Day XIII- January 14th, 2oo7
The chirping insects turned into screeching birds at about 5AM. I woke up, walked around a bit and decided it was lonely at that hour, and headed back to bed. Around 8AM, Matt and Darian knocked on the door, ready to start the day. We found our way down to breakfast, ate nice and slow and relaxed. There was a hike schedueled to depart at ten, so we just wandered around for awhile. We spent a while playing with one of the parrots who hung out outside the reception hut. We each took turns holding the bird- watching it walk up eachothers arms. Of course when I finally held the bird, it projectile pooped with a vengence upon me! And I didn't even get my picture taken with it!!

My boyfriend, Peter Pan, with the projectile pooping parrot (be impressed with my alliteration)

We were the first group to leave on the hike. 15 of us hopped in a van and went to a private area about five minutes away.
We were ready to get muddy and dirty. The path was gross- so many people fell from walking up muddy hills. I "gracefully" saved myself several times. We walked through rivers, over crickety bridges over rivers, through over-grown jungle and cleared cattle areas. Our guid talked to us about the wildlife and plantlife.

"This fruit is called...fruit. They couldn't think of a more creative name"


Today, tomorrow and forever/ Yesterday, today and forever- named for their constant changing shade of purple

We finally arrived at one of many waterfulls. We were all hot and sweaty and out of breath from the altitude. When we found out we were able to swim at this one, we quickly stripped down to our bathingsuits "inside" our clothes. We all jumped into the very chilly water. Some people swam to a grotto under the waterfall. As soon as I heard rumours of jumping off the waterfall, I literally ran up the hill. Myself and two others climbed up the steep, messy slope, hanging on to vines, trunks...anything. We were filthy and sweating. Nearly at the top, I saw a pod of some-sort completely covered with big black ants. Being in my path, I grabbed the top portion of the leaf it was attached to and pushed it out of my path to avoid their path. Obviously this did not work considering a few seconds later I was screaming and covered with them. Being in my bikini, I was an easy target. They got my thigh, my hip, my armpit and a few got into my top. They were probably the most painful bite I have ever experienced- definitely worse than a bee-sting. We were still determined to get to the top of this waterfall, so I took a deep breath and trekked on.
Apparently we took the long way to the top (and obviously the more dangerous) considering the guide and another group had already gotten up and jumped off. The guy who was part of our three who climbed with us had already jumped. The only two left up there were the guide, myself and another girl, Kate. Kate had jumped off a waterfall before; however, she looked over the edge of this one and lost a bit of nerve. She backed off and I moved forward. My nerves were shot. Between the ant attack and standing 3o' above a strong moving body of water, I almost backed down. Everyone below was watching and I knew that this was a dream, a goal of mine: to jump off a waterfall. I asked for a countdown and held my breath. It was absolutely amazing- the thrill of it, the rush of adrenaline...everything except the pain of your body hitting the water from a 3o' drop.

The smaller of some of the waterfalls we saw on our hike


So I'm supposed to jump, from here?


YEAHH! She did it!!!


As we can see in Sample B, Matt did not fall quite as gracefully

My bites were absolutely horrible at this point. They were massive bumps and bright red. The one in my armpit was the worst- I could barely put my arm down. I told the guide and she said I was fine- that if I could just wait until everyone was ready to leave and we would get something to put on it to make the swelling go down.
Matt decided to jump as well- he landed a little harder than the rest of us- on his butt.
We hiked back up to the start of the trail. When we got to a hut, they informed us we would be making cane sugar. They gave me some alcohol for my bites before we started. Matt was a mess too- he hurt his neck when he jumped and was still shaking from his nerves. Once you got to the top of that fall, you had to jump- there were too many people watching to back out.
The sugar cane thing was a bucket with machinery over it which pressed the cane and forced the liquid out of it. It was a manual process which involved at least three people. We got to drink it afterward- it tasted amazing- almost like iced tea, but so much sweeter.

This sugarcane
This lemonade
This hurricane, I'm not afraid.
C'mon, c'mon no one can see you cry.

We met up with the van again and headed back to the resort. When we got there, I got medication to reduce the swelling on my bites. I also asked the director about Matt's neck. She gave him an anti-inflammatory and Arasha being a Spa-Resort, she sent him over to get a 15 minute massage for free- which turned out to be more like 3o minutes. (Lucky!)
After our catastophes were taken care of, we headed over to another hut where we were having group chocolate making. We missed the first part, but after the grinding, we added water and boiled the shavings, added vanilla extract and brandy and tons of sugar. It was quite possibly the best tasting chocolate I've ever had. They poured it hot over banana slices. I think I may have literally licked the plate. (Well, considering we didn't have any lunch...)

Step one: Grind

Mmmm...I like making chocolate in the middle of the cloud forest


Prize to anyone who can identify this strange lookin' thing!

When chocolate making had ended, we had our hearts set on craft time, but we couldn't find the shack at first- then it turned out it was cancelled all together. There were not to many things left to do at the resort aside from swimming. It was too hot to play mini-golf outside, we weren't able to go horse-back riding because they only had six horses and they were already occupied, and the pool was occupied with adolescents. We opted to play billiards in the salon. We played several rounds and Matt, Darian and I decided to go for a walk to the mirador.

I chased some chickens around the garden- I'm not quite as mean as my father though



Little lizard-lizard

There were pretty flower gardens and a hummingbird garden. There was a gazebo that looked over the whole resort (that was the technical mirador). We sat in the hummingbird garden for awhile waiting and trying to take a picture of one. We were relatively unsuccessful except for this one:

Trust me, that little black blurr is a hummingbird

Pretty flower we found on the way out



Another pretty one



Would we hate pollen as much if ours was hot pink?


Interesting looking one, eh?

We wandered around a bit more before we headed back to the main part of the resort. We opted to go for an early dinner that night, to avoid the crowd of the 6o adolescents. After dinner we all went for our last swim of Ecuador. We hung out for awhile in the jaquzzi, hopped back to the pool when it got too hot in the grotto, back to the jaquzzi when it go to cold in the pool...
After we were all water logged, we went back to our huts. On the way back, we stopped to play with a kinkachu (sp) that was in the "animal rehabilitation hospital." The little animal was so cute. We were feeding it watermelon and different fruits. He would lick our fingers and hold on with his little hands. He entertained us for almost a half an hour.

Mr. Kinkachu

We decided to get back to our rooms, pack, change and get ready to leave for the next day. We headed back to the boys' hut to play some cards and listen to some tunes. We had a ridiculously fun time playing asshole and we had many visitors. We were enjoying our last night in Ecuador, but we were also all ready to get home.