Then on Saturday we went to a Curandero! (Medicine man) Similar to a Shaman but the Curandero doesn't heal things as serious as the Shaman. Basically the Curandero gave us positive energy and took a big bunch of leaves and waved them around us and batted them on us was smoking the strongest cig ever and blew it at us. Then he would take the bad energy he collected from us with the leaves and blow it out the window. Then after he blew it out the window he did about another 5 minutes while whistling and stopped smoking for a while. Some people said they felt bad cuz he had to smoke a lot cuz we are a big group, but I actually think he was enjoying it. Then we got to try the cig that he was smoking, and I don't have a lot to compare it to but other regular smokers said it was super strong!! (only just tried it mom and dad don't worry)
Then we got to learn how to hunt! We had a little target of a chicken and our guide Robert showed us how to spit a dart out of this long tube thing, and man we are actually good hunters!! A lot of us hit the target on one try, including me!! Then we walked to this huge tree called cebol that had a mato palo growing on it (a tree that kills others by suffocating them) And my friend Jess got a walking stick made out of bamboo! (Target practice to the right)
We also went further down the river to watch a women collect gold. Its so sad because a whole day (6 am to 6 pm) sifting through sand looking for gold she got about 1 gram of gold which is only worth maybe $2. We also got to go and play soccer with students from the local high school! I suck at contact sports but our gringo team needed another player so I volunteered. And man playing in the Amazon especially is so tough with all the heat! We lost 2-1 but we had a ton of fun and the students had a lot of fun too! Then we tried teaching them songs in English like itsy bitsy spider and got to play with the pet monkey of the community! That night I went on the night hike and we got to see some pretty cool stuff!! I'm not a super big fan of spiders, but if they are in their natural habitat they are ok with me, if they don't crawl on me. So we saw a poisonous dart frog and some water snakes and a bunch of huge insects and spiders! 
Don't remember what day exactly, but we had cooking lessons. We got to cook grubs (they were HUGE) and two people got to try them raw. Donte and Andy were the brave souls that ate them when they were still alive and still squirming. Robert told them to bite the head off first before they bite you- GROSS! Leslie and I got to prepare the rest of them to cook. First we had to kill them buy squishing the heads which was also pretty gross and was hard to do cuz some of them didn't want to die. Then we had to skewer them, at which time while we skewered one he was still alive. Then we had to rip the back part of them open so they don't explode when we cook them, the fighter yet still alive. But surprisingly everyone tried them and they kind of tasted like bacon! Sunday we got to go to primary rainforest and saw this huge tree that can't have anything grow on it (like mato palo) because it sheds its bark a lot. So its really slippery and Andy and Seichi tried climing up it! We also saw a toilet paper plant, if you ever get lost in the Rain Forest, a mango tree that we all tried, and a tatoo fruit that if you cut it and place it against clothes it stains it permanently and looks super cool. Also Robert made basket out of palm leaves and gave it to me!!
Our next adventure was Banos which means bathroom in Spanish because there are a lot of waterfalls and hotsprings and rivers. We wanted to go canyoning down the waterfalls, only 25 bucks for 5 waterfalls! But man was it scarier than I thought. When you are at the top of one you just have to stand there and lean backwards to start propelling down. Of course being afraid of heights was hard, but I am so glad I did it and faced my fears. The picture I have here is of a 70 footer, the biggest one, and super steep! Probably the scariest part for me was when we had to kind of zip line down one. We started propelling but it was too steep to go all the way down, so we hooked on to another line that went to the bottom and then had to let go, and go backwards down it. My friends all made fun of me after because letting go was so hard for me and I looked horrified. Finally I did it and it wasn't that bad, I just didn't wanna go backwards. So the last one was kind of like a slide and we rode down on our butts which of course was super fun also!! And there were parts that you had to stand up and go to the next slide and there were big pools of water, and you were connected to the rope the guide was holding and he pulled a couple of my friends back into the pools of water, so funny! When we got back to the office they gave us tea and bread because we were freezing!! 
So we also rode a Chiva to the top of the volcano because it is still active and sometimes fun things happen at the top of volcanoes. Our music was kind of lamo and nothing happened with the volcano, and we found out that he charged us double cuz were gringos, but my friend Jess was having none of that and yelled at him and we got our moneys back. But overall we still had fun and danced a lot and at least got to say we went to the top of that volcano. Turungaua, I can't spell. 
My last order of business was to try cui, guinea pig. It is a delicacy here and thought of as magical. Medicine men will also use it during curing ceremonies. They are really expensive to eat so we all just shared and had a little bit, but man I actually liked it. Again, (dad you're going to laugh) tasted like chicken. Roticery chicken atually we compared it to. So now I can say I have eaten Conejo (rabbit) cui and larva. Mom, I'll bring some home so you can try! Oh and how could I forget a guy Sarah met one day asked her to be his girlfriend, the boys here fall fast (for those of you who read my Galapagos blog, a guy wanted to marry me) One thing I won't miss about Ecuador, or will I miss making fun of it with my girlfriends?? Ok chow for now!! 
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