Ecuador (part 2)
(click here for pt. 1)
From Bellavista it was back through Quito to the east and the Napo region, where we would stop off at Guango and San Isidro lodges. Guango was again more bare-bones and suited to day-trippers but had fantastic meals and a great hummingbird gazebo.
One of our most inspired detours was near Guango at the Papallacta Hot Springs, which were mostly swimming pools of hot mineral water. They even had a small pool of icy river water that I submerged myself into.
San Isidro was a sprawling complex overlooking mountains, and actually had a few tourists other than us there. They were all Japanese and there solely to see toucans. When they saw the toucan pictures I had already taken, they reacted as if I was showing them a winning lottery ticket then announcing I was splitting it with them. If everyone could regard my photos like toucan-hunting Japanese tourists, I don’t think I would need the validation of Instagram.
I don’t know if I had a favorite hummingbird per say, but I took the most pictures by far of the Long-tailed Sylph, a cousin of the Violet-tailed one from the other region. They are stunning in person and the diminutive female has its own fun coloring as well.
San Isidro also had a number of good non-hummingbird sightings, including the first night when the “San Isidro owl” (a black-banded owl) showed up right outside the lodge where we were eating dinner.
Another popular lodge visitor was the enigmatic Green or Incan Jay, which felt infinitely more exotic than our Blue Jay.
It was only a matter of time before I returned to the hummingbirds. We ventured out to a group of feeders about 30 minutes away with a few different species, and I got probably some of the best shots of the trip.
After all this time in the cool highlands among the hummingbirds, it was time to descend into the Amazon basin and head up the Napo River. After three hours in a boat, a 15 minute walk and a 30 minute canoe ride, we were truly in the middle of nowhere and with a whole new set of birds at Sani Lodge.
The second day at Sani we took a canoe to a trail that lead us to “the tower,” a 202 step 8-ish story high observatory above the forest canopy, where the birds can’t hide.
After heat and constertation we managed to make it back to the highlands of Napo and to WildSumaco lodge, in the shadow of the Sumaco volcano.
From here it was off to the Cotopaxi volcano, where we were met with cold wind, clouds and a few birds.
Our flight out the next day didn’t leave until 11pm, so we decided to make a pit stop to the Yanacocha Reserve outside Quito, where we hiked to some hummingbird feeders amongst the cloud forest.
We were going to do some sightseeing in the afternoon in Quito before heading to the airport, but as we were driving back down from Yanacocha a menacing stormcloud approached the city. Once we got back to the Old Town, it started raining then hailing — not exactly prime strolling weather. So we sat in traffic for a while before finally calling it a day and heading to the airport (which was very nice). Despite our lack of luck here, the weather was fairly agreeable other than one rainy afternoon when we arrived at WildSumaco. We also didn’t realize how lucky we were until just a few weeks later when gas subsidies were removed and plunged the country into chaos, with mass protests, road closures and even flight cancellations. We very easily could have been stuck in a remote outpost for a considerable amount of time. Though, then my species count would have been even more ridiculous.
Our itinerary was pretty unique — we skipped major tourist hotspots like the Galapagos, Guayaquil and others in favor of a mostly-birding route that we crafted on our own. The addition of Banos was a fun one suggested by our driver Ricardo, and despite staying in a fairly centralized region around Quito we saw a variety of scenery, birds and people. Our itinerary was usually: wake up a little after 5, be out birding by dawn before 6, have breakfast around 8, go on another bird walk before lunch, then either travel to the next location or relax in the afternoon.
How was the trip? It was exhausting, awesome, cold, hot, beautiful, car-sick inducing, soup-filled and Spanish-accented. But mostly, it was birdy. There were lots and lots of birds.
