Bananas...Woke up today at about five and did some exercises. I really want to get back into good shape again and I think I am going to dedicate more time to exercising a little each day to try to build some kind of a base. Avoiding sugars and fats will also be a part of my future habits too.
We left CEDEI at about 6:45 toward Guayaquil. Guayaquil is Ecuador's largest city and it is situated in the southwestern part of the country. There are roughly 2 million people (although it is getting closer to 3) that live there and the city is a pretty successful port town -- exports cocoa, bananas, textiles, and rice. Also, it is worth mentioning that Guayaquil is one of the more dangerous parts of Ecuador in term of theft and other petty crime. Not to worry though because we are staying in a pretty safe hotel -- it seems like it's unnecessarily nice for college students to stay in if I do say so but -- no complaining from me!
The bus ride was not too bad. I would have preferred silence on the way there but, being that I must adapt to my surroundings, I was able to comfortably wear earplugs and read sixty or so pages of the book Savages by Joe Kane. So far it is a really interesting read. The book discusses the author's role in the petroleum conflict between the American petroleum company DuPont and the Huaorani Indians. The Huaorani indians are Ecuadorian natives whose very ways of life are being maimed by the profiteering of companies like DuPont. I'm not too far into the book and it is getting more and more interesting with every page.
On our way to Guayaquil, we stopped for a couple hours to tour a banana and cocoa plantation. I had never realized exactly how chocolate had been made until we visited this plantation today -- we saw the cocoa plant and got to taste its fruit. It was strange to taste it. It tasted more like a fruit chew than it tasted like chocolate. Later, though, we learned that chocolate was made by cooking the cocoa fruit seeds and then combining them with the fermentation of the cocoa plant's flesh. We didn't see the process itself but listening to our guide explain it was really interesting. Later on, our guide showed us how bananas are grown, cleaned, and harvested. The picture above is of a bunch of bananas that didn't make the cut. The destiny of these bananas will be to be fed to the pigs at the hacienda. The pigs or the cows. Either way, it was pretty weird to see a giant pile of bananas strewn about the place.
We finally got to Guayaquil around 2:30. The bus ride was really hot and sticky so when we got to the hotel, everybody was able to refresh themselves by jumping in the pool. Later, we took a walking city tour that outlined a lot of the general history of Guayaquil and also showed us some of the interesting sights around the city. One of the more interesting things I saw on the tour, let alone our whole trip in Ecuador, was a city park that had all sorts of wildlife in it. It was highly unusual to see about 40-50 pretty large iguanas just roaming around a city park. I wish I would have brought my camera to show a picture of this but I left it in my hotel room. The iguanas are mostly harmless and they just walk around in the park's sidewalks, hang out in the park's bushes, or climb in the park's trees.
