Day 5- Birds, town pictures

Hello readers! Get ready yet another update of the life in Ecuador. To start off this day number 5, June 11^th, I seized a voluntary opportunity to catch a bird watching session early in the morning. Our group as a whole was planning on going to this bird sanctuary later in the afternoon, however, one of our leaders, Sam, is quite the “bird nerd” as he likes to call himself, and took some of us to catch the rare birds in the early morning. The bird shoot was amazing, knowing that I love birds. After we got back, Massimo was ready to fill us on some insightful new photography tips. The bird sanctuary was ready for us yet again as we all went together later that afternoon. From hummingbirds of all colors, to toucans and exotic birds, it was nice to fix my mistakes from the early morning shoot and receive satisfying pictures. After this our leaders gave us the opportunity to walk around town and soak in the culture of the town. We took many pictures of the town as well. My group of 2 and I met this little boy and we kept on calling him funny, but he denied it every time and said, “No!” “Tu, tu, tu!” After a good load of town pictures, the leaders surprised us with a little chocolate making lesson. We learned that the seeds from a fruit called cocoa were used to make the one and only, chocolate. The fruit around the seeds was absolutely scrumptious and made us all sad that they didn’t sell them in America. Maybe they do, we still need to investigate. The seeds were then steamed on a pot over fire to dry out the centers. Peeling the seeds was next. We all fuddled with the steaming seeds working off the shells one by one. The next step was to grind the seeds in the grinder until it reached a nice gooey pulp. The pure chocolate was then mixed with milk and delicious brown sugar to make a fondue in which we dipped fruits of all kinds. So yummy. Dinner was probably the last thing on our minds, but we chowed it down happily and had a nice sleep that night.