I just got back to Coca from Sani Lodge in the Amazon, and it was unbelievable. I feel like I just went to Pandora for a week. I got the best guide at Sani lodge, Javier, and he and his brother Mizaél found some of the rarest creatures on the planet for me and the rest of my group.
On Monday I got to Coca (full name Puerto Francisco de Orellana) at 4:30 in the morning and wandered around until I found a hotel to sleep in for 5 hours until I had to meet the boat to the lodge. (I´m very glad I didn´t learn until just a few minutes ago that Coca is a fairly dangerous city at night.) The ride into the forest took 3 hours, and the lodge sits about 50 miles as the crow flies from Coca. It´s in the middle of the territory of the Kichwa people, who inhabit most of the northern forest of Ecuador from the foothills of the Andes and down. The Sani Island community is a Kichwa commune and the only community on this stretch of river actively resisting oil development on their lands. Javier told us about how the Sani community refused to let the oil companies build a road through their territory, thus forcing them to build a pipeline instead. The pipeline will become property of the community after 11 more years (it was built around 1999) and then the oil company will have to rent it. Since Sani has refused oil development, the lodge sits in the middle of a huge expanse of untouched primary forest that shelters almost every known species of the Amazon. (Ecuador is among the most biodiverse nations on earth, with over 10% of all plant species and 10% of all vertebrates.)
The lodge is about 25 minutes away from the Rio Napo, and we had to transfer to a few smaller canoes to get there. It sits on a blackwater lagoon, habitat for a bunch of unique species that don´t live in the big river channels, like the endangered Black Caiman. To get to the campsite, where I stayed, or most of the hiking trails, you have to paddle up the lake, because the edges are swampy and you can´t really walk around it. The forest is incredible. Everywhere you look is an impenetrable wall of green, with thousands of plants growing all on top of each other in a mad race to get to the sunlight.
We didn´t really do anything else on Monday other than settle in and meet the other members of our guide groups. The rest of mine were 2 guys from South Africa who've been living in London for the last 10 years and a family from the San Francisco area. They have three girls who are 14, 10, and 6 years old, and were super fun travel companions. Tuesday morning after breakfast at 6:00 we paddled and hiked to the bird tower, a 120 foot tall staircase leading up to a treehouse at the top of a 400 year-old Great Kapok tree. You could see the canopy for miles around, and we spotted red howler monkeys, a toucan, and several kinds of parrots and hawks. Later in the afternoon we hiked the loop trail behind the campsite and saw bats, a family of nocturnal monkeys hiding in a hollow tree, and tons of bugs and other birds and plants.
Wednesday was easily the best day of my entire summer. It felt like we were living out Avatar as we motored another hour downriver past huge barges loaded with cranes and bulldozers and backhoes and constructions sites where they were excavating new pipelines and roads, and just past the last site we ran into a group of bufeos, the Giant Amazon river dolphins. They´re totally blind and navigate with ecolocation, and they were swimming out of the lagoon where they eat at night into the Napo where they spend the day. But they were scared to pass by the barge and machinery, because the noise of the motors and engines made it hard for them to see as they swam by. We were headed to the lagoon for swimming and a snack break at an under-construction lodge, and on the way we saw a three-toed sloth lazing around in a Kapok tree. After our swim we went even further into the forest to fish for piranhas (I caught one!), and that´s where we saw our most incredible creatures. Mari (the youngest girl) spotted a Taira (a black weasel\racoon-like creature) in a tree, and as we watched it a group of giant river otters came swimming up the river toward us! I had asked Javier if we would see them, but he told me we probably wouldn´t, as they´re critically endangered and nominated as one of the rarest animals on the planet. We all felt incredibly lucky, and we were too embarassed to tell any of the other guests about our find, because no one else saw anything near as cool all week.
We did a short night hike that night and found tons of cool stick bugs and millipedes and spiders, and yesterday we toured Javier's uncle's farm and saw his coffee and cacao trees and got to taste the fresh cacao beans. Delicious. Our last hike we saw some more medicinal plants, a quicksand swamp, and trumpeter birds, which are very skittish and hard to find. Coming back to civilization today was a huge disappointment. But now I only have one week left until´I'll be seeing you all back home, and I can't wait for that.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
More Pictures
Angelo was kind enough to give me a bunch of pictures he's taken over the last couple weeks, and they're up on photobucket. There are some of the fruit and fish markets in Puerto Lopez along with the ones from our trip to the cloud forest outside of town.
Last Friday's dive trip was awesome - we saw tons of different corals and fish. Afterward we took the kids in ecoclub out snorkeling and found an octopus and a stingray. They all loved it, but we were all freezing by the end of the day. (All last week was drizzly and cold.)
On Saturday Angelo and I took a taxi about 10 minutes up into the hills behind Puerto Lopez to El Pital, a tiny town in the Cloud Forest. Our guide was probably 17 or 18 years old, and he showed us all kinds of medicinal plants and even tracked down a group of howler monkeys for us. The uses of the plants we saw include: curing snake-bites ("if you boil just the right amount. Too much and you lose your mind"), curing fevers, stopping bleeding, and putting you to sleep, among others. It was a great day, but after hiking almost 10 miles in ankle-deep mud the whole way, we were exhausted.
Yesterday and today we've been working on repainting the mural on the front wall of the E. Azul house, which just needs a couple more details redone. And today on turtle capture I caught two more hawksbills! That brings my total to 7, and Jose Luis says I've captured more than twice as many turtles as any volunteer since he's worked at Equilibrio.
Other than that I've been wrapping up my hatchery report and some other work things, and tomorrow I'll be packing for my trip to the Andes and the Amazon. I probably won't have internet access again for about a week and a half, so next post won't be till the week before I get home.
Last Friday's dive trip was awesome - we saw tons of different corals and fish. Afterward we took the kids in ecoclub out snorkeling and found an octopus and a stingray. They all loved it, but we were all freezing by the end of the day. (All last week was drizzly and cold.)
On Saturday Angelo and I took a taxi about 10 minutes up into the hills behind Puerto Lopez to El Pital, a tiny town in the Cloud Forest. Our guide was probably 17 or 18 years old, and he showed us all kinds of medicinal plants and even tracked down a group of howler monkeys for us. The uses of the plants we saw include: curing snake-bites ("if you boil just the right amount. Too much and you lose your mind"), curing fevers, stopping bleeding, and putting you to sleep, among others. It was a great day, but after hiking almost 10 miles in ankle-deep mud the whole way, we were exhausted.
Yesterday and today we've been working on repainting the mural on the front wall of the E. Azul house, which just needs a couple more details redone. And today on turtle capture I caught two more hawksbills! That brings my total to 7, and Jose Luis says I've captured more than twice as many turtles as any volunteer since he's worked at Equilibrio.
Other than that I've been wrapping up my hatchery report and some other work things, and tomorrow I'll be packing for my trip to the Andes and the Amazon. I probably won't have internet access again for about a week and a half, so next post won't be till the week before I get home.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Amazon!
Things are really picking up around here for my last few weeks. I'm working on finishing up my turtle hatchery report to submit to Gabi, and then it's full steam ahead until I come home on the 1st!
Some American documentary film-makers arrived here today to take some footage of Machalilla Park, and Angelo and I get to go to the Island with them tomorrow and be their nature guides. We'll take them to see the albatross and red-fotted boobies (really the only two birds you might not see without a guide) and show them the turtle nests we marked last week, as well as doing a quick check for other possible nests laid since we left. The two guys are from Oregon and work for a big conservation group (I want to say the Nature Conservancy but I can't remember for sure). They're going to donate all of their footage to their organization and give Equilibrio anything we want as well.
On Friday, I finally get to go diving! We're going to search for Hawksbills again, bringing the filmers along for the ride, so Gabis says I'd better catch one. Then in the afternoon we're taking the little kids from ecoclub on their first snorkeling trip, which will definitely be an adventure, hopefully in a good way ;)
This weekend, Angelo and I are planning to go to the Cloud Forest nearby for a day trip, and possibly go visit Los Frailes as well. Los Frailes is a collection of beaches a few kilometers north of Puerto Lopez, commonly said to be some of the best in Ecuador, so we'd love to go do some snorkeling there.
Halfway through next week, my big plans start. I'm going to leave on Thursday for a vacation, and I'm staying at an eco-lodge in the Amazon! My plan so far is this:
Thursday 15 - Take an early bus to Guayaquil and from there to Cuenca, a really cool city in the mountains.
Friday and Saturday 16-17 - Explore Cuenca's old town and visit the Montecristi Panama Hat factory and the Incan ruins at Ingapirca.
Saturday night - Night bus from Cuenca to Quito (12-15 hours, ughh)
Sunday 18 - Pay for my stay at the eco-lodge, night bus to Coca in the Amazon (10 hours)
Monday to Friday 19-23 - Travel to Sani Lodge by boat from Coca (3 hours). At the lodge I'm staying in their tents instead of a room for half price. The lodge is situated on an oxbow lake between two national parks. From the bar at the lodge you can see endangered black caimans and tons of aquatic bird species. To get to the forest trails, you first canoe across the lake, where you can also fish for piranhas, and the lodge provides one bilingual guide and one wildlife tracking guide on each excursion. They have a 100 foot tall canopy tower for bird watching and several trails of different lengths. You can also pay $25 extra to enter the park and visit a clay lick where parrots congregate, and $15 to visit a lagoon and see the bufeos (pink river dolphins). They also do night hikes to see nocturnal wildlife and night-time canoe trips for caiman spotting. Needless to say, I couldn't be more excited!
Saturday 24 - Hang out in Quito and night bus back to Puerto Lopez (12 hours....)
Sunday 25 - First day of my last week in Ecuador!
Some American documentary film-makers arrived here today to take some footage of Machalilla Park, and Angelo and I get to go to the Island with them tomorrow and be their nature guides. We'll take them to see the albatross and red-fotted boobies (really the only two birds you might not see without a guide) and show them the turtle nests we marked last week, as well as doing a quick check for other possible nests laid since we left. The two guys are from Oregon and work for a big conservation group (I want to say the Nature Conservancy but I can't remember for sure). They're going to donate all of their footage to their organization and give Equilibrio anything we want as well.
On Friday, I finally get to go diving! We're going to search for Hawksbills again, bringing the filmers along for the ride, so Gabis says I'd better catch one. Then in the afternoon we're taking the little kids from ecoclub on their first snorkeling trip, which will definitely be an adventure, hopefully in a good way ;)
This weekend, Angelo and I are planning to go to the Cloud Forest nearby for a day trip, and possibly go visit Los Frailes as well. Los Frailes is a collection of beaches a few kilometers north of Puerto Lopez, commonly said to be some of the best in Ecuador, so we'd love to go do some snorkeling there.
Halfway through next week, my big plans start. I'm going to leave on Thursday for a vacation, and I'm staying at an eco-lodge in the Amazon! My plan so far is this:
Thursday 15 - Take an early bus to Guayaquil and from there to Cuenca, a really cool city in the mountains.
Friday and Saturday 16-17 - Explore Cuenca's old town and visit the Montecristi Panama Hat factory and the Incan ruins at Ingapirca.
Saturday night - Night bus from Cuenca to Quito (12-15 hours, ughh)
Sunday 18 - Pay for my stay at the eco-lodge, night bus to Coca in the Amazon (10 hours)
Monday to Friday 19-23 - Travel to Sani Lodge by boat from Coca (3 hours). At the lodge I'm staying in their tents instead of a room for half price. The lodge is situated on an oxbow lake between two national parks. From the bar at the lodge you can see endangered black caimans and tons of aquatic bird species. To get to the forest trails, you first canoe across the lake, where you can also fish for piranhas, and the lodge provides one bilingual guide and one wildlife tracking guide on each excursion. They have a 100 foot tall canopy tower for bird watching and several trails of different lengths. You can also pay $25 extra to enter the park and visit a clay lick where parrots congregate, and $15 to visit a lagoon and see the bufeos (pink river dolphins). They also do night hikes to see nocturnal wildlife and night-time canoe trips for caiman spotting. Needless to say, I couldn't be more excited!
Saturday 24 - Hang out in Quito and night bus back to Puerto Lopez (12 hours....)
Sunday 25 - First day of my last week in Ecuador!
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Back from the Island (with more pictures!)
I'm back and enjoying the weekend after another 8 days without a shower. The island was super fun this time - there was another group of biologists there with Angelo and Sandra and I, and they were great people. Diana and Felipe are from Columbia (their accents are super hard to understand) and Jacobo is from Italy. They were putting GPS tags on the Nazca Boobies to track their flights, and they got some interesting results. Nazcas are the biggest of the boobies on Isla de la Plata, and they fly 60-100 miles out to sea every day to fish. The depth gauges on the tags also showed that they can dive down 150 feet underwater! Most of the time they stay near the surface though. The weirdest thing, though, was that one of the birds flew over 50 miles in a perfectly straight line going due south one day. When we zoomed in close to its path (the GPS takes a new point every second, so you get really good resolution) we saw that it would make little sideways deviations of about 200 meters, but always return to its original line, and when you zoom out it looks like someone drew it with a ruler. All of this is without being able to see land at any point on the journey. Pretty amazing.
Every day after we'd finished our census and they'd recollected their tags in the afternoon, we went back to the house and Jacobo oversaw dinner preparations. We had pasta with fresh homemade tomato sauce, ceviche made with fish from the pescadores down the beach, patacones (fried sweet plantain cakes), and big fresh potato salads. We ate better than we do here in town, come to think of it. It was such a fun experience to be able to talk to people from all over the world working on different projects, everyone speaking sort of Spanglitalian and working on their second (and third) languages. Felipe lives in North Carolina right now, and Diana has studied both English and Italian in school, and Jacobo can also speak both Spanish and English very well. It definitely made me want to keep studying biology and to pick up another language on the way.
To top it all off, on Friday, Angelo and I's last night, a turtle came up to lay a nest! It was the first one on the island in exactly a month, and it was unmarked, so we had to stay with it from 2 in the morning till 5 while it dug for an hour, laid eggs for an hour, and covered them for another. We also had to tag it and take a DNA sample, measure it, count the eggs, and mark the nest when it was done - all by ourselves because everyone else had left already. I was super tired and a little grumpy with the turtle at the time, but I'm glad we got to mark a nest before we left.
Diana sent me some really good pictures, which I've already put up on photobucket, and I'll see if I can get some that Angelo took of the turtle, too. Hasta luego!
Every day after we'd finished our census and they'd recollected their tags in the afternoon, we went back to the house and Jacobo oversaw dinner preparations. We had pasta with fresh homemade tomato sauce, ceviche made with fish from the pescadores down the beach, patacones (fried sweet plantain cakes), and big fresh potato salads. We ate better than we do here in town, come to think of it. It was such a fun experience to be able to talk to people from all over the world working on different projects, everyone speaking sort of Spanglitalian and working on their second (and third) languages. Felipe lives in North Carolina right now, and Diana has studied both English and Italian in school, and Jacobo can also speak both Spanish and English very well. It definitely made me want to keep studying biology and to pick up another language on the way.
To top it all off, on Friday, Angelo and I's last night, a turtle came up to lay a nest! It was the first one on the island in exactly a month, and it was unmarked, so we had to stay with it from 2 in the morning till 5 while it dug for an hour, laid eggs for an hour, and covered them for another. We also had to tag it and take a DNA sample, measure it, count the eggs, and mark the nest when it was done - all by ourselves because everyone else had left already. I was super tired and a little grumpy with the turtle at the time, but I'm glad we got to mark a nest before we left.
Diana sent me some really good pictures, which I've already put up on photobucket, and I'll see if I can get some that Angelo took of the turtle, too. Hasta luego!
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