Trip to the Amazon!

Last month our group of exchange students took a trip to Iquitos, a city located in the northeast of Peru on the Amazon river. The trip was five days, four of which were spent in a lodge directly on the river. The lodge was super cool! It felt like something you would see in the Animal Kingdom park in Disney world. All of the hallways were outdoors, covered by roofs made of straw. The only indoor areas of the lodge were the rooms. In the center of the complex there was an outdoor pool (it was amazing to swim under the stars at night), a dining room and a lounge area with hammocks, games and a bar. The lodge was completely surrounded by rain forest and when you walk out the front entrance you're right on the Amazon river! We had to take boats to get anywhere. It was awesome. Oh and the food they served was so good. So much fresh fish, fruits, salads, beans, etc.  and it was all buffet! So delicious.

We spent the four days doing activities such as hikes through the rain forest, fishing on the river, visiting Amazonian tribes living in the forest, visiting a local elementary school, and boat safari adventures. Each day was a different adventure! We saw all sorts of exotic animals such as monkeys, manatees, jaguars, sloths, etc. It was incredible. It felt so good to have 4 days away from internet connection, away from city life. It was special to just connect with nature, to be together in the middle of the rain forest.

If I had to pick a favorite moment of the trip it would probably be swimming in the Amazon River. I was with a group of about 10 other exchange students on a boat, and one of my friends asked our tour guide if we were allowed to swim. He said yes and brought us out into the middle of the river. A bunch of my friends all stripped down into their underwear and jumped off the boat. I didn't get in at first because I was down to my last dry pair of clothes and I didn't want to have to deal with more wet clothes. Eventually though, my friend Lea (who was also not so keen on the idea of getting everything wet) and I looked at each other and said, ''Screw it! We're going to regret it if we don't.'' So we climbed to the edge of the boat and one by one, jumped into the river. All of our friends that were already in were cheering and swimming over to us. It was so awesome. We just kept saying to each other, ''OH MY GOD WE ARE IN THE AMAZON RIVER!'' We swam around in there for a few minutes, and then climbed back into the boat, absolutely soaked. It was a total pain to have to deal with wet clothes, but Lea and I were right- we absolutely would have regretted it had we not jumped.

One other moment that was really memorable for me was the boat ride back into the city. It took us about and hour and a half to get from our lodge back to the city of Iquitos where the airport is. We were all exhausted from the long five days so almost everyone was asleep. I was sitting next to Lea in the front seat of the boat. She had fallen asleep so I put in my headphones and fired up one of my favorite playlists. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing our hair, the view was beautiful and I felt alive. I spent that hour and a half just thinking. Thinking about my life, my exchange, myself. It was right there in that moment that I realized how truly happy I am. I had spent so many years of my life, sitting behind a desk in a classroom full of kids wondering why I was there. Asking myself why I was just sitting in a school building learning things by listening to someone talk about them, and not by going out and discovering them for myself. I always used to sit around and think about what I could be doing instead- all of the places I could travel, the things I could see, the people I could help, the lessons I could learn. And yet there I was, waking up in the same bed that I had my whole life, going to the same school I had my whole life, seeing the same faces and the same places that I always had. I wanted to see something else, to learn new things, to see new faces. I wanted to stand out. To be different. I wanted to do more than what I was doing at home.

And then I came back to reality and there I was, sitting in a boat on the Amazon River, surrounded by the largest tropical rain forest in the world... After having lived in this beautiful country for almost 10 months. That's when I realized...I did it. I made it happen. I found my way out of that classroom. I found a way to discover the world in my own way, to see it through my own eyes. I did it and it feels amazing.