This entry was written by an offical english professor....

But before we get into that...I´m going to finally finish this damn rainforest entry.

Where were we....oh right...heaven...

So we wake up the next morning, eat a nice breakfast (all the food that we had at this place was straight up legit...big portions, great ahi, amazing flavor. The only possible negative is that it may or may not have caused the majority of our group some serious stomach issues and or had a parasite in it...but I feel fine so I loved every minute of it), and we then head out on another hike. This was a little less exhausting and shorter than our hike with enrique, and it still had some pretty cool things to offer. Cordaro at this point was hacking up lungs and therefore having difficulty breathing, so he decided, wisely, to go into town to get some more asthma stuff instead of coming with us on a hike. This meant that the hike consisted of myself and seven girls, not a bad thing, but my manly solitude was made obvious when our tour guide made crowns out of palm leaves, but refused to make one for me...I was unaware that they grew such gender-specific plants in the jungle and am only slightly bitter still... Throughout the entire hike, there were occasional areas where we needed to walk sideways through really thin stretches, or at some points even walk on cave walls, and near the very end we needed to climb up this cave by pressing our backs against one wall, our feet against the other, and manuevering ourselves up about 20 feet that way. I realize that was an absolutely horrible way to describe it and i´ve probably confused more than explained, but whatever, it was cool. To finish our trek in the jungle we squeezed through a fissure in this one slab of cave rock that was probably no wider than a foot, and to top this all off the roof of the cave, only a few feet above us, was covered in bats...bats that would occasionally drop off and fly frantically past us, barely over our heads. It´s a damn good thing I´m not as claustrophobic as I thought I was.

So after another greal meal back at the resort, we then went down to the river to swim. The whole experience was incredibly relaxing...well, once you finished the 10 minute walk down a cliff to get to the river and then swam past the current that felt like it was dragging you to the Pacific Ocean it was...To make it even cooler, after we had been swimming a while it began to rain, doing so seemingly from a cloudless sky, and the mix of the rain and the bright sunshine that persisted served to emphasise the uniqueness of the experience we were all having; it´s something that will be locked in my memory for years to come.

STOP and print that hauntingly poetic sentence out RIGHT NOW, that shit was BALLA....

Oh yeah, Alex (our tour guide) also began to balance spherical rocks on other spherical rocks on the beach....I´m talking rocks the size and shape of your head balanced on other rocks the same size and shape. The jungle has some crazy magic.

Dinner followed, then more cards, including that crazy awesome Russian game that Natasha taught me back home and Irene, who also happens to be Russian, and doesn´t know Natasha at all, taught us all again. Apparently there is only one card game in Russia, and all Russians are told to spread it to all their American friends...at least its a good game. I forget what it´s called, but it´s a Russian word, and I feel like I´m never going to remember it, so I´m now trying to give it an English name. I´m thinking that since we played only it and Capitalism on this trip, it would be really cool if I could think of some english word that was somehow related...Hmmm...a word for a Russian game that was somehow related to Capitalism...I´m sure I´ll come up with something.

Too soon...?

The next day started as all others did: breathtaking view outside our cabin, great breakfast, and a little time of relaxation. Then, we rode standing up in the backs of two trucks to a village of indigenous people. We learned about their native teas and chicha, a type of paste made from yucca and possibly banana, I don´t really remember, but we also got to try both. We then played soccer for a little bit in the middle of the village, and then headed back...again, standing up in the backs of the trucks. I think I´m going to buy a truck when I get home just so I can ride in the back of it standing up. After the village we went down to the river, tied some inner tubes together, and went tubing for about an hour. The water at one point turned freezing cold and our wonderful tour guide Alex found it oh so very funny to drench us in some of the coldest water I´ve ever experienced. Then we ate dinner, played cards, and went to bed.

And that was it. The next day we got up, went back to Tena and got on a bus back to Quito.
The only eventful things on the trip home were that some kid threw up on the floor next to me and (unrelated) I lost my cell phone...again...If I buy three cell phones a month for the rest of my time here I´m going to need to get a second job...

So then I hung around Quito for a little bit, hung out with Alex the tour guide who came to Quito for a few days, had a fun time figuring how to get back to Machala without getting assaulted, flew to Guayaquil and then took a bus to Machala, only to have my family yell at me for taking yet another really dangerous bus company...I never learn.

Currently, I´m in Machala, having finished three days of teaching, living with my host family, and settling into and defining parts of what will be my life for the next 10 months or so...but don´t worry, it only seems long if you think about it.

I sense a "typical day in Machala" post coming soon....

GO WAKE BEAT CLEMSON