Nanegalito

So on Friday morning we woke up super early and drove to a place in the northwest called Nanegalito. It was definitely more jungle-y and Amazon-like, but it was still considered the highlands and part of the Andes. But, to be honest, we were actually in the jungle. Big spiders, bugs, and tons of mosquitos. Yuck. But it was really fun.

These are pictures of the big butterflies in the Butterfly Garden, a place we visited to see some natural "mariposas" of Ecuador.

After the butterflies, we tubed down the river that was right there. There were six tubes tied together and each group had a guide, who would matrix-walk up a wall of rock to steer the group of us, and a few times we thought someone was going to get thrown off. I hate to say it, but it was more fun than tubing in the Poudre. When we were done, our director brought out beers and everyone chilled in the river drinking. It was pretty funny.

The place we stayed was kind of like a 5-star tourist resort/compound thing. There were 6 little cabañas each with a few bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. This picture is the view of the mountains (keep in mind that it was SUPER foggy so you can't see all of the range) from the main casita's terrace. It was really pretty.

This is a picture of our cabaña and 4 of the 5 girls that stayed in it.

On Saturday we woke up and hiked upstream in another river nearby to a little waterfall/slide thing. It was very Indiana Jones. I didn't bring my camera because let me tell you, I fell into the water a few times and my camera would have been ruined. But, after the river, we went to a museum about the Yumbo tribe (I told you about them in the post with the volcano and the Mitad Del Mundo). In the area there were orange trees like this one. We didn't try any, but they looked delicious!

This is a picture of a typical casa in the country. They have some sort of store on the bottom part and then living quarters above. Actually, this one is pretty well-kept. They aren't all this pretty.

We start classes on Tuesday, so I will keep you updated later!