This weekend the program had the opportunity to visit the Playa de Oro (literally translated as "beach of gold") community. After a red-eye bus ride to the coast and an hour long canoe ride up another river, we arrived at a community that was full of music and general joy. The history of this community is that the people were brought in from Africa and enslaved in order to extract the gold from the river basin. It was only within the last 10 years that the gold industry has subsided a little bit and the people can live semi-peacefully.
My tour guides for the community. They were so cute.
On Friday we hiked into the jungle, saw tiger footprints (?!), and ended up swimming in this laguna. It was so pretty.
After a quick hike back, we stopped at one of the rocky beaches and tried our own luck at panning for gold.
I was no good.
We also learned how to make sugar from sugar cane! It's a rough process, and takes a lot of energy and man power, but very interesting!
Friday night we had a huge compartiendo of music and dance, where we learned the traditional dance, Marimba, and a few other types of songs and dances used in different ceremonies.
They could all dance; we, the gringos, could not dance to save our lives.
Saturday we left the community and chatted with Papa Roncón, one of the men in Esmereldas who almost singlehandedly revived the Marimba. Another red-eye bus ride to return to Quito and study for exams and finish projects that are due this week.
Hope your weekend was fantastic!
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