Blog Post July 14, 2013 Hello! Rebecca here, and we have internet (FINALLY!)! We arrived at our hotel in Ecuador yesterday, and have spent the day visiting Ecuador in a private tour and shopping in the marketplace. It has been a great day. But geez, what it took to get us here today! Let's start at the beginning (or wherever I last left off) We arrived in our Amazonian hotel where there was indeed no internet, which is why I have to fill you in about three LONG days in one blog post. This should be interesting. Wish me luck! Hmm, let's see....after I finished writing the last blog post, we were about to head to dinner. Dinner that night was a BBQ (mostly pork,, but pretty good). The meals were great. I personally mostly only ate dessert, because that was the best part of the meal. There was a lot of meat, but my mom and sister always managed to get a fantastic vegetarian alternative. In general, the meals were good (especially considering we were in the middle of nowhere, miles away from nowhere, which was also next to nowhere. How they got the food in I have no idea.). Our days were spent with 5:30 wake-ups (Yes, that is AM) and long treks through the rainforest. We did everything from climbing up a VERY tall tower to canoeing at night. We saw everything from monkeys to toucans. I mean, I spent most of the tour boat rides sleeping (we had to get up at 5:30 AM! Come on.), but I've heard there were some nice birds. Shayna got a lot of pictures. Hopefully she will post them. The three days spent in the amazon were basically the same. Wake up, realize it's 5:30 am, groan and roll your eyes, get dressed and go to breakfast. From there we would go on some kind of adventure that involved a lot of bugs, frogs, and a whole lot of mud. We would trek through the rainforest, admire the scenery, Shayna would take a lot of pictures, then we'd go back to our room. I would sleep till the afternoon activity (did I mention we had to get up at 5:30 am?!) We would then do the afternoon activity (repeat step two) and then more rest in the room, dinner, and a nighttime activity, either a night walk or a night boat ride. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the end of the trip. But it was a great experience. Some highlights: We took a long hike to a very tall tower. I was not as excited about the tower, but on the way back we took a little swing zip line across a river and that was awesome. I loved the night canoe ride. It was kind of creepy, but still pretty cool. Trekking through the mud in our boots. We wore these huge chunky boots that we ended up appreciating very much when we walked through the quicksand-type mud. It was pretty fun. We got really dirty. Today we toured Ecuador and went shopping in the marketplace. Boy, was it crowded! I got two hats for three dollars each (awesome deal, they're really cute too), and my favorite purchase, a bag of beads and string, assorted, that I picked out myself. It's a pretty big bag with a lot of great stuff. Seven bucks. The deals are just coming to me! I really am Marci's daughter. Well, that's all for today. Tomorrow we wake up at 4:30 am (yep, and I thought 5:30 was bad!) to board a plane for the galapagos. We are headed for a ninety passenger boat that will take us around the galapagos. I don't know if we'll have internet there, but I'll still write and post later. Anyways, I'm excited! Till next time, Rebecca <3