, and it was a bit of a painful bus ride home. You could tell who had gone on the trip at school the next day by the way we literally waddled down the hallways.

Heading out to go tubing, pre-sunburn; we're just very orange thanks to the canopy

Stray monkey and her kid in Misahualli...Tijuana has stray dogs, Misahualli has stray monkeys

WRAPPING UP

After our tubing adventure, we ate lunch in Misahuali, got some ice cream (YES!) and hopped on the bus back to Quito.

I was pretty tired, so my bright idea of doing homework back in Quito didn't last long, and I went to bed early. I want to go back to the Oriente soon!!!!