Kashama: Un Poco de Paraíso.

After Quininde, we headed to our hotel room that Anne had previously reserved. But Ben remembered this exotic place he had gone for P Day while on the mish. It's called Kashama and for the life of us, we could not find the place!! We happened to see a policeman on the side of the road so we pulled over and Chuck asked him if he knew where it was. He steered us in the right direction and after traveling through dirt roads and ghetto barrios, we came accross a little piece of heaven on earth called Kashama. When we arrived it was nearly 8pm so it was pitch dark and we were in the middle of the rainforest to boot! Miles away from civilization. Needless to say, we were all a little bit hesitant. As we entered, we thought maybe the place was shut down because it was really dark and the little houses (which reminded me of Hobitville) were totally closed up and dark. So just as we're getting ready to turn this around and head back to our original hotel, a cute Ecuadorian girl flips on the light and what seemed out of nowhere to me opened these wide doors on one of the houses to reveal the check-in desk. It was crazy weird. So while Chuck and Ben were talking to the girl about prices, Melissa and I were falling in love with the place. So TROPICAL!! The girl let us go check out the rooms so we walked down this little stone pathway to a beautiful view...a natural waterfall (with a rope swing!)

The place was so beautiful and exotic that we knew we would regret it if we didn't stay. Either that or we were REALLY going to regret it!! :)
They asked if we were hungry...YES!! They flipped on the lights in the resturant, turned on the music, fired up the grill and cooked us up a hot meal.
We explored the place and found a steam room so we all changed into our swimming suits and headed on over. It was so hot and smelled yummy like eucalyptus and lavender. We just sat in there and talked. It was so relaxing and the perfect way to end the day. Little did I know that the following day, Mother Nature would provide her own little steam room for us. Uuugggghhhh...
Then it was off to our room for a good night's sleep. It had been a long day. And how cool is that I was spending the night in the middle of PARADISE?
Our room...















The following morning, we headed down to our breakfast. They fed us the yummiest bread and jam, eggs and hot chocolate and a juice made from “tomate de arbol” which means “Tree Tomato”. I loved trying different things in Ecuador. They have a lot of different fruits there that we don't have here in the States. And the avocado and bananas were AMAZING! Did I mention that Ecuador has incredible hot chocolate! So good! It's really bittersweet like dark chocolate, which I love.

We decided to go for a little hike through the forest. It was so humid!!! I have never experienced humidity like that before. Charlie looked like he just got out of the shower! (I'm laughing just thinking about it!!) We were all just dripping. But it was so green and beautiful.

The top of the waterfall







Remember when I mentioned in an earlier post that bananas start as a flower? Well, here it is! The little yellow pistons is what will develop into a beautiful bunch of bananas.




This tree was the craziest thing we'd ever seen! It looked like it had dread locks! I have no idea what in the world it is but I loved it. Each plant growing from the tree was different.

















Chuck and Ben...at home!



Where your dishsoap comes from...palmolives!













Surrounded by beauty



Hot, sweaty and bloated...let's take a picture!!



I wondered what he was thinking...I think he misses Ecuador and now I know why.