I am back from Ecuador and am missing the jungle every day I am not there! Personally, I experienced more culture shock when returning back to the USA than I did when first arriving in South America. Upon reflection, it has changed my day to day and how I see the world we are living in. Studying abroad is so different than learning in a classroom because of the realness it gives the lessons. Instead of learning about different species in the Amazon jungle from a textbook, we were able to go on hikes and identify those species in the wild. Being immersed in cultures other than your own can be daunting, but experiential learning is truly the best way to fully appreciate others’ way of life. I truly I got to experience every ecologist’s dream — I was in some of the most biodiverse places on the planet and living in truly sustainable communities. I learned more about the needed efforts for conservation and preservation of these areas and the impacts it could have and so many scales from globally to the tiny villages nested along the river we explored. This experience helped me prove to myself that I am capable of doing research and academia abroad, even in some of the most remote places. I learned a lot about myself on this trip including that I am much more adaptable that I realized and ‘to participate, not to anticipate’ as one of my classmates would say each day. Our activities could change based on weather or availability, so just enjoying whatever was going on was a great adaptation I gained. For future students, I highly recommend this experience if you are interested in the outdoors, sustainability, chemistry, education, Spanish, agriculture, biology, history, ecotourism, or any combination of these topics! The photos show my group on a night hike and me in a hammock in the Amazon!