The rainforest has made me its wench

Weird title, I know. No real explanation for it...other than the fact that I can now draw the most complicated and complex connect-the-dots picture on my body using half the mosquito bites that I got while there...I´ve put a strong effort into winning the "malaria lottery"...

But, before we get into that.....
HAIL TO THE REDSKINS
HAIL VICTORY
BRAVES ON THE WARPATH
FIGHT FOR OLD DC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If there is anything that can make me happier than a 5-day trip to the rainforest, it´s definitely hearing that the redskins beat the cowboys...not even joking, when I read the ESPN recap online after getting back I almost cried tears of sweet sweet joy. DAMN I love that team.

Ok, so to things people actually care about....

YES, I went to the rainforest last thursday, and YES it was the best trip I´ve ever taken in my life. Wednesday night we all had our last dinner and celebration of the end of orientation/Amy´s birthday, which was a hell of a lot of fun. Smoking stogies with the dudemen for some good old fashioned male bonding, cuban food for dinner with the whole group, and then turning the restaurant into a salsa club when the live band started playing, it was a great way to end our time together in Quito, marred only by the fact that it was our last time ever together...like that...

So then I went to bed. And I woke up. And instead of travelling like so many others to my host city because they had class on monday, I went to the bus terminal and bought a ticket to Tena Ecuador. And the ridiculousness started almost immediately. We ate some lunch before getting on the bus, and I chose a quarter of a chicken and french fries. When I got it, I didn´t know how to begin, mainly because I was not served with any silverware. Upon further research, however, I found what appeared to be transparent plastic Mickey Mouse gloves. And, after eating with my Disney gloves on, I´ve discovered another tradition that must be brought back to the states. It is the most masculine way I´ve ever eaten anything...outside the CCC apple crisp face-shoving. Ripping into the meat, breaking the bones with your bare hands, tearing the skin and shoving giant chunks of poultry into your gullet...amazing...and any vegetarians reading this, I apologize for making you vomit, but it´s really the only way to eat the flesh of animals. And if I have to begin this tradition by wearing winter gloves to the dinner table, so be it...

That was a gigantic paragraph to describe one meal we had at a fast-food place even before leaving Quito...wow...continuing on.

The bus ride was relatively uneventful, consisting of reading, listening to other people´s ipods (remember, mine was stolen in my badass adventure...), and listening to the thousands of vendors that came onto the bus selling everything from chocolate to empanadas. When we finally arrived, we, seven girls and two guys (thank you cordaro!), checked into our hotel in Tena and spent the night playing capitalism and kings. I think half of our group knows how to play capitalism now, and it´s annoying now that people have gotten the hang of it and actually try to threaten my iron-fisted rule...

The next day we woke up for breakfast, and then tried on boots. Then we all got into two cars and headed out to our first place. An hour after travelling through the jungle, with some amazing views, we reached our destination...or so I thought. Actually, our destination was a 10 minute walk on a tight path through the jungle from the houses we stopped at, but once we arrived to our ACTUAL destination, I stopped thinking about how exhausted I was (note to self...I REALLY need to join a gym, FAST). Our first site was a grouping of over 10 cabins, a couple houses, and a larger open-aired building with a kitchen and an upstairs filled with hammocks. And better than all that, there was a hammok on each of the cabin´s porches. Based purely on this trip, I have decided to buy a hammuck for the rest of my time in Machala, as well as one for whatever place I decide to call my home when I come back to the states. I´ve also decided to learn how to spell hamok.

We were at this place for two days, and it was absolutely beautiful. There were a couple dogs running around, a goose, and it was right on the river. As soon as we got there, we had a little time to relax, and then we went on an hour long walk to this natural pool. It was right at the base of some rapids, and then it dropped down to the river below, so there was a decently strong current in half of the pool. There were two cool things about this pool, apart from the fact that it was beautiful and nature-like and all that. First, there was a rock about 10-12 feet up that you could jump off into the pool. This was freaking awesome, made even so by the fact that the girls in our group are pretty much hardcore, and a good number of them jumped off, even Brittney, who is absolutely terrified of heights, which was impossible to tell as it only took her thirty minutes of debating on the rock before she jumped in and subsequently landed on her face. Like I said, hardcore. The second sweet thing about this pool is that one of our tour guides showed us how to ride the rapids like a water slide. Awesome.

You´d think that this would be a pretty full day right? Well, you´re an idiot, and completely wrong. We walked back a little ways and got tubes that we had carried earlier and took them down to the river. Once there, we formed two makeshift rafts and then rafted down the rest of the river. Somehow I was the only one forced to help row...apparently my Viking heritage shows through especially well here in Ecuador, and I will take full credit that my raft made it successfully the whole way down the smooth, tranquil, peaceful, calm, relaxing, lazy river without anyone falling off. And no, I did not use a thesaurus for that last sentence.

To further your feelings of self-doubt and worthlessness for thinking the day was over after the pool, I will tell you that we finished all this before lunch. BAM...I usually don´t wake UP for lunch, but, when in the jungle, if you don´t stay active before lunch, you BECOME lunch...for the jaguars. It´s a cruel world, deal with it.

So after lunch, we took a nature walk. The most badass nature walk ever. During this nature walk, we learned that our guide, Enrique, was a shoe-in candidate for shaman of the year, as he told us about the plant that had a nine-foot spirit that caused people to go crazy if they doubted it´s power, crushed a plant on our arms that looked like a flower but was actually a hedgehog in disguise (not really, it just had hidden spikes), and fed us the cacao bean, which tastes nothing like chocolate when it´s growing in the wild. We then ended the night by playing capitalism, spoons, listening to Enrique sing his quichua songs about giant women stealing spiders, and doing magic tricks. Then we went to bed.

Which I am about NOT to do. I´m successfully in Machala, and my host sisters are ecua-napping me and taking me to a party that is apparently supposed to last until seven in the morning...so I will be finishing this story hopefully tomorrow...

Good night, and HELL YEAH REDSKINS, BEAT THE EAGLES TOMORROW!!!!!!!