February 23, 2018 – Yarina Lodge

February 23, 2018 –  Yarina Lodge
We got to sleep in this morning and had breakfast at 8am.  At 9am we set out in the long boat for our “Day in the Life”.   Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) tours include learning about the people of the area you are visiting.
We started out by visiting a small school with students from 6 to 11 years old.  We got to teach individual students a few words of English.  I paired up with a former teacher since there weren’t enough students for us each to have one.  Our student was 7 and named Maibel.  After our “lesson”, the students did a traditional dance.  When we left, each student hugged us goodbye.

Leaving the school, we saw cacao trees and heard about how the cacao fruit is fermented and roasted before shipping.   Ecuadorian Chocolate is said to be the finest quality in the world. We, also,  saw a large Kapok tree on the property that is 400+ years old.

After this, we got back on the boat to go across the river.  We met a woman, Christina, who farms her land and raises her 3 children.  She sells cacao, coffee beans, and eggs for cash.  The rest of the crops are for the family.  Her husband works at the oil facility down river and works a month and then has 2 weeks off.  When he is home, he helps out with the farm work.

After showing us some of her farm chores, she cut us some hearts of palm.  It was delicious.  At here house she showed us how to prepare tilapia baked in banana leaves. She also showed us how to make giant grub shish kebab.   We then were served those for lunch.   While most of our group tried the grubs, I passed on them.  The tilapia was provided to her by our lodge to ensure It w

as safe to eat.
Back at the lodge we had a 2 hour siesta followed by Fatima explaining about the oil industry in Ecuador.    First we learned how Peru and Ecuador fought a war from 1941 to 1997, When it ended 40% of land previously owned by Ecuador  was taken by  Peru.  This included much of the Amazon rain forest.    Ecuador had discovered oil in the rain forest.   The first drilling took place near the Nopa river and caused much pollution which affected many tribal areas.  Now the government has decided  to let drilling be done in the most ecologically diverse national park in Ecuador.
Tomorrow we leave for Quito.  This has been an amazing experience.