For our week in the Ecuadorian Amazon Rain forest, we stayed at a lodge called Gaia Amazon Lodge located outside of Tena, Ecuador. Our stay was very well organized with a morning activity and an afternoon activity each day. We also had all our meals prepared for us.
We normally don’t go for this type of trip, but it worked out perfectly, especially given that we were in the middle of the rain forest and it would be hard to organize it all ourselves. The lodge also offered Spanish classes, but we opted to skip them in lieu of more activities (we would have had Spanish in the morning and just one activity in the afternoon otherwise), particularly since all of the tours were in Spanish anyway, so we got to work on our Spanish that way. We also got lucky because, completely by chance, another American family with three boys (from Minnesota no less!) ended up staying in the same lodge as us, so the kids and adults all got new people to hang out with for the week!
Being the rain forest, there were also several heavy downpours during which we hunkered down in the main lodge area with a deck of cards.
Even though all our belongings were safely under cover, by the end of our stay every single item of clothing we owned was either wet, dirty, or wet and dirty.
Besides the main lodge where we congregated for meals and to hang out, we had our own lodge to sleep in. The rooms were very spacious and comfortable.
The noises of the rain forest lulled us all into a nice slumber each night and the monkeys running along our roof and jumping into the trees woke us in the morning. Not a bad way to do it!
We did do one of our activities at the lodge and it was a big hit with all the kids – chocolate making! To begin with we watched a video about Ecuadorian chocolate being sold in the US in a fancy package for $240! It even came with chopsticks because it was too divine to be touched by hands. So here is how to make it…
So the verdict? Well, I’d love to tell you that it was not only the best chocolate I’d ever eaten, but the best anything I’d ever eaten. Sadly and embarrassingly it was almost inedible for all of us without at least adding more sugar. Even then let’s just say we were all grateful we didn’t spend $240 on it. Sorry again Ecuadorian chocolate! We won’t judge your ridiculous luxury marketing strategy if you promise not to judge our permanently sugar impaired western taste buds…deal?
All in all, we had a great time at the lodge, but of course, the most important part of the trip was all of the activities! We’ve shared a few so far, but we’ve got lots more activities for you in our next Amazon post!
