Guayaquil!

Phase two of our journey

January 5th,
We arrived at Guayaquil early in the day and
were not able to check into our hotel until
4pm. To pass time, we took a walk as a group
around the city. The temperature in
Guayaquil is much hotter than Quito,
however people were still walking around in
long pants. This was an interesting cultural
difference which I observed. We definitely
stood out in our American style clothing, we
were given a lot of looks.
We went out to lunch as a group, and looked
at the iguana nature park right next to the
River. It was a low key day overall because
the entire group was tired from the flight,
and our original speaker had cancelled. We
ate Wendys for dinner, and sadly Amanda
Reshma and I all got sick.

That night Nick and Shannon presented on

the Volcanism, it was a create presentation,
however since we already went into detail on
Daniels presentation, Ill leave the facts out
here.

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January 6 ,
The day has arrived, today we all will meet
Eddie. The infamous Eddie, was funny,
educated, and easy going, he was also
extremely eccentric and not always for the
most honorable reasons. He had two
cameras, which he used to document every
single moment of the day.
We started off by piling into the van and
driving out to a mangrove forest. However,
before we got there we made two stops. First,
we stopped at this road side farm, where we
were shown a massive amount of empty snail
shells. Eddie explained that the Snail Kite,
had a curved beak which allowed them to eat
snails from their shell, without hitting the
toxic chemicals they store inside. He also
explained how the people of the plantation
use irrigation to produce their crops.

We left the small farms and continued on

our journey. He pulled over at a produce
stand, which was selling fresh fruits and
flowers. Eddie bought an abundance of fruits
and had the group all try them. Everything
was so insanely juicy and delicious, that we
needed gloves and napkins to eat them. We
also learned that the bananas were bagged
because there is a fly, which creates black
speckles on the banana when it lands.
After the fruit stand, Eddie stopped at a gas
station and informed us that this would be
our last chance to use the bathrooms for
another four hours. We all laughed, half
thinking he was joking, but sure enough he
was telling the truth. We arrived at the
Churute Mangrove Ecological Reserve, where
although there was a sign for bathrooms, no
bathrooms existed. He told us to take off our
hiking boots and change into either sandals
or light sneakers. Amanda and I chose to
walk barefoot. We took a short walk through
the forest, as Eddie described the importance
of the forest and talked about the mutualistic
relationship between the trees and the crabs
which live in their roots. The crabs eat the

mangrove leaves which fall from the trees,

and add nutrients to the soils. It was cool to
watch them carry the leaves into their little
underground burrows.
We finished our short walk and arrived at
our destination, a massive motorized canoe.
On this canoe, we saw an insane amount of
birds. I personally am not someone who gets
worked up over birds, however it was really
cool to see just how many were present in
this area. The canoe ride was also extremely
relaxing, although I consistently found myself
looking for reptiles.
After the ride, we piled back into the van
and drove a short distance to the howler
monkey trail. Here we went looking for
Howler monkeys. We learned that these
monkeys eat from the massive palm trees,
and that they cover themselves in a garlicy
smell to keep mosquitos at bay. We chased
the monkeys around the forest trying to find
them, but they definitely knew we were there
and stayed away. It was cool to even be able
to hear their call so close by.
After this, we went to one of Eddies
friends local home to eat lunch, which

doubled as a chocolate plantation. He we

saw how chocolate was grown, which was
very different than one would initially expect.
We then took the dry beans and roasted
them. I enjoyed the flavor of the plain beans,
although it was extremely bitter. We then
ground up the cooked chocolate into a paste,
and turned the paste into a chocolate lemon
tea. It was delicious and hit the spot.
After we finished making the tea, we all got
back into the van and headed to the hotel.

January 7th,
Today we had another low key day, where we
were allowed to explore the city. Amanda Kim
and I went out to the Iguana Park, and
walked to some of the shops. Since the day
was mostly relaxing, we were asked to
attempt to keep an eye out for aspects of the
city which were sustainable and some which
were not.
I noted that the city was extremely walkable.
There was also the Iguana Park, and much of
the city had building overhangs to make it so
walkers would not get wet when it rained.

There were also many sculptures made from

what would normally be seen as trash. On
the flip side, the city residents primarily used
bottled water to drink. Traffic on the roads
was extreme, and the city was not exactly
the safest. At the end of the day, Emily and
Sarah presented some information on the
Galapagos Islands; which fly off to tomorrow!