Today we woke up early and got breakfast at the hotel. The breakfast was very fancy it was not buffet like the other hotels. We left the hotel at 8 am to start our drive to the Amazon! On our 5 hour bus ride Diego provided us with a lot of information. He told us that when the conquistadors came to Ecuador they kicked the locals out of the city and they fled to the mountains. The conquistadors introduced cattle to Ecuador which introduced a new grass species that took over Ecuador. They never used wood for construction they just used stone. We stopped in Loja and ate lunch. Loja was the first city in Ecuador to start recycling. This city has wind turbines that powers all the city and Zamora. Along the way to Zamora we saw beautiful waterfalls. We also learned about the dam in the Amazon. This dam is actually the Minas-San Francisco hydroelectric power station it has a capacity of 275.61MW. The turbines have an installed capacity of 91.87MW each with an efficiency of 91.5% in normal operational conditions. This plant helps reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by offsetting 690,000t of carbon dioxide a year (Minas-San Francisco Hydroelectric Power Station, 2020). I think that this hydroelectric power project was a really smart investment for Ecuador. Diego also told us about the Cinchona tree that is used to cure malaria it was named after the Queen of France. We finally arrived at the Jocoto Lodge in Zamora and checked into our rooms. Then for the rest of the afternoon I hung out by the dinning area watching the hummingbirds. While we were sitting by the dinning area we saw the Black Agouti that was really cool it looked like a big rat. Then we ate dinner and had a birthday cake for Taylor for dessert. We then had a discussion about Paul from yesterday. Tait told us that the really big houses means that the people are abroad because most people in the area can not afford it. We talked about how cheap it is living here and how health care benefits are extremely cheap. After our discussion I went back to my room to go to bed.
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