Trip to the Rain Forest

This past weekend we took a technical-cultural trip to a rural site near La Laguna de Cube. There were 6 people in our group, plus 2 trainers. We also met up with the current PC volunteer in that site. We arrived on Saturday evening after an 8 hour van ride (and some AWESOME pizza in Quininde), and took a dip in the laguna. It was great to finally be warm, and be able to swim! On Sunday we went hiking and then enjoyed a fiesta with the locals. The hike was amazing...though we wore rubber boots that were a bit too small (for me, at least), so I currently have 5 blisters on my calves, both of my pinky toes have blisters, and somehow some bugs got in and attacked me, as well. We went through some caves (I didn´t get as muddy as we did in Arkansas!) that were FULL of bats. One of the guys has a picture of one about to fly into my head...I´ll send it as soon as I can. We then hiked down to a waterfall through a stream (the rubber boots were helpful, at least!), which was really cool. And, of course, we were on the coast, so it was about 99.9% humidity and about 85-90 degrees. Great fun! We were all pretty stinky, so we ¨bathed¨in the laguna (if you can call bathing in muddy water bathing). At the fiesta that evening, one of the teenagers played guitar and sang, and then they played interesting music videos. There were only 5 girls to the 20-25 guys, so we all got a lot of dancing in. I learned the campo shuffle, and also taught one of the guys in our group how to salsa (they thought we were crazy...it´s definitely more of a Mexican thing, though the hip-swinging is the same). We also drank some chuchuwasu, a creation of the local Don Ramon (who is actually a pretty good dancer!). It has fruit, some serious alcohol, and some spices, and is served warm. I didn´t have too much of it, but one small glass was enough to make my tired muscles relax!

Sleeping was great...new sounds! There were roosters, and then some other animal that imitated the roosters. This began about 5:00, as best as I can tell. We did have toilets, but you had to pour water in them so that the suction would suck out the stuff inside. We´ve all learned to carry toilet paper with us when we travel, as well. I also had my first experience with a mosquito net, which was not a big deal...more like the canopy I´ve always wanted!

On Monday we met with the founder of the foundation that works in that area to develop their eco-tourism opportunities. Then, we went to the 2 local schools and did some activities with the kids. That afternoon, the women´s association came and taught us how to make candles (so that we could use the project in our future site as an income-generating activity), and then spoke about their community bank. Basically, communities here get together, pool their funds, and loan them out to people who would like to start businesses or who have emergencies. It´s amazing how empowering it´s been for these women, since they no longer have to solely depend on their husbands. Another interesting aspect of this community is that there are very few young women. Like I mentioned at the fiesta, there just aren´t many girls! We´re not really sure where they all go, though supposedly once they marry, they fall off the social radar. Or, they move to Quito or other cities. Who knows. That evening, we hung out, played cards, ate what must have been our 10th pound of rice that weekend, and hit the sack. It was a great time!



We cracked open a cacao fruit in the jungle...you suck on the small pieces of fruit inside, and spit out the stuff that we normally love...the seed that is processed to become chocolate!!


This is the mosquito net I slept under for 3 nights in La Laguna de Cube.
A waterfall in Pechuge, about an hour north of where I´m currently living. It was great fun!



La Laguna de Cube, also known as our shower. We had a great time hanging out here for a couple of days, including a night-time canoe ride in a 35 ft. canoe to see the cayman (alligators). If you shone your flashlight along the banks, you could see their red eyes looking out at you. During the day, it also doubled as a bathtub...oh, so appealing!
So we went hiking on Sunday for about 6 hours through the jungle-forest. It´s currently dry season, so it wasn´t too muddy, but it was absolutely gorgeous! I felt like I was in the jungle at the zoo, except that it was for real...very interesting feeling. We could also hear the toucans at night.


This is the place where we stayed. They had a generator that they hooked up at night so that we could see. If we stayed up too late, we used candles or flashlights. Definitely an adventure!

We visited the two schools in the area. This is the group of kids in the campo school, near a world map done by a previous Peace Corps volunteer. The 7 kids on the left are all in the same family.


During our hike on Sunday we went to tunnels full of bats (which I was DEFINITELY not a fan of). We had to go down some steep cliffs, so luckily there were ladders (a recent addition, as a result of their eco-tourism project).

We also visited a cascading waterfall, which several of the people decided to swim in. It was nice and chilly!




I hope that this finds you all well! Ciao!