Day Three: Our journey into the Amazon Rainforest Hi everyone! It's Rebecca. We are here on July 10, the third day of our trip. Today was spent all day on boats and feet to get to our home for the next three days: The Sacha Hotel. Our long trek to this hotel pretty much took all day. We got up early (we are currently living off of about six hours of sleep), flew from Quito to Coca, a short flight spanning less than an hour. We landed in a rather, shall we say, quaint, airport. It could probably fit in my bedroom. The baggage claim consisted of two airline guys tossing our bags to us from a the van type thing they had been on on the plane. Nevertheless, we were in Ecuador (again)! I was so excited to step onto the soil of a new country.....until Shayna told me we were still in Ecuador. Apparently we had just flown from one city to another. Oh well, at least we're beginning our trip in the rainforest! We got on a bus that took us to a rest stop. We waited a tidbit too long for our boat, then put on our lifejackets and headed to the boat!....Except for the fact that the boat was more than a couple feet away, and we had to parade down the Main Street donning our new fashion statement: the life jacket. Spread the word! Life jackets as a fashion accessory will soon be hitting stores everywhere. You heard it here first. :) So after that only slightly embarrassing walk down the street, we got into the boat. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, I hope Shayna had a picture. It was basically a giant canoe, electric powered, with benches that were actually a lot more comfortable than they looked. We rode down the river for about two hours. As amazing as the river banks and trees are, I will admit, they got old pretty fast. I slept on Shayna's lap for a bit of the ride. For a electric canoe, it moved pretty fast. There were a couple times I was genuinely afraid we would flip. Leaning too far too one side, flying through the water, wearing life jackets, knowing there are piranhas in the water.....well, it's not quite as fun as it sounds. But most of the ride was pretty calm, and we reached our first destination: an island with a museum. It was around one at this point. We sit down on some benches on the island and eat lunch. South America has these awesome peach nectar juice boxes. Probably my favorite taste so far this trip. The juice and fruits here are so good!! Anyways, lunch consisted of chicken sandwiches for my dad and me, and vegetarian sandwiches for my mom and sister. But then Shayna wasn't hungry for her sandwich, so I ate hers too. I was hungry! Don't judge. We followed our guides to what I had hoped would be a huge museum filled with interesting facts in English. In reality, it was a one room museum filled with tribal spears and baskets and such, and everything, including the tour, was in Spanish. We had a translator, luckily. So this one room museum probably would've taken me thirty seconds to look through on my own. It took us thirty minutes to get through the museum. Between the long lectures about this weapon or this candle, then to have to get everything translated...well, it took a while. When that finally ended we got back on the boat for a half hour ride to the hotel. My sister rested on my shoulder. It was a pleasant ride to what I thought was the hotel. Turns out we had a twenty minute walk to get there. Of course it took more like forty minutes because we all had to stop and stare at the giant killer ants. Seriously, the bugs here are HUGE! So at the end of that walk, I am ready to rest at the hotel. But as you can tell from this post so far, I would have no such luck. So another canoe ride, this one man-powered (actually, one man- powered. One man drove the canoe while the rest of us gazed at the scenery), we floated down the lake till we FINALLY arrived at our hotel. We were able to see some turtles and the views were gorgeous. I'm sure Shayna will post pictures. We have a quick meeting in the social library area, then we all disperse back to our rooms. Which gets us pretty much to where we are now. I read a bit of my school book, East of Eden, in the library, overlooking the river and the rainforest, and we got sized for boots that were very clearly two sizes bigger than they said they were. So tonight we are headed to a BBQ for dinner at 7:30. It is seven o'clock now. By the time I post this it will probably be three days later, since there is no internet here. But despite all the travel, boats, planes, and hustle bustle, it's been quite a relaxing day. I have a feeling tomorrow will be quite an adventure, as we are headed to trek the rainforest. Till next time, Rebecca <3