La Selva Amazonas de Ecuador

Jungle Flower

It's hard to believe that a little more than a week ago it was early morning and I was waking up in the Amazon jungle to the sound of howler monkeys, buzzing insects, the "chuck chuck" of treefrogs and Oropendola birds gurgling in the background. In the days since I returned home, I've been trying to hold on to those sensations--the smells, tastes, sounds and sights of la selva Amazonas de Ecuador. The other day I bought some papaya for breakfast, and sat on my porch at sunrise to listen and watch for birds. But it's just not the same, and the memories of the tropics are slowly starting to fade. The only solution is to go back again, which I will gladly do.

Squirrel Monkey

This September, I had the opportunity to travel to Ecuador with my husband for some work he was doing in Quito, and Tena, a small city on the edge of the Amazon jungle. We spent a week in each of those cities and while he worked, I was happily occupied hunting for birds and nature and exploring. The great thing about foreign travel is that everything is new and interesting, because it's not what you're used to at home. I am always sure that people who see me with my camera walking around and tracking their common birds and insects think I am strange, but to me they were all exciting. Ecuador has some of the greatest biodiversity in the world and every day there was another new thing for me. You can see some of my observations by clicking these links to albums on my photo website (Quito, Tena, Sani Lodge). After the working part of the trip was finished, we took advantage of our proximity to the eastern (jungle) side of the country and booked a short stay in an eco lodge in the Ecuadorian Amazon. It was one of the best experiences we have ever had. We chose Sani Lodge, which is located on the Napo River, near the Yasuní National Park. Besides having very good reviews online and in guide books, one of the reasons we chose this place is that it is owned and operated by the local Kichwa Sani Isla community. The lodge provides an income source for the community of about 600 people, while also sharing the natural beauty of their land and educating the public about their culture, in addition to promoting sustainable ecotourism.

Sani Lodge

It takes a bit of work to get to Sani Lodge. We drove first for about 3 hours from Tena to Coca, a port city on the Río Napo, which is a tributary to the Amazon river. There is a small airport there, too. At Coca, we met our guide, Olger, and his assistant, Johnny, who we would be teamed with for the entire stay, and we began a 3 hour journey down the Napo River in a motorized canoe. It was interesting to ride down the river. The Río Napo is a water highway, with lots of other motorized canoes, river taxis, and even some river cruise ships. There is quite a bit of petroleum exploration and industry in the area and we were passed several times by large barges hauling gas and oil semi trucks and heavy building machinery. It made me selfishly sad to see all that industry so close to the Amazon, but they do bring income to very poor people, so it is unfair for an outsider like myself to be too judgmental about it, specially while riding in a gas powered canoe. But this is yet another good reason to support an eco lodge which gives the local people a more environmentally sustainable way to earn a living. The expertise of the boat captain was apparent as we wove back and forth across the river to avoid the ever changing sand bars and hazards on the wide river.

Motorized Canoes at Coca

Oil Trucks head up the Napo River

Eventually we arrived at the dock for Sani Lodge, but we still had some travel ahead. A 10-minute walk on a boardwalk through a mangrove swamp gave us our first tastes of the jungle. We really lucked out with our guides. Olger was a highly trained and experienced guide, and an expert birder. He knew about the culture and natural history of everything around us and could call the birds, monkeys and caimans. He helped me add 60 new birds to my list during our stay. Johnny didn't speak much English, but he had a keen eye and ear and knew when something interesting was near. Typically, Johnny was in the lead, using a machete to clear vines and fallen branches from the trails, while Olger was right behind, carrying his birding scope and guiding us. We followed them like that for 3 1/2 days of hikes and adventures. On the short walk that first day we saw Black Mantled Tamarin monkeys, giant Blue Morpho butterflies and some neat birds--Woodcreepers and Anis. We were told that anacondas frequent the water under the path and lake, as well as piranhas and electric eels, so no swimming! Soon we came the end of the boardwalk and another dock from which we rode in a paddle canoe across Lake Challuacocha to the actual lodge. As we floated through dark mangrove channels with hanging vines and thick greenery, our guide pointed out the birds and monkey sounds. It was a perfect welcome to the jungle.

Black Mantled Tamarin

Owl Butterfly

The lodge itself is a collection of thatched buildings at the edge of the lake, tucked in amongst the trees. Ours was a small but comfortable cabin with beds and a bathroom and shower. The covered front porch was a pleasant shady spot to sit and watch birds in the trees, or for my husband to play his guitar. We had electricity for lights and to charge our devices, provided by a solar array on the lake, and hot water from solar water heaters. Mosquito netting over the beds kept the bugs away at night. For our meals (and they fed us very well!), we ate on an open porch next to the water because they were re-thatching the roof of the dining room. I was just as happy sitting by the water because we could see turtles and the resident caiman, and heard the Pauraque (Nightjar) calling at dusk.

Hoatzins, aka "Stinky Turkeys"

After dinner on our first evening, we put on our rubber boots and took a night hike. I forgot to mention that it had rained hard the 2 days prior to our visit and the water was high and the trails were muddy. All our hikes for the rest of the trip were muddy. We slogged along a trail behind the lodge with our flashlights and my camera. I really hoped we would see some of the charismatic mega fauna--aka, anteaters, anacondas or sloths. We did not see any of those, but we saw enough other great critters that I was happy anyway. Our guide told us that sloths are pretty common, but that they are really hard to see. They don't move much, live high up, and have great camouflage, so the odds were against us. But I wore my lucky sloth earrings just in case. As we walked, Olger and Johnny flicked their flashlights on the underbrush, looking for the reflective eyes of spiders, snakes and birds. They found lots of neat bugs and some frogs and toads, and a skinny boa hanging down from a tree branch that we almost walked into. It was just so cool! Art and I were giddy when we got back to our cabin, and really excited about our morning's adventure, even though we had to meet the guides at 5:30am.

Boa

Tree Frog

It rained again that night and I fretted a bit about how to handle my camera gear. I had a poncho, and a rain cover for the backpack, but wondered during the night if I'd even be able to pull out any cameras if it was raining heavily. It turned out that my worries were misplaced because the rain cleared up, but my point and shoot camera didn't charge properly, and the extra battery I should have checked for that morning was left behind in the cabin in another bag. I won't do that again next time I visit. Luckily I had 2 cameras, but they had specific lenses and I was not prepared to take any landscape shots, which is unfortunate. Thank goodness for my husband's phone!

Blue and Yellow Macaws

Our visit that morning was to the observation tower in the canopy of a huge Ceibo or Kapok tree. We began with a canoe ride across the misty lake. It was just getting light and the birds and monkeys were stirring. The Red Howler monkeys started to roar and we saw bands of them clamber through the treetops on the shore. A short walk up the trail brought us to the base of an enormous tree, hundreds of years old. There was a metal stair constructed next to the tree to climb the 100 feet to the platform at the top. Johnny had walked ahead of us and was already there with our breakfast, which we enjoyed from the top of a tree while looking out over the jungle below. It was incredibly luxurious. We looked for Harpy eagles, which are often found there, but didn't see them this time. We did see toucans, macaws, parrots, monkeys and lots of small and colorful perching birds. This is a link to a video about the observation tower on the Sani Lodge web page.

Looking out over the Jungle Canopy

Black-faced Dacnis at the top of the Kapok Tree

Masked Crimson Tanager

After about an hour in the Kapok tree, we climbed down and hiked through the jungle for the rest of the morning. Even though it was very hot outside (the Chachalaca birds were calling that morning, so we knew it was going to be a scorcher!) the dark jungle was fairly pleasant, if steamy and muddy. The light made photography tough, but I managed. We saw lots of interesting insects and toads and followed a band of Titi monkeys off the trail but never quite caught up with them. We had several hours of exploration every morning and afternoon and ended up walking 6-7 miles a day by my reckoning.

Fantastic Bugs

After lunch that afternoon we hiked behind the lodge, where we had been the night before. We found a boa (perhaps the same one that had hung down over the trail!) but this one had a full belly. Pancha, a wild peccary that adopted the lodge, followed us on the hike, stopping every few feet to root around in the mud, looking for food. She would insert herself in the middle of our group and then stop. If we tried to get around her she would block the path for a while, and then move on. Or she would run off, but a few minutes later we'd hear a commotion behind us or to the side, and in would run this wild peccary. Another visitor to the lodge told us that Pancha sometimes rode in the canoes. She was pretty funny. Deep in the woods we came upon 2 bands of monkeys rustling in the trees overhead--some capuchins and some squirrel monkeys. The leader of the capuchins apparently considered us a threat, and so he started breaking big branches off of the trees and throwing them down near us, from 40-50 feet up! We all got away safely, Pancha included.

Hiking with a Wild Peccary

Angry Capuchin

The next morning we were up early again in order to see the parrots at the clay lick. Parrots and macaws need to eat clay to help them process toxic fruits and seeds in their diet. They arrive in large flocks at clay deposits at the river banks in the early morning. We were lucky to see a large group of 4 species of parrots and parakeets. Olger noticed some parrots hopping about in the trees nearby and said there was probably a snake worrying them. Of course, he was right. His ability to spot animals from a distance was a constant source of amazement to us. He would see the animal right away, find it in his birding scope, and then spent a lot of time helping us to find it. We had a tough time seeing the snake. He finally borrowed my camera so he could take a picture for us. After we got home and looked at the pictures on the big screen, I came to believe that there were 2 large snakes. The photos aren't great, but we saw the diamond pattern of a boa on one branch and hanging loops of a larger snake on another.

Parrots and Parakeets at the Clay Lick

Snakes Bothering the Parrots

After the clay lick we visited the Yasuni National Park and hiked through "Terra Firma"--literally "firm earth", land that is high and dry, out of the floodplain. In the heat and humidity, it was more tiring than I expected to climb up, but the views were worth it. And we saw or heard 6 species of monkey, saw tapir tracks, and spotted a Long-tailed Potoo. Yasuní National Park is huge we only saw a small fraction of it. We were surprised to learn that there are remote sections of the preserve where a few isolated tribes still live, preferring to remain separate from modern culture, some of the very few isolated cultures in the world today.

Long-tailed Potoo

After the hike, we rode down the river again and visited the Sani Isla community that is supported by Sani Lodge. We saw their school, examples of farms, crops, solar and water systems, and were treated to a lunch of traditional foods. We ate grilled sweet plantain, and palm hearts wrapped in leaves and cooked over the fire. It was delicious. Afterwards, we saw and purchased some of the handicrafts that the women of the community create to sell. We also took turns shooting darts at a banana from a blowgun. I whiffed the banana the first 2 times, but shot it through and through the third time!

Roasted Plantains and Palm Hearts

Nailed It!

After dinner we took a night paddle and that was probably the most magical thing either of us has ever seen. We went out on the dark water in the quiet canoe. The moon was full a few nights before and had not risen yet and the sky was very dark, so the brilliant stars of the milky way shone from all edges of the horizon. And then we saw the fireflies. I have no idea how many species they have there, but there were so many flashes of light, and they were everywhere. The size and intensity of the glow varied from the trees down to the water plants. And another tiny species glowed on the water's surface, like someone stirred a campfire and sent sparks flying. It was so, so beautiful and was a deeply moving experience. As we paddled, we looked for animals. We kept our flashlights off, but Olger would turn his on in a quick burst and scan, looking once again for eye reflections. We found a caiman and paddled closer, and watched as it sunk down into the water and away. Then he saw something further back, about 50 yards, and said, "I think that's a snake".  As we got closer, we saw a boa, thin as a rope, hanging from one of the leafy plants. Once again, our guide's ability to spot from far away just wowed us.

Pencil Thin Boa

The last day took us on hiking trails into the jungle on two sides of the lake. We followed fresh tapir and peccary tracks, but never saw the animals that left them. How a 300 pound mammal could hide from us is beyond me, but the forests are thick and vast. We saw some more marvelous birds, more insects, more toads, no snakes this time, and no sloths. We saw the flowers and fluff from Kapok trees (used at the end of darts in the dart gun to give something to blow against), Strangler Figs, bromeliads and curare vines (one of the sources of poison for darts). At the end of the day, our expert guides exhibited their superior observation skills once again. After some conversation with Johnny, Olger trained his scope on a tree far, far back in the forest and said, "look, I think this is a monkey finger". Sure enough, we saw one little finger hanging onto a knob on a tree! Then he sent Johnny back to thump on the tree with his machete and we watched in awe as this sleepy looking Night Monkey raised its head in confusion and looked around. It was simply amazing and a wonderful way to end the day.

Strangler Fig

Surprised Noisy Night Monkey

On the way back to the lodge that evening, we lingered a little to get some last moments floating on the smooth water, listening to the sounds and watching the birds coming in to roost. The stars were just starting to appear as we pulled up to the lodge. The next morning we loaded everything back into the canoe and took our trip in reverse, back up the Napo River, and back to Coca, then to Quito and home to Georgia. We were back home again in hours, but a world away. And now the Amazon is a sweet memory that we yearn to repeat.

Evening Paddle