Amazon
So I was in the AMAZON RAINFOREST!! Thats kindof hard for me to believe, even now that I`ve come back. Anyhoo I figure I`ll try to do a play by play so that I don`t miss anything.
So to begin the airport. Our plane was delayed 2 hours for a 40 minute flight. This actually worked well for me because we had been given an assignment that was due in the lodge before we left and I knew there was no way i would want to do it there. (Who wants to do homework in the rainforest???) So I got all but one description done which took all of 5 minutes once I finally did it, and it made those 2 hours fly by. Anyhoo we flew to Coka then took a 10 minute ride in this funky truck thing (i got to sit on top!) to a house that the lodge owned and had lunch. Then we piled into motorized canoes for a 2 hour ride down river to a dock. Then we had a 20-30 minute hike to another dock where we took normalish canoes (they were just really long) across a black lagoon and to Sacha Lodge.
On our hike we saw leaf cutter and bullet ants. Bullet because if they sting/bite (i forget which they do...army ants do both) it feels like you`ve been shot, or so they say. Depending on which guide you ask the sting lasts between 4 and 12 hours. Ow.
Once at the lodge we were welcomed, given some basic info and shown to our rooms. I roomed with Nadia again and or buildling was actually pretty cool. Once again we were across from dr keil (who we have started calling uncle cliff...or tio cliff) and in the middle was a nice common room with satellite tv. We also shared a balcony...complete with hammok!! Our balcony was home to five insect eating bats which was really cool. Our room had a huge window...without curtains...that faced straight into the jungle. About 20 minutes after we got there I saw a tree move...and sure enough there were 2 tamarins! Right from our room...it was amazing. We were the first to see monkeys.
Later that night before dinner i noticed something that looked like a wire coming out of the wall. I thought it was a wire but checked to see if it was a snake anyway...and it was! Nadia got a picture of it and the guides said it was a whip snake. They arent venemous but they use their tail as a weapon, hence the name. This guy was pretty tiny but one of the big herp fans came back to the common area with me and caught it and then I held it. It was pretty cool and I have pictures! About 20 minutes after that some of us went on a night hike with two of the guides and we saw a ton of huge huge bugs including a lot of mating walking sticks. We saw 7 species of tree frog and 1 toad. Also there was a tarantula and a snake they originally thought was the venemous coral snake but soon realized it wasnt. I got to hold him too.
So the next morning we got up late for Sacha....breakfast was at 6:30, then we got all our stuff together and hiked out to do plots. The path ended at the edge of the property where we had lunch and was about 4 miles out. An interesting fact about the path is that it had not been used since the last UD trip used it. The reason we went out that way was because at the edge of the property was a farm...what the rainforest is rapidly being turned into. On a more cheerful note the last half of the hike was through an area that had been farmed 15 years ago. You could tell (bananas, papaya, yuka, guava, coffee, lemon) , but the forest had definitely made a huge comeback. This isnt always easy because of the crappy soil, but still, very cool. But the greatest thing is what happened to my group on our last plot...we saw army ants. The swarm was easily 6 feet wide....probably more...i think it was probably at least 8. Very impressive...and moving towards us. Once the first 2 went up my boot i knew it was time to go. The lodge gave us big rubber boots so i was able to kick them off before they got me but these sucker bite and sting at the same time and are reportedly very painful. So we had to abandon our plot before we finished.
That night my group went spotlighting for caimans around the lagoon. Our guide found one under the outdoor bar/bbq spot deck thing. Anyhoo he was a decent size, but not really big. On the way back I found 6 caimans in about 10 minutes. The first 4 I found when my guide was still there and he was pretty impressed. Anyhow by the end of the trip I found 13 and got the nickname "Caiman Girl" from my guides. Pretty awesome.
Each group had 2 guides, one the naturalist guide who spoke english and spanish, and a native guide who spoke spanish and quichwa (i think i butchered the spelling) the native language. My Natualist guide was Julio, and he was a big joker, but pretty cool. His wife owns a restaurant in Quito and hes going to be in town when we have our farewell party. So he says hes coming and is going to bring his son and daughter who are in their 20s. Our native guide was Sergio and he was very quite, even when speaking in spanish. However he had a subtle sense of humor and spoke more english than he let on. Matteo and I had a nice mixed spanish/english chat with him the last night. In fact he gave me a necklace with a caiman on it, and matteo got one too. Very cool. Actually i dont think he was supposed to give gifts because he gave matt his the last night after he told me he had a caiman something gift for me. He slipped it in my hand really sneaky like the next day before we all left. I think our guides really liked our group because we were excited and wanted to do everything. Most of the other guests were older, probably retired, and they seemed to just be into less strenuous activities. These guides are AMAZING people, they have so much to share. Our two guides were really trying their best to give us the best experience possible, to a degree that I felt was above and beyond what was expected of them as employees of Sacha.
Ok wow so the next day we were up at 5, breakfast at 5:30. We went up some steps around a gigantic ceiba (aka Kapok) and sat up in the tree bird watching. On our way there we saw a huge band of squirrel monkeys with a few capuchin (sp?) monkeys thrown in. We saw them more from in the tree as well as a TON of birds, especially toucans. Dr Keil was with us and he said it was more birds than he usually saw. (Hes been doing these trips for about 10 years now). We also saw a sloth and a howler monkey from a distance. After that we went on the worlds scariest looking zipline swing thing. It was a lot less scary than it looked and a lot of fun. We even got to go twice because Sergio was a good sport and hauled us back to the other side to let us have another go. The afternoon waws free and we went swimming in the lagoon. There are pirana and caiman but they arent really active until after 6. (Active in the will bite you to see if you taste good sense. people went fishing for pirana around 2 and they were definitely biting the raw beef. Anyhow that was fun once i finished being paranoid. Actually the swim was the day we did plots. this day i did go fishing from the docks and caught a 2 incher (woohoo) by accidently spearing it through the side...ouch. But another group went out in a canoe and one of the Lauras caught one big enough to keep. So that night i got to try some...pretty tasty.
That afternoon around 4 we went on a hike looking for medicinal plants. Very interesting. On the way back Sergio found a nut/fruit/something the natives use to paint faces...so we had our faces painted. I dont think this is a typical thing they do because some of the other staff were surprised. I thought it was fun though.
On a lame note the canoe we took back was the one another group took in (one end of the trail ended at the lodge another was only accesible by canoe) had 2 beer bottles in it. Now the profs had been pretty good about quite a few peoples excessive drinking habits. Foreign country, legal drinking, cheap alcohol...etc. But they had said they were concerned that some people were going to far... well over the previously mentioned 2 drink limit. Anyhow that was the last straw so they closed the bar that night until the next night. Stupid that they had to do it because who needs a drink in the middle of the day? Anyhoo the response was very immature in my opinion... "Lets go get wasted now while we can", Lovely.
So the next morning there were quite a few hangovers but i was feeling pretty good. We got up early and headed out to the motorized canoes and went to Yasuni Natl park to a parrot lick. The parrots need to eat some of this special clay to cancel out toxins that are in the seeds they eat. So we saw hundreds and hundreds of parrots. Very cool.
After that we went to a cultural center that is run by the native community (about an hours hike away). There we met a shaman that really arent called shaman but something like yatuk (i think...). Anyhow he cleansed us which was kinda awesome and we got to see what a native house would look like and also got to shoot a real blow gun. Theyre kinda gigantic, matteo got a picture of me doing it but its huge. I actually did pretty well, i hit the post the target was on.
After that we headed back to Sacha for lunch and then went canoeing to go fishing for pirana. I caught one!!! he was definitely bigger than he looks in the picture but still pretty small. But definitely a pirana. His teeth were impressive. Sadly i did not get a picture of that but i do have one of Lauras pirana so its all good.
Then we went back to our rooms to change for the canopy walk and i saw trees moving again. This time it was pygmy marmosets, the smallest primate in the world. They were adorable. I told some guides and a large group of people were able to make it out to see them. (we cut them off in the direction they were going basically) Then we went to the butterfly farm. Each one is worth a lot of money and they raise them at Sacha to cut down on people harvesting them from the wild. Sacha is very pro-conservation. Its part of the reason Sacha is so expensive, some of the money goes to buying up more land and to other conservation practices. Anyhow after that we went up on the canopy walk... a little scary and very high. but awesome. And we saw a storm coming in, which was cool until the torrential rain started. Luckily we got off the walk before it got too intense. And of course we had nice weather the whole time until that last night. But that was perfect because i would have been dissapointed if i hadn`t experienced the rain the is so characteristic of the Amazon.
That night we had a farewell bbq and I talked to sergio for a while and that was cool because previously he had been really quiet and just explained things in spanish, found cool stuff, and helped us fish. But he spoke some bad english and i spoke some worse spanish and matt was a little better with spanish so overall it was pretty cool. I`m glad because we all talked to Julio a lot because he spoke english and i had kinda felt like Sergio got left out, and he had done so much for our group.
Anyhow the next morning we left and came back to Quito. No anacondas, no big caiman, but still...a trip well worth it. (One of the other groups did get to see a huge boa... from what im told the guides were really excited about it. it was a rare find. Jackie (zoo) got a good picture of it)
So that was super long. Anyhow I`ve got to go now because we are going to the equator line. or rather the pseudo equator line. The Incas put a monument up about 100 yards off the actual line based on the sun and the moon. Pretty impressive. I side with the Inca any day, so I`ll have one foot in each hemisphere very shortly.
So to begin the airport. Our plane was delayed 2 hours for a 40 minute flight. This actually worked well for me because we had been given an assignment that was due in the lodge before we left and I knew there was no way i would want to do it there. (Who wants to do homework in the rainforest???) So I got all but one description done which took all of 5 minutes once I finally did it, and it made those 2 hours fly by. Anyhoo we flew to Coka then took a 10 minute ride in this funky truck thing (i got to sit on top!) to a house that the lodge owned and had lunch. Then we piled into motorized canoes for a 2 hour ride down river to a dock. Then we had a 20-30 minute hike to another dock where we took normalish canoes (they were just really long) across a black lagoon and to Sacha Lodge.
On our hike we saw leaf cutter and bullet ants. Bullet because if they sting/bite (i forget which they do...army ants do both) it feels like you`ve been shot, or so they say. Depending on which guide you ask the sting lasts between 4 and 12 hours. Ow.
Once at the lodge we were welcomed, given some basic info and shown to our rooms. I roomed with Nadia again and or buildling was actually pretty cool. Once again we were across from dr keil (who we have started calling uncle cliff...or tio cliff) and in the middle was a nice common room with satellite tv. We also shared a balcony...complete with hammok!! Our balcony was home to five insect eating bats which was really cool. Our room had a huge window...without curtains...that faced straight into the jungle. About 20 minutes after we got there I saw a tree move...and sure enough there were 2 tamarins! Right from our room...it was amazing. We were the first to see monkeys.
Later that night before dinner i noticed something that looked like a wire coming out of the wall. I thought it was a wire but checked to see if it was a snake anyway...and it was! Nadia got a picture of it and the guides said it was a whip snake. They arent venemous but they use their tail as a weapon, hence the name. This guy was pretty tiny but one of the big herp fans came back to the common area with me and caught it and then I held it. It was pretty cool and I have pictures! About 20 minutes after that some of us went on a night hike with two of the guides and we saw a ton of huge huge bugs including a lot of mating walking sticks. We saw 7 species of tree frog and 1 toad. Also there was a tarantula and a snake they originally thought was the venemous coral snake but soon realized it wasnt. I got to hold him too.
So the next morning we got up late for Sacha....breakfast was at 6:30, then we got all our stuff together and hiked out to do plots. The path ended at the edge of the property where we had lunch and was about 4 miles out. An interesting fact about the path is that it had not been used since the last UD trip used it. The reason we went out that way was because at the edge of the property was a farm...what the rainforest is rapidly being turned into. On a more cheerful note the last half of the hike was through an area that had been farmed 15 years ago. You could tell (bananas, papaya, yuka, guava, coffee, lemon) , but the forest had definitely made a huge comeback. This isnt always easy because of the crappy soil, but still, very cool. But the greatest thing is what happened to my group on our last plot...we saw army ants. The swarm was easily 6 feet wide....probably more...i think it was probably at least 8. Very impressive...and moving towards us. Once the first 2 went up my boot i knew it was time to go. The lodge gave us big rubber boots so i was able to kick them off before they got me but these sucker bite and sting at the same time and are reportedly very painful. So we had to abandon our plot before we finished.
That night my group went spotlighting for caimans around the lagoon. Our guide found one under the outdoor bar/bbq spot deck thing. Anyhoo he was a decent size, but not really big. On the way back I found 6 caimans in about 10 minutes. The first 4 I found when my guide was still there and he was pretty impressed. Anyhow by the end of the trip I found 13 and got the nickname "Caiman Girl" from my guides. Pretty awesome.
Each group had 2 guides, one the naturalist guide who spoke english and spanish, and a native guide who spoke spanish and quichwa (i think i butchered the spelling) the native language. My Natualist guide was Julio, and he was a big joker, but pretty cool. His wife owns a restaurant in Quito and hes going to be in town when we have our farewell party. So he says hes coming and is going to bring his son and daughter who are in their 20s. Our native guide was Sergio and he was very quite, even when speaking in spanish. However he had a subtle sense of humor and spoke more english than he let on. Matteo and I had a nice mixed spanish/english chat with him the last night. In fact he gave me a necklace with a caiman on it, and matteo got one too. Very cool. Actually i dont think he was supposed to give gifts because he gave matt his the last night after he told me he had a caiman something gift for me. He slipped it in my hand really sneaky like the next day before we all left. I think our guides really liked our group because we were excited and wanted to do everything. Most of the other guests were older, probably retired, and they seemed to just be into less strenuous activities. These guides are AMAZING people, they have so much to share. Our two guides were really trying their best to give us the best experience possible, to a degree that I felt was above and beyond what was expected of them as employees of Sacha.
Ok wow so the next day we were up at 5, breakfast at 5:30. We went up some steps around a gigantic ceiba (aka Kapok) and sat up in the tree bird watching. On our way there we saw a huge band of squirrel monkeys with a few capuchin (sp?) monkeys thrown in. We saw them more from in the tree as well as a TON of birds, especially toucans. Dr Keil was with us and he said it was more birds than he usually saw. (Hes been doing these trips for about 10 years now). We also saw a sloth and a howler monkey from a distance. After that we went on the worlds scariest looking zipline swing thing. It was a lot less scary than it looked and a lot of fun. We even got to go twice because Sergio was a good sport and hauled us back to the other side to let us have another go. The afternoon waws free and we went swimming in the lagoon. There are pirana and caiman but they arent really active until after 6. (Active in the will bite you to see if you taste good sense. people went fishing for pirana around 2 and they were definitely biting the raw beef. Anyhow that was fun once i finished being paranoid. Actually the swim was the day we did plots. this day i did go fishing from the docks and caught a 2 incher (woohoo) by accidently spearing it through the side...ouch. But another group went out in a canoe and one of the Lauras caught one big enough to keep. So that night i got to try some...pretty tasty.
That afternoon around 4 we went on a hike looking for medicinal plants. Very interesting. On the way back Sergio found a nut/fruit/something the natives use to paint faces...so we had our faces painted. I dont think this is a typical thing they do because some of the other staff were surprised. I thought it was fun though.
On a lame note the canoe we took back was the one another group took in (one end of the trail ended at the lodge another was only accesible by canoe) had 2 beer bottles in it. Now the profs had been pretty good about quite a few peoples excessive drinking habits. Foreign country, legal drinking, cheap alcohol...etc. But they had said they were concerned that some people were going to far... well over the previously mentioned 2 drink limit. Anyhow that was the last straw so they closed the bar that night until the next night. Stupid that they had to do it because who needs a drink in the middle of the day? Anyhoo the response was very immature in my opinion... "Lets go get wasted now while we can", Lovely.
So the next morning there were quite a few hangovers but i was feeling pretty good. We got up early and headed out to the motorized canoes and went to Yasuni Natl park to a parrot lick. The parrots need to eat some of this special clay to cancel out toxins that are in the seeds they eat. So we saw hundreds and hundreds of parrots. Very cool.
After that we went to a cultural center that is run by the native community (about an hours hike away). There we met a shaman that really arent called shaman but something like yatuk (i think...). Anyhow he cleansed us which was kinda awesome and we got to see what a native house would look like and also got to shoot a real blow gun. Theyre kinda gigantic, matteo got a picture of me doing it but its huge. I actually did pretty well, i hit the post the target was on.
After that we headed back to Sacha for lunch and then went canoeing to go fishing for pirana. I caught one!!! he was definitely bigger than he looks in the picture but still pretty small. But definitely a pirana. His teeth were impressive. Sadly i did not get a picture of that but i do have one of Lauras pirana so its all good.
Then we went back to our rooms to change for the canopy walk and i saw trees moving again. This time it was pygmy marmosets, the smallest primate in the world. They were adorable. I told some guides and a large group of people were able to make it out to see them. (we cut them off in the direction they were going basically) Then we went to the butterfly farm. Each one is worth a lot of money and they raise them at Sacha to cut down on people harvesting them from the wild. Sacha is very pro-conservation. Its part of the reason Sacha is so expensive, some of the money goes to buying up more land and to other conservation practices. Anyhow after that we went up on the canopy walk... a little scary and very high. but awesome. And we saw a storm coming in, which was cool until the torrential rain started. Luckily we got off the walk before it got too intense. And of course we had nice weather the whole time until that last night. But that was perfect because i would have been dissapointed if i hadn`t experienced the rain the is so characteristic of the Amazon.
That night we had a farewell bbq and I talked to sergio for a while and that was cool because previously he had been really quiet and just explained things in spanish, found cool stuff, and helped us fish. But he spoke some bad english and i spoke some worse spanish and matt was a little better with spanish so overall it was pretty cool. I`m glad because we all talked to Julio a lot because he spoke english and i had kinda felt like Sergio got left out, and he had done so much for our group.
Anyhow the next morning we left and came back to Quito. No anacondas, no big caiman, but still...a trip well worth it. (One of the other groups did get to see a huge boa... from what im told the guides were really excited about it. it was a rare find. Jackie (zoo) got a good picture of it)
So that was super long. Anyhow I`ve got to go now because we are going to the equator line. or rather the pseudo equator line. The Incas put a monument up about 100 yards off the actual line based on the sun and the moon. Pretty impressive. I side with the Inca any day, so I`ll have one foot in each hemisphere very shortly.