Thursday the highlight of the day was when we saw a Toucan during Spanish class in the outdoor classroom! Someone commented that he looked just like the Fruit Loops Toucan, haha.

To follow up on the bird story, he returned Thursday morning too to bash his head into the window and I asked one of the guys that works at the Ecolodge, Giovanni, what the deal was. He told me that basically the birds are stupid and can't tell that the reflection in the glass is themselves BUT he also told me that sometimes monkeys come up on the porch of the cabinas and move furniture around and hit the glass! I'd be so afraid to see some crazed monkey beating the glass. Some other people saw a monkey do that later, but unfortunately I wasn't there so I still haven't accomplished my goal of seeing a monkey. Oh and Thursday night me and my roommate Nikki decided to do an experiment. So we cut out shapes of mouths(don't ask, it was her idea) and other birds(like they have on the windows in the rest of the Ecolodge) out of notebook paper with manicure scissors and used bandaids to tape them to the window. I regret to say that out experiment was only partially successful as the bird came back Friday morning, however he did adjust where on the window he hit because of the mouth shapes. Success!

Friday we had class and finished early so we could go to our homestays a day earlier than we had thought. We were supposed to be packed to go at 3pm and then we had to split into groups for the different areas so I ended up being the last one to get to my homestay at about 6pm. However, I'm not complaining because originally we were supposed to carry our bags up and/or down the mountains to get there, and I got a ride to my house.

I am staying with Doña Alicia(which basically means Mrs. Alicia) far away from everyone else. She owns the waterfall(catarata) here. She lives alone but she has 11 children(who are all grown and married) and she said that everyday one comes to visit. Last night her daughter Ana and Ana's grandson Diego(about 2 years old) came to eat dinner with us and then spend the night. After dinner the four of us sat outside on the porch and watched the giant toads and joked about how the toads wanted to drink coffee and from Diego's sippy cup(chupon), which made Diego really upset, haha. We went to our rooms about 8:15 and I ended up going to sleep about 8:45. This morning when I went to take a shower I was a little afraid because I had heard so many stories about cold showers and when I got there there was only one knob to turn and it had a big ole "C" on it. BUT! to my surprise, after a few seconds the water was warm!! So apparently I am one of the few who has had a warm shower! And my bed was extremely comfortable, so I'm pretty happy(go ahead parents, make your jokes). However, many of you will be surprised to know that I woke up at 6am this morning.

Today we got up, walked to meet at the Ecolodge, and then left to walk down the mountain to get to the Ecobamboo place. The walk took a little over an hour of almost straight downhill. Ecobamboo is a cooperative where a group of women work making handmade recycled paper. We helped them for a little while and then split ways(I returned to the town of Santa Elena, where I am writing from now).

The walk from my house to campus is quite nice. It takes about 15-20 minutes, depending on how fast I walk. Along the way I can hear a lot of different birds, and the scenery is really pretty. I have to ford two(or three depending on how much it has rained) little rivers on my walk. For the first I walk across a board laid across the rocks and the second has a little bridge made of a board and some rocks. So I really am traveling "over the river and through the woods" to get to school(ha ha ha?). Did I mention that I have to go uphill both ways?