Last Day

We made the long journey back to Quito: 6 am canoe ride to a mile hike to a 2 hour motorized canoe ride to a car to a plane to the city. Then an Uber to our lovely hotel, where the proprietress let us check in early. We rested and Phil went out in a downpour to visit the National Basilica. 

Dinner was at what our proprietress claimed is the best restaurant in Ecuador, Somos. I didn’t know that it was the best when I chose it; we were just excited by the idea of guinea pig dumplings. They were exquisite—-everything about the restaurant, from cocktails to dessert, was fabulous. 

Ah, the joy of a long night's sleep! We woke refreshed, though slightly unwell due to the Quito pollution and elevation, breakfasted leisurely (no 5 am jaunt in the jungle!) and ubered to El Panecillo, an aluminum mosaic statue of the Virgin of Quito that stands nearly 140 feet high overlooking the city. The vistas were glorious, and we went up in the statue to admire the stained glass and still more views.

Then we walked down to the Metropolitan Cathedral to see the famous Last Supper with guinea pig (it’s on the serving tray) and nativity with llama. We’d missed the Last Supper when we went before — and it turns out that was because Phil had mistaken the church of Santo Domingo for the Metropolitan Cathedral. Quito has a LOT of churches.

Back to the Casa Anabela, which allowed us to stay as long as we needed. Then to the airport, back to JFK, and home—by 4 am, we hope.*  **

Ecuador has been marvelous, full of challenge and adventure, pleasure and exhaustion, astonishing animal life and gracious, kind people who have forgiven our nearly nonexistent Spanish (though Ben saved the day several times with remnants of high school language class). We’ll be glad to be home, but we’re very glad we went.

*It is 9:48 pm and we are still at the Quito airport. Our original flight, nonstop to JFK, broke, and Avianca replaced a 700 passenger plane with a 120 passenger plane, bumping the other 580. Utter chaos ensued. A kind woman — not an Avianca employee, they were all hiding — told us that passengers were being offered a choice of flying to Bogota and overnighting there before continuing to New York, or flying out 24 hours later. She also told us that some people who’d been bumped the day before still hadn’t gotten home, and that on Saturday the entire airport was closing for an undetermined period to repave the runways. So we bought tickets on Delta thru Atlanta, arriving at JFK 12 hours later than expected. This hasn’t happened to us for decades, so I suppose we were due, but it still sucks. Hate Avianca, do not hate Ecuador. (But really, who closes an entire airport and cancels all the flights just to repave the runways?)

**We made it, only 12 hours (and considerable dollars) later! We did get to see a very drunk lady get hauled off the plane in Atlanta after loudly predicting the plane's crash and insisting she was en route to Atlanta when she was in Atlanta. She went peaceably. I will spend many hours this weekend on the phone with Avianca trying to get my money back.

RAIN Forest

 We were awakened in the night (some of us) to crashing thunder and heavy rain. It's drizzled some here, but this was our first full-fledged rain. We went down at 6:30 to meet Alex as instructed, and he told us to try again at 7. So at 7, in a mild downpour, we met to trek a mile and a half to the special feature of Sacha Lodge, the crane. It takes you up above the canopy and

then revolves gently 360 degrees, so you see everything below. While we waited, we nervously watched a bullet ant, whose sting is supposedly the most painful in the world.

 What a view! We saw many happy squirrel monkeys leaping and playing. Some new birds, not pictured because they were kind of far away for photos. Bright red howler monkeys. Weaver bird nests. Just being up there was absolutely amazing and more than made up for the wait and the slog through mud and rain in our (not too comfy) wellies. 

We had a special lunch with Alex; we were served many indigenous dishes, including a river fish, the enormous arapaima, a fern salad, a pork dish, cassava, and plantains. Very tasty AND educational; Alex explained how the people in his village hunted, gathered, and grew the ingredients.

At four we headed out on the capybara hunt Alex had designed for us. The other couples had left that morning,  so we were lucky enough to get private guiding. First we (by which I mean Alex) canoed across the lagoon and down a black water creek (so called because of its dark water from the tannins of rotting vegetation). We watched squirrel monkeys leap 30 feet in the air like acrobats, across the creek and back. 

Then we went off the beaten track on a narrow and muddy path, where we walked for a good three miles and saw a large yellow footed tortoise, a caiman lizard, and a baby horned frog, something Alex had never seen before. He was so excited he was practically hyperventilating.

Finally we got to the motor canoe landing on the Napo River and met our captain. We set out going upriver, watching a beautiful sunset and scanning the shoreline for capybaras, seeing many birds and some howler monkeys. At one point the boat got stuck on a sandbar and Alex had to jump up and down to help wriggle it free. We imagined spending the night on the river -- without our can of bug spray -- and decided we'd rather not.

In the dark, we watched for eyes on land. Alex was so eager that he was standing on the prow of the boat like a tattooed figurehead (well, also to watch for river detritus that could sink us).When we got to the sandbar where he had previously seen our prey, we saw a round white shape on the sand . Alex yelled, “Capybara! Capybara!” Then it stood up  — on 2 legs. Oops. It was a boat-billed heron. 

We continued searching for a bit after that and saw a young caiman, but no capybara. Still, the outing was a thrill and a success—a brand-new frog, monkeys, a tortoise, rare herons, and at the very end, a deranged opossum trying to swim across the river. A fitting end to our last day at Sacha.

So Many Stairs

 

This morning was the Canopy Walk. Sacha Lodge has its own canopy walk, built among three platforms exceedingly high in the sky. We started out walking in our wellies in the dark and reached the first staircase at dawn. 

Nearly 200 steps later, we arrived, panting and sweating, at the first platform. We stayed there awhile, watching a variety of birds flit about (photos below).

Then we walked, most cautiously, to the second platform. Two of

our group were afraid of heights, so walking on the swaying bridge between platforms was a real challenge for them. But they persevered. We stayed for over an hour, spotting all manner of birds, from the toucan to the snail kite. Alex found birds everywhere and photographed them for us through his telescope. He has an amazing ability to mimic almost any bird; he talks to them and convinces them to come to us. And he knows every single kind of bird, flower, tree, mammal, reptile, and amphibian. He is quite remarkable.

When we finally got to the third platform he showed us a tiny four-eyed opossum sound asleep under the structure.

We descended and headed back, stopping to view a couple of  crested owls in a tree. A fine ending to a successful birding!

After a hefty nap and a hefty lunch, we left on our afternoon canoeing trip. We went down the Anaconda Creek, so called because it has no anacondas, apparently. What it did have was MONKEYS. 

We saw troupes of capuchins, squirrel monkeys, and howler monkeys, careening through the trees and generally acting adorable. They all live together peaceably, though within their separate troupes. 

We arrived back in time for a cocktail and delicious dinner; tomorrow we get to sleep till 5:30! And we will go on an expedition specifically to find me some capybaras, because Alex has it in his head that I must see them. No guarantees...

These are some of the birds we saw. Pete, your challenge is to identify them in the comments!

I Love the Smell of Hoatzins in the Morning

 It was quite a trip to the Sacha Lodge. We were met at the airport by a representative who gave us boarding passes. There was a half-hour flight to Coca, where we were collected and brought to the Sacha offices, given a snack and life vest, and piled onto a large covered motorized canoe. We motored for 2 hours up the Napo River, a tributary of the Amazon. The boat had to zigzag continuously because the water was low and there were many things floating that were best to avoid. We passed many small communities and one flaming gas pipe; the only wildlife we saw clearly were egrets. 

When we landed, we (there were 14 other people with us, all related or friends or something and very loud) got into real canoes and were paddled to another landing, where we disembarked and walked a mile to the lodge. The one very very old woman in the group got a kind of hand-pulled wheelchair, for which she was extremely grateful. 

We finally got to the lodge, which is stunning. We were given a welcome drink and introduced to our group's guide, Alejandro. There is a British couple and an Australian couple in our group; the others are not with us, tg. We chose wellies for the muddy walks (I of course had to return mine for different sizes a couple of times, as good as Zappos) and then went to our luxurious cabins. Lovely AC and a big balcony overlooking the jungle. 

Because our flight was delayed 3 hours (construction at the Quito airport closed the whole thing down), we were offered a night walk. First came dinner, steak and swordfish, quite delicious. Then we put on our wellies and bug spray (which didn't really help, just fyi), and went out into the darkness. I spotted a gigantic frog almost immediately, which gave Alejandro entirely the wrong idea about my wildlife abilities. We saw poison dart frogs, many creepy but non-fatal insects, and spiders of all sizes, including the scarily-named scorpion spider. It was incredibly hot and we got many mosquito bites, but oddly they don't itch much after the first hour or so. 

Ben and I decided to forego the morning excursion, which began at 5 and included a visit to an indigenous village. Instead, we

slept in a bit and then went for a refreshing swim in the pool, fenced-in so we would not be eaten by piranhas. We saw hoatzins (which Peter studied during a miserable stint in Venezuela) and an agouti and many blue morpho butterflies. Ben got to view a family of monkeys cavorting outside his cabin. 

Meanwhile, Phil arose at 5, had a massive breakfast, and headed out in a canoe with several

others to go to a parakeet lick. They had to view it from a distance, so there are no photos.

After that, they went to a local village -- or

rather, a small settlement where a couple of women agreed to interact and teach about their lives. Phil got to blow a poison-arrow dart (mildly successful) and eat a smoked grub (entirely successful, in that he did not vomit), see how the local beer is brewed, and taste a variety of non-insect-life treats. The trip was long and very hot; he enjoyed it but I don't regret staying behind. 

After a long rest, we set out in a canoe through the black water creek which was quiet (tho nothing is ever really quiet here). We took a short walk to see some owl monkeys hanging out in a hole in a tree, then continued to an endless staircase that led up a gigantic kapok tree to a platform in the canopy.  

Up there we saw a flock of chestnut-eared aracaris, who

courted each other for a while. 

On the way back, after dark, Alex spotted eyes, and we paddled to find a baby caiman hiding in the shallows.Very exciting!

Dinner, then bed. Tomorrow up at 5.

Hummingbirds and Chocolate

So, two big excursions from Quito. The first was to Otovalo, Ecuador’s craft town. Many thanks to Kaz's friend, whose name I forget, for the suggestion! Our driver, Paul, whose name we thought was Raul for 2 days, picked us up and made us eternally grateful we weren't driving ourselves within the first five minutes. It was a 2 hour drive through the Andes mountains. We stopped at a viewing point for a snack that Paul had arranged for us and looked in awe at the Imbabura volcano and lake below as Paul explained the zillions of microclimates that Ecuador boasts. We drove through many of them.

Otovalo was charming. The huge central square was

entirely craftspeople -- mostly real crafts, not pseudo-crafts. We bought a slightly embarrassing number of items, including a woven wallhanging for the new master bedroom, and then had lunch at a very nice restaurant just off the square.

Paul drove us to the  Peguche Waterfall, a sacred spot on the ancient Inca road, through which the equator runs and where the last Inca king used to bathe. We learned how the local shamans, even today, perform cleansing rituals using guinea pigs. Sadly, the guinea pigs die, but the patients feel much better. Under Paul’s direction, to cast out evil spirits we splashed in the pool where the king once bathed. No guinea pigs were harmed.

Twice, once in Otovalo and once at the waterfall, Phil

was interviewed and videotaped by schoolgirls practicing their English. He acquitted himself admirably.

Back in Quito at 7, we headed out to dinner at a rooftop restaurant with a stunning view of the city. All the churches, of which there are more than one can count, are illuminated after dark. Our meals were excellent -- we continue to marvel at how good the food is all over Ecuador.

Friday we got up early and met Paul to head to Mindo, the place where there are, apparently, more bird species than anywhere else in the world. Real dedicated birders stay in the town and hike out at 5 am to see the best birds. Paul had his own ideas. He stopped at a place where we viewed dozens of tanagers of various sorts, a barbet, and toucanettes, and then got

to feed at least ten different kinds of hummingbirds, including the biggest kind and the smallest kind, and two I especially liked, one with a long long tail and one with a sort of bottlebrush tail. As we fed them, they paused to sit on our hands with their teeny tiny feet. It was a lovely, almost transcendent experience. 

After that, we headed to a butterfly garden, which was

as butterfly gardens are quite charming. Many butterflies in all stages of development, all sizes and colors.

Then we went to walk up in the hills for an hour. Moments in, Ben spottted an agouti, and not long after saw a small flock of curassows. Then, it being the cloud forest, it started to rain. We had reached our turnaround point, a sort of pigpen, so we

sheltered there as it pelted down and watched a number of unidentifiable birds flit about the treetops in the rain (thanks to Peter for the amazing binoculars!). 

We walked back damply and stopped for a lunch that included a yummy cocoa drink. Paul revealed that he is a conspiracy theorist -- we started with evolution (at which point I began feeling rather uncomfortable) and moved on to UFOs and then the Freemasons and the Illuminati. I decided that I would pretend the whole conversation never happened; otherwise, he was a charming and very informed guide.

We headed to a chocolate factory that made very

bespoke chocolate (only sold at two shops in Ecuador). Welearned all about the making of chocolate and had an extremely thorough tasting of chocolate, from 100% cacao to 60% and with various additions, and hot cocoa and cocoa tea. I was offered a chocolate mask for my skin and jumped at the chance, not realizing how I would be pilloried if photos of the results ever got online (you see where this is going, right?). 

We got back to Quito at nearly 7, and Ben and I went

out for a cocktail (Phil was a bit under the weather). We hadn't known that Quito, which shuts down after dark, has a weekend personality. Every street was a block party with music and dancing and stuff for sale. We had a long talk with a very hetty artist from Colombia who created marvelous items in copper and aluminum wire, and Ben bought two wire insects. (He did not get the praying mantis, for which Phil thanks him.)

In the morning, we will say goodbye to Quito, but we will return for an overnight after our sojourn in the rainforest.