The 5:00 a.m. wake-up knock on our door was a little rough, but it was our last full day in the rainforest! We ate breakfast with our group and headed down to the docks where Dan and Carlos had the canoes ready.
We paddled out on the lagoon into a canal entrance on the far shore. We rode in utter silence as the sun rose behind a cloudy sky.
My daughter who traveled with me has a beautiful way with words as well as with photography. She has written more in depth about the feelings and sensations at the Sacha Lodge in El Coca Rainforest.
Here are her first three posts on our Ecuador trip.
Post #1
http://ashleycaron.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/o-dark-hundred/
Post #2
http://ashleycaron.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/the-jungle-that-wasnt/
Post #3
http://ashleycaron.wordpress.com/2012/05/19/lodge-ical-conclusion/
I hope you enjoy her writing and photography!
After our morning visit to the Parrot Clay Lick, Daughter and I decided to go back and visit the Mariposario again. It was incredibly hot, but a lot of fun to see the butterflies so active. Once I get the butterflies identified, I will switch the photos from slideshow to individual photos.
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The morning of Thursday May 3rd we were up and leaving in our canoe by 5:30 am and heading for the Yasuni National Park to see the Parrot Clay Lick. 
Because of the intense rain from the past two days, we weren’t sure if the clay would be too wet for the parrots. The group that had traveled out to the Clay Lick on Wednesday May 2nd did not see any and were very disappointed. We were hopeful that the dry weather of yesterday afternoon and evening and that since it was still dry in the morning that perhaps some might show up. We took a canoe ride to the dock where we could walk to the Napo River. 
Then we took the motorized canoe up the river to the Yasuni National Park. 
The parrots used to visit a location on the island but when the visitor center was built, it was located too close to the clay lick. 
The parrots then relocated to a spot on the river bank. When we arrived at the clay lick, we could see some parrots in the trees and a Caracara at the top of the trees, but the clay wall was clear. The caracara is a bird of prey related to falcons, but usually goes for small amphibians, insects and is sometime referred to as a “tickbird”.
yellow headed caracara
We stopped the boat a good distance away so as not to frighten the parrots, but where we could still see them. It took a long time and the parrots slowly crept along the branches closer and closer to the wall.
yellow crowned amazon parrot
Eventually they were hanging in bunches on the roots in front of the wall. Once one of them was brave enough to approach the wall, others quickly joined in. We were surprised to see a blue headed parrot mixed in with all the others.
parrots on the clay lick
A question was raised about why clay and why this clay. Our Naturalist guide shared with us that it is thought that the clay absorbs toxins from some of the seeds and other food eaten by the birds. There are also minerals and sodium that the birds do not get in their regular diet.
unidentified bird
snowy egret 1
snowy egret 2
snowy egret in flight
Pied Plover
turtle
This was just the morning of May 3rd. What a great day already and it was only one-third of the way through!
I know I haven’t finished posting the Ecuador photos, but while gardening (our traditional Mother’s Day activity) this Monarch butterfly ignored all the chaos around it as it flew from flower to flower gathering nectar. Just had to photograph and post it.
Monarch on a chive flower
On May 2nd we were allowed to sleep in until 6am. Breakfast was at 6:30 and our morning hike at 7am. We were truly in the rainforest. The rain was coming down heavy and hard. I was so thrilled to have those “wellies” and my rain poncho. That being said, I quickly realized that the waterproof DSLR bag did nothing for a fogged up lens. I also had forgotten to treat my eyeglasses with anti-fog liquid AND I had forgotten my microfiber cloths to wipe off the glass! Ah well. I only did that ONCE! It was still an amazing hike. Our Naturalist, Dan, talked about how the term “Jungle” actually refers to the “Secondary Forest” and so only applies to part of the area owned by the Sacha Lodge. We walked through Primary Forest, Secondary Forest, and then canoed through the Flooded Forest areas. We saw Cicada “chimneys.”
Poison Frogs
Whip Spider
Wine Cup mushrooms
Squirrel Monkeys
and stood at the base of a HUGE Kapok tree.
At one point, our Native Guide, Carlos, started weaving very long palm frond strands into a flat rope and then created a crown. It is used for celebrations in his culture and was given to Ashley. Ashley took very good care of it and when we left, kept it in a large Ziploc bag. The Agriculture Customs Inspection determined that it was safe to enter the country and allowed her to bring it home!
When we returned from our morning hike, we checked out our cabin and Ashley tried out the hammock on our deck. 
I separated all the parts of the DSLR, removed the battery and SD card and dried what I dared to touch with the microfiber cloths. I then put all the parts into the Lodge supplied “Dry box” and opened two of the 8 silica gel tins and added them to the box as well. The dry box is a 2 shelf wooden box with a lamp running in the bottom shelf continuously. This keeps the box warm and dry and allows moisture to evaporate. By the time we were headed out for our afternoon hike, the camera components were nice and dry again. We started out our afternoon hike by going to the Mariposario. We needed to make sure we did not have any bug repellant on us in order to enter the building. The Sacha Lodge makes additional income by breeding butterflies and selling them to butterfly facilities all over the world. As we were walking down the path to our meeting place, we saw some Leafcutter ants crossing the sidewalk. They are really amazing creatures.
When we approached the Mariposario, I noticed there was a large garden behind the building. All of the different plants are for breeding and feeding the butterflies in their different stages of development. Around the edges of the garden, there were papaya and banana trees. Whatever the monkey’s don’t get first, just may end up on the table in the Lodge.
To enter the Butterfly facility, we had to go through 2 separate rooms before entering the main area to try to prevent “escapees”. As it was, one of the butterflies had made it as far as the outer room. Once inside, the area looked a lot like a rustic version of the butterfly exhibit we have at our Reiman Gardens. (Definitely not as fancy though.)
These butterflies are the Owl Eye Butterflies. They were found everywhere we went.
Isabella’s Longwing butterfly
Aging butterfly hitching a ride!
After leaving the Mariposario, we hiked to the Canopy Walkway, a 940-foot (275-meter) long 94 feet (30 meters) tall suspended bridge. There are 14 flights of stairs with a narrow landing at the end of each one. Someone counted the steps, and I can’t remember the total exactly but it was something like 120+ stairs. As some of you know, I was practicing for weeks by hiking up and down my stairs 15 times and up to twice a day. Good news and bad news for me. The bad news was that I forgot I would be wearing an 8 pound camera bag on my back and 2 pounds of rubber boots on my feet instead of being barefoot with a t-shirt and shorts. The good news is that my legs were fine after the climb. My lungs had a bit of difficulty and I was the very LAST person in our group who made it up the tower. Daughter was first up the tower though and raced through the climb like a squirrel monkey flying through the trees. Ahhh to be 25 and in shape again…
At the top of the tower, the view was awe inspiring. As pretty as the trees are when you are on the ground looking up at these impossibly tall trees, they are just as beautiful looking down at the tops of them. In the distance you can see the red flowers of a tree in bloom. These flowers can’t be seen from the ground while they are still on the tree, but by our last day of hiking they had dropped and little pink and red flowers had covered parts of the trails as we walked over them.
While we were up there we were able to see several types of birds through a scope that Dan had hauled with him. He carried that scope every day on every hike. There were many times that the scope allowed us all to see incredible wild life that we otherwise might have missed.
Since it was already afternoon and the morning had heavy downpours, the birds and other wildlife were further away than to be hoped for, but were there none the less. One of the funniest moments on the trip was when Dan spotted the “Sloth” which he said was likely we wouldn’t get to see. When we looked through the scope, all we could see was this fuzzy lump. I tried to get a photo and enlarge it to see if we could see the face, but I am not even sure that I photographed the same thing that was in the scope. Whenever we had trouble spotting something after that, Dan was asked if he made it up like the sloth? Dan takes teasing VERY well. As far as I am concerned, this brown lump IS a sloth – so now I can check that off my list!
The first thing I saw when I got to the top of the tower and stepped onto the bridge were these hanging bags. Dan told me they were the nests of an Orependola bird. I thought pendulum nests for an orependola. A bit later we were able to see the bird that builds these nests.
Band Tailed Orependula
We also saw the Violaceus Jay.
Violaceus Jay
More to come on this post!
Daughter and I spent all day on April 30th traveling to Ecuador. When we arrived, we discovered that in spite of our well-meaning Verizon rep’s instructions, the cell phones could send a text home but the phone feature didn’t work. As a result, we couldn’t call the hotel to find out the shuttle time. (I also couldn’t call the hotel from the USA but I assumed that was because I hadn’t yet activated the international roaming feature yet. WRONG!) We hired an “Airport taxi” to take us to the hotel, which worked out really well. Our driver was both interesting and nice and spoke some english. Neither Daughter nor I speak spanish although I remember a bit and was able to work out some communication during the week. Thank you 4 years of high school Latin, 3 years of high school French, 2 years of high school German, and 1 year of intensive Spanish in college. Of course all of that was 30 years ago, but enough came back to help out. Driving through Quito at night is quite different from the day. The city looks very sketchy, graffiti covered walls, metal doors, bars and gates over most windows and doors, and we passed what I translated as an auto repossession lot that had a lot of angry people, cars lined up and about 6 police cars with lights flashing lined up outside. The hotel outside looked fine and looked quite ornate once we were inside the doors. Our hotel room appeared to be upscale, until Daughter sat in a poufy leather chair and realized it was broken. The neighbors next door were quite active and loud – but it lasted only about 20 minutes. Overnight the toilet started running and I realized they had put a bottle in the tank to cut down on the water usage and the neck of the bottle had gotten stuck under the drain plug. After I corrected that the toilet stopped running for a while then started up again. This time it was the float ball that wasn’t rising up high enough. I got that fixed and finally got to sleep. I didn’t have enough Spanish to explain to a maintenance worker what was wrong and since I knew how to fix the problem, I just took care of it. In the morning, we were able to look out our window and see a bit of the city. 
The first thing that struck me about Quito is that unlike “The States” there are very few if any buildings that are the same size, color, or shape as one near by. They also spread their houses right up and around the side of the mountain in the background. From the airplane at night, it made a really pretty spiral pattern as we were coming in to land. (The light was too low for the speed we were traveling to get a decent photo.) I thought this house below was really interesting. It was directly below the hotel window. I couldn’t tell if it was a compound of houses or part business and part house.
We left pretty early in the morning since the shuttle only left on the hour and we didn’t want to be late for our flight to El Coca. When we arrived at the airport, there was a police officer guarding the entry door with a shotgun, but nothing like one I have seen before. Luckily we saw a little restaurant where we could sit and eat breakfast. The place was named Le P’tit Cafe. There was a TV on showing “The Girls of the Playboy Mansion” with Spanish subtitles and no sound. We sat there until it was time to go to the “Tame” airline counter. What we didn’t realize is that there is an inside counter and an outside counter. We waited at the outside counter for a long time. There were of course beggars that came by. Instead of selling anything handmade, they were selling gum. Eventually we decided to check inside, and sure enough, there was the Sacha Lodge representative waiting to greet us. We got our bags checked, and headed off to the waiting area where we met some other families traveling to El Coca and Sacha Lodge.
When we arrived in El Coca, it was already raining. We were met by a naturalist, Dan, who took us to our bus where we were transported to the “Safe House”. During the bus ride, we realized we “weren’t in Kansas anymore” when we saw a man walking a llama down the street. There were carrying packs loaded all over the llama. I didn’t get my camera out in time to snap a photo. The safe house location is behind a locked wooden door on a street which eventually leads down to the Napo River. The lower part of the house is a covered patio with the house above it. We only entered the patio area which had 6-8 four person tables and a small kitchenette. Waiting for us there were sandwiches, fruit, water bottles, coffee, tea, a dispenser for purified water to refill water bottles. Our suitcases were covered with waterproof bags and put onto the boats while we were waiting. We also were given life jackets and heavyweight ponchos for the 2 hour boat ride down the Napo river. Here we are on the boat before departing. The three of us sat in the back of the boat as we were the most adventurous and the most likely to get soaked from the rain. Which was indeed the case!
The boat ride lasted for 2 hours and along the way were able to see some black birds which I later identified as Greater Ani. (Verified by our Naturalist Guide.)
Above is the Napo River dock for the Sacha Lodge. After disembarking, dropping off our life vests and stopping at a covered shelter for a bathroom break, we set off for our 30 minute hike through the forest. Daughter noticed that I looked like a turtle with my rain poncho pushed out over my camera backpack.
There were a lot of plants that we have as potted house plants just growing in the wild. We also saw a lot of interesting flowers
and insects but these are 1+ inch long “Bullet Ants”. We were advised to be VERY careful not to touch these ants as their bite is extremely painful and that extreme pain lasts for several days; our Naturalist Guide Dan spoke from personal experience.
Once we finished our 30 minute hike through the forest, we got in a regular canoe this time for a 20 minute trip through the flooded forest.
The flooded forest empties into a lake or lagoon on which you can see the covered deck of the Sacha Lodge above. We passed the deck in our canoes and then traveled on to the dock at the main lodge. The roof is completely covered with woven palm fronds which have to be replaced several times a year. If you look at the window built into the roof of the lodge, you can see there is a second floor to this lodge.
Here is a view inside looking upward to the second floor. The tower behind Daughter goes up to the roof so you can look out over the top of the forest.
Here I am sitting at the second floor window overlooking the forest and the canoe dock. When we arrived, we were given fruity welcome drinks and another snack of fried chicken, pickles, cheese, rolls, cookies, and other things. We also received our cabin assignments and instructions on when to pick up our “wellies” or rubber boots. We would meet our assigned guides at that time.
Our cabin was at the top of the hill and away from the main lodge. This is the walkway between the main lodge and our cabin.
I noticed that we were next to the path that led to the Mariposario (Butterfly breeding center) and that there were a lot of “butterfly” plants growing in front and at the side of our cabin.
Although these are not butterflies, they were pretty and are still an unknown (to me insect)
We walked down to the Deck over the lagoon and looked around. This wonderful British couple went swimming right away. The husband asked his wife to take a photo of him diving off the board and then asked Daughter to take his photo for him. When the wife was climbing the ladder into the lake, she cried out because something had nibbled on her leg. It didn’t break the skin so we were sure it wasn’t one of the piranhas or the caiman that live under the deck! The Brits had a wonderful funny sassy way of talking to anyone and everyone. When Daughter and I discovered they were in our group, we were thrilled! We were also very excited to have the Utah couple in our group. Although they were more quiet and serious, they were a great balance of personalities and a great wealth of information about birds and ecology. The mother (in solid blue shirt) and her daughter were here from Canada. It was nice to see there was another person near Daughter’s age here. The family from Canada also included the dad and the dad’s sister.
My first bird photo was of a Hoatzin or a “Stinky Turkey” as our Naturalist guide, Dan, calls him. The bird was given the nickname as its 2 foot long body resembles a turkey and stinks to high heaven. It is herbivorous eating only fruit and plants.
Although monkeys were supposed to be rarely seen during the start of the rainy season, we saw a LOT of them almost if not every time we went our on our hikes. This is a squirrel monkey and was the type we saw most frequently. They are really funny running and leaping overhead in big circling loops, grabbing fruit and insects and even hanging upside down to eat them.
In the evening of our first day, we took night walk ending in a canoe ride at sunset. It was a beautiful way to end our first day in the rainforest.
