Turkey Day in the Jungle!!

This Thanksgiving I joined some friends in the jungle for some turkeys. Some girls living in Macas (in southern Ecuador in the Amazon basin) rented out a hotel with cabins and approx 40-50 Americans living or traveling in Ecuador where there as well. The girls organized the meal and we were given access to the hotel kitchen for the day. Everyone teamed up and tackled a Thanksgiving dish. And some others did some Amazonian drinks...the chichi mentioned in a previous blog with spit included. I missed out on this cultural experience…darn. However in American custom, we made a huge pan of green bean casserole. And yes, someone brought those fried onion toppings from the states.




(In the beer bottles, is homemade fruit wine)

All the food smelled just like home, we were only lacking Aunt Joyce’s sweet tea. ;) After dinner the Macas volunteers organized a Rey (King) Competition, because Queen Competitions here in Ecuador are taken very seriously, so they did a men’s version. It included a bathing suit, talent, traditional outfit and question portion, and it was certainly very funny. The talent portion consisted of guitar playing, chopping stuff with a machete in midair, blow dart shooting, and a bottle dance. The bottle dance is putting a beer bottle on the floor and suggestively dancing around it.



Some of us went hiking after Thanksgiving to a waterfall. Our guide told us how it was traditionally used as a religious site where people would take hallucinogenic drugs and hang out for three days after fasting. We left out the drugs, and just played in the waterfall, it was beautiful just the same.





The Sunday after Thanksgiving was the national census, and every person in Ecuador was on lock down in their houses from 7am-5pm, while high school students went door-to-door filling out census forms. I lucked out here and never had to fill anything out :)