My Last 3 weeks

Summary of the rest of the summer.
August 6-August 27
So I have accomplished a lot these last nine weeks and today is the last day of my “school-less” summer. Here is a brief summary of my South American experiences and I will fill in all the details in later posts so I can tell you all exactly what went down!
I was not able to post blogs over the last month or so of my trip because I was traveling throughout this country’s diverse ecosystems as well as interesting cultures and communities. Many of the places I traveled to did not have electricity, let alone internet connections, so I couldn’t really whip out my Mac book and blog as much as I would have liked to. But I am going to give you all a summary of what I did:
After Lago Agrio I went to Quito and had my 18thbirthday
Before I forget, be sure to check out the film Crude since it is finally in theaters this September and it will give you the history of the devastation Chevron left in Ecuador in the Lago Agrio region and that I have now experienced first hand:
www.crudethemovie.com
After my birthday celebration, I explored Guayaquil, the second biggest city in Ecuador, with some of my interesting international friends where we celebrated Ecuador’s 200 years of freedom.
With this same group of friends, we continued on to Montanita, a surf and youth community where we spent all hours of the day playing on the beach. We stayed up all night wandering down the one street in town and swimming and making bon fires on the beach till sunrise! I love Montanita!
From August 13 – 23, I met up with a group of “Yoga-ers” and adventurers lead by the Pachamama Alliance and YogaWorks in Quito where we started our ten day yoga travel adventure. First we went to Otovalo, a city in the north (an outdoor market I went to earlier and wrote about in this blog), then we went to Puyo, the last city before we ventured deep into the Amazon rainforest that was close, super south, to the border with Peru. There I learned about the ancient indigenous Achuar culture and participated in their traditions, rituals, daily activities and cultural exchanges. Then we explored the relaxing hot springs in Banos and finally ended our journey by returning to an interesting hotel in Quito, Café Cultura. Every day we practiced yoga in the most incredible natural settings and I hope to continue my practice when I return to the states.
I stayed in Quito for a couple days just hanging out with my family and newfound friends before I cried my eyes out when I had to leave and return to the Bay Area.
Tomorrow I start school! My summer adventure is over, but my life adventures are just beginning! I will write about my summer in more detail with a day-by-day replay when I have a moment, since this is my senior year and it is pretty hectic with classes, extracurricular activities, SAT tests, college applications, catching up with friends and having a life, so I just am being real and letting everyone know what’s up!